Recent reports have highlighted a problem of the Social Security Administration’s own making: it overpaid supplemental security income (SSI) benefits to low-income beneficiaries by billions of dollars and now it is attempting to claw the money back.

During the 2022 fiscal year, the SSA took back $4.7 billion in overpayments and it now seeks another $21.6 billion. The problem is the discovery of overpayments can take years, and by the time the SSA sends notice of overpayments, the beneficiaries have long since spent the money, which can grow into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. SSI beneficiaries are low-income, elderly, blind or disabled people who are unable to sustain a reduction in benefits to pay back the overpaid amounts. The average monthly SSI benefit is about $600 and the maximum allowable benefit amount remains well below the federal poverty level.