Time’s up for roughly 2 million Americans on the cusp of having their Social Security payments slashed in half.
And it has nothing to do with the looming shortfall in Social Security’s reserves. That’s still eight years down the road.
The reduced benefit payments starting this month are how the Social Security Administration (SSA) is attempting to recoup money it overpaid to some Americans. Social Security will withhold 50% of a beneficiary’s monthly check until the sum of their overpayments is reclaimed.
The SSA issues nearly $1.4 trillion a year to some 73 million Social Security and SSI recipients. An overpayment can occur when a beneficiary doesn’t update a change in income, for example, or when the SSA incorrectly calculates a person’s benefits.
The agency is required by law to try to claw back or reclaim money when overpayments occur.
“Overpayments should be recouped, but we remain concerned about the impact of any recovery rate on the less financially stable retirees,” Shannon Benton, executive director of the Senior Citizens League, told Yahoo Finance.
During the Biden administration, the default withholding rate was dropped to 10% of a beneficiary’s monthly benefit from 100%, dramatically reducing financial hardship on those with overpayments.
In March, however, the Trump administration announced that the agency would again withhold 100% of an individual’s Social Security check until all overpaid funds were paid back. After pushback from advocates and seniors, in April, the rate was reduced to 50%, and the agency said it would begin retrieving incorrect payments made between 2015 and 2022, starting in July.
It’s still a serious problem for many seniors. “For some retirees, it won’t matter if it’s 1% or 100%,” Benton said. “Any amount of clawback could be catastrophic.”
Improper payments accounted for less than 1% of the total benefits paid during that period, but at the end of fiscal year 2023, SSA had an uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion, according to an August 2024 inspector general’s report. The SSA estimates it made nearly $72 billion in improper payments, most of which were overpayments, from 2015 through 2022.
Read more: When will I get my Social Security check? Payment schedule for 2025.
The withholding is expected to begin with Social Security payments made around July 24. The withholding rate for Supplemental Security Income benefits remains 10%.
Those who fall under this clawback should have received notification. Recipients who received a notice have 90 days to appeal.
