Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Social Security Administration (SSA) recovers overpayments of benefits. GAO found that: (1) SSA is precluded from upwardly adjusting the amount it withholds from a recipient's income or benefit to repay overpayments at the time of cost of living increases because it collects supplemental security income (SSI), retirement and survivors insurance (RSI), and disability insurance (DI) benefit overpayments based on a fixed amount; (2) allowing SSA to increase the monthly withholding amount at the time of a cost of living adjustment could accelerate the recovery of overpayments without imposing an undue burden on recipients or incurring excessive administrative costs; (3) accelerating recoveries while recipients are still receiving benefits improves the chance of collecting overpayments; (4) SSA administrative costs would likely increase only in the first year of implementation; and (5) the cost of notifying recipients of the new withholding procedures would be negligible, since SSA already notifies recipients when overpayments occur.
