Social Security has issued Emergency Message (EM) 16013 to give its staff instructions on overpayment issues resulting from legal acceptance of same sex marriage. Some readers are now thinking "Wait, what? I thought legal acceptance of same sex marriage would result in more money being paid." Overall, yes, somewhat more money will be paid. That's almost always the case for Title II benefits, those based upon someone's earnings record. (For sticklers, I said almost always. I know marriage could eliminate entitlement to widows benefits in some cases, for instance.) However, in Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is a needs-based benefit, marriage usually causes reduction or elimination of entitlement to benefits. There are two ways that same sex marriage can hurt SSI recipients. The first and less common way is if both partners to a same sex marriage are on SSI. The rate for a married couple where both are eligible for SSI is less than the total of what the two would receive if they were not married. The second and more common way that same sex marriage can reduce SSI benefits is that if you're married the income and resources of the person you're married to are attributed to you for purposes of computing your SSI benefit. If, for instance, a disabled person is living with and being supported by a healthy person who is working and has a good income, if they're not married, the disabled person will suffer, at worst, a one-third reduction in his or her SSI benefits for "living in the household of another" whereas if they're married, the disabled person will lose his or her SSI benefits altogether.
Now that I've explained the problem, what's Social Security going to do about the SSI overpayments resulting from legal acceptance of same sex marriage? Social Security will assume that the claimant is requesting waiver of the overpayment and will waive the overpayment. The claimant need not even file the form normally required to obtain consideration of waiver of an overpayment. The agency is saying it would be "against equity and good conscience" to try to collect these overpayments.
7 comments:
DAC beneficiaries in same-sex marriages will see overpayments as well.
Why would the Agency waive collection on these? Isn't an overpayment and overpayment? Very few people have the ability to pay back an overpayment...
I was almost prosecuted for overpayment fraud for using ticket to work as designed. I had to quit ticket to work to stay out of jail.
The above will get very bad before it gets better.
we will only waive those overpayments that were being held until new policy came out. Any overpayment from this point forward will be collected.
As an aside, if a same sex couple does come into the office and are NOT married, we are not allowed to ask the nature of their relationship. However if an opposite sex couple comes in, we are SUPPOSED to investigate a holding out relationship.
12:33, they're waiving overpayments for situations where people were in marriages that were recognized by (some) states but could not be recognized by the feds because of DOMA. For several years, you might be married and go to SSA and tell them you were married and they would say "no, we cannot consider you married. you are single in SSA's eyes." It would be pretty unfair for SSA to recognize the marriages retroactively.
Of course, now if you go in to the SSA office and they ask you if you're married you have to answer honestly and your benefits are affected going forward. And if you lie about being married to get more money, you'd be subject to lots of different types of penalties.
@1:32
The "holding out" thing should be eliminated. Either you are married or unmarried. It should be a matter of state law. This "holding out" thing is a trap for the poor and unwary.
Some CRs develop holding out, some don't. It's easier not to, and now that they have the double standard and prohibit us from developing holding out for opposite sex couples, I gave up and stopped asking the question. If the claimant disagrees and appeals to the ALJ level the judge will find in favor of the claimant anyway, so why bother. As 9:51 says, only the honest admit to holding out and as a result get less money. The savvy claimant who knows how to work the welfare system knows to deny.
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