From WSB in Atlanta:
Denise Woods drives around Georgia strip malls, truck stops, and parking lots, looking for a safe place to sleep each night.
“It’s scary. You just don’t know what each day is going to bring,” Woods said.
Everything she owns is jammed into the back seat of her car.
According to a letter sent by the Social Security Administration, the agency is demanding back nearly $58,000 after determining it was overpaying her.
Because of her disability, Lupus, and congestive heart failure, she can only work part-time and makes just $14 per hour.
So, the agency is withholding her entire monthly check - about $2,000 per month until February 2026.
“I still don’t know how it happened,” said Woods, who has requested a waiver and is seeking a hearing. “No one will give me answers. It takes weeks or months to get a caseworker on the phone. They have made my life unbearable.” ...
You can say that she really needs to work out a repayment schedule but she can't get anyone on the phone. Also, and more important, she doesn't know to ask. Yes, she gets notices but most claimants understand very little contained in any notice they receive from Social Security.
8 comments:
She needs to fill out an SSA-634. If she wants to do a verbal agreement, it has to be paid back within 36 months. $58,000/36 months= $1,611/month which isn't going to happen for her.
If she doesn't "know how to ask" or can't understand letters sent to her, maybe she needs a payee. It would be interesting to understand why she was overpaid in the first place. High likelihood she worked over SGA and didn't report her wages timely.
In addition to law and policy changes, a WIPA would be so helpful to her. And there isn't enough funding for them and people don't know enough about them.
I would like to know myself how she got overpaid that much. Wages reported to the IRS are submitted to SSA. It seems that she would have had to work awhile to get much of an overpayment, especially since a disabled social security recipient has a 9 month trial work period. After 9 months of SGA, benefits are supposed to be terminated.
I have seen two instances of overpayments where a disability recipient files self employment income to get an earned income payment. They are at fault and that's a hard one to defend, but I've also seen shady tax preparers whoop up tax returns for everyone to get paid something. Eventually, the tax preparer will be charged with fraud.
It usually does not take weeks or months to get someone on the phone, but it may take awhile to get a decision. Reaching someone at SSA is doable.
@10:31 - It's often difficult for reps offices who have multiple numbers to get someone on the phone. We deal with on local office that it is impossible to get anyone on the phone. There number is always forwarded to the national number and those folks usually can't help with something needed on specific cases. We have to resort to contacting the regional office when we really need something from them. If it is that hard for us, imagine how hard it can be for a homeless person who doesn't know what we know.
I believe Atlanta has SSA field offices. When she isn't working, maybe she could go in to try to get a favorable repayment plan. A problem may be that she is still over SGA in which case the overpayment wouldn't even matter as far as getting her paid
Odds are she was working over SGA, perhaps $1700 a month, while collecting $2000 a month from disability. That income allowed her to rent a place but now she can't afford the rent. She needs a long repayment plan and to get below SGA so she can get some money from SSA.
After the TWP, they have three years of EPE in which they can get paid for any month in which earnings dip below SGA. People sometimes mistakenly believe that this is net income so they allow their gross to be above SGA. Then there was the guy who thought he was supposed to get the 9 month TWP every year
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
For every homeless due to overpayment, I will give you thousands housed because they get a check every month.
Post a Comment