Rep. Sykes Urges Social Security Administration to Reverse Overpayment Claw Back Policy
SSA recently decided to increase the withholding rate of overpayments to 100 percent of a recipient's paychecks
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Emilia Sykes (OH-13) sent a letter to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek urging him to immediately reverse the Administration’s decision to increase the withholding rate of overpayments to 100 percent of a recipient's paycheck and return the overpayment withholding rate to 10 percent of a recipient’s hard-earned benefits.
On March 7, 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced it would increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security beneficiaries to 100 percent of a person’s monthly benefit. As of March 27, the agency began mailing notices about the new 100 percent withholding rate, up from a 10 percent withholding rate. The withholding rate change applies to new overpayments related to Social Security benefits.
“There are more than 175,000 Social Security recipients in my district. If any one of these recipients on a fixed income were to lose their only source of income, due to an error made by the government, through no fault of their own, the situation could literally be life or death. The Social Security Administration must immediately change this policy,” said Rep. Sykes.
The 13th Congressional District includes 175,025 Social Security recipients, including 129,266 retirees, 20,542 disabled workers, 11,536 widows, 9,785 children, and 4,896 spouses of Social Security beneficiaries who receive a total of $308 million in monthly benefits.
SSA contacts over one million Americans annually to recoup funds disbursed in error to beneficiaries. Although these overpayments can take months or years to be recognized by SSA, once an overpayment is noticed, the adverse impact to Social Security beneficiaries is nearly instantaneous: elderly and disabled Americans who rely on Social Security and are living on fixed incomes have had their benefits frozen or cut because of overpayment mistakes. Additionally, SSA has failed to provide adequate figures to Congress about the total number of people being impacted by this issue.
Last year, Rep. Sykes introduced the Protecting Americans from Social Security Claw Back Act, bipartisan legislation that would prevent SSA from collecting a mistaken overpayment if the payment occurred more than three years before the SSA notified the beneficiary.
The full letter can be found here.