O'Malley outlined four steps his agency is taking to address the problem.

"Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100% of an overpaid beneficiary's monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10% of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income program."
"We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment."
"For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months)."
"And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay."

Related: Social Security Chief vows to fix the agency's 'cruel-hearted' overpayment clawbacks

Testifying before the Senate committee March 20, O'Malley said the reforms would end the "clawback cruelty" of demanding that beneficiaries immediately repay excess benefits the agency says they received, in some cases decades ago and often through no fault of their own.

Instant Insights /

Social Security ends its 'clawback cruelty' when collecting overpayments, says chief

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