Social Security Administration

With his term soon to expire, Social Security chief Martin O’Malley’s efforts to address the agency’s overpayments to beneficiaries remain incomplete.

Commissioner Martin O’Malley testifies to two Senate panels that his agency will stop the “injustices” of suspending people’s monthly benefits to recover alleged overpayments.

Commissioner Martin O’Malley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is “cruel-hearted and mindless.”

In Wildwood, a man's retirement payments were garnished so he now lives in a tent in the woods. A woman who lost her disability lives in her Chevy. How Social Security's overpayment scandal is hitting some of the nation’s most vulnerable.

Kilolo Kijakazi sent the letter days after KFF Health News and Cox Media Group reported the agency has been demanding money back from more than twice as many people as she’d disclosed in October.

Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, vowed to meet monthly with Social Security officials until the problems surrounding overpayment demands are fixed.

More than 2 million people a year have been sent notices that Social Security overpaid them and demanding they repay the money. That’s twice as many as the head of Social Security disclosed at a hearing in October.

Lawmakers are asking what Social Security will do about its demands on their constituents to repay money distributed — and sometimes in error. Florida Sen. Rick Scott called the actions “unacceptable.”

Social Security has been overpaying recipients for years, then demanding the money back, leaving people with bills for up to tens of thousands of dollars or more.

At a Senate confirmation hearing, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said he would address hardships the Social Security agency has caused by demanding money back from beneficiaries.