Social Security chief: The chief of the Social Security Administration apologized to members of Congress in a letter dated earlier this month for testimony in which she underestimated the magnitude of the agency’s overpayments to beneficiaries.
Acting commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi wrote in a letter dated December 11: “I apologize for any confusion or misunderstanding that may have occurred during the October hearing.”
Days after KFF Health News and Cox Media Group reported that the agency has been demanding money back from over 2 million individuals annually—more than twice as many as Kijakazi disclosed to a House commission on October 18—Kijakazi dispatched the letter.
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The report was derived from a Social Security document that the news organizations obtained via a Freedom of Information Act records request.
“In an attempt to address the Committee’s inquiries regarding the figures of overpayments, I offered an initial, unreviewed, and incomplete response,” Kijakazi explained in her letter of contrition.
“Both I and the SSA strive to furnish Congress with the most comprehensive, precise, and timely information feasible,” Kijakazi stated. “We learned from this mistake and will apply it to future efforts to enhance our correspondence with Congress.”
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., stated in an interview before the issuance of her apology that Kijakazi “wasn’t being entirely forthright” during the hearing and that he questioned whether the agency “intentionally deflated the numbers.”
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, stated in an interview on December 12 that the agency had harmed its credibility by “not telling the truth.”
The House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security held a hearing to discuss the agency’s history of making billion-dollar benefit payments only to later find that they were never necessary. In certain instances, the agency has demanded repayment from the recipients years later.
The unforeseen financial obligations, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars or more, may cause the recipients severe devastation. Numerous disabled individuals are forced to subsist on meager incomes.
The agency failed to disclose the number of affected individuals before the hearing, which hampered policymakers’ ability to evaluate the problem’s severity and determine an appropriate course of action.
Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, inquired at the hearing as to the annual count of individuals who receive overpayment notices.
Kijakazi provided two precise figures from a sheet of paper: 1,028,389 for the fiscal year 2022 and 986,912 for the fiscal year 2023.
As the inquiry continued, she recited the numerical values.
Additionally, she stated that they were “for Social Security” and “under Social Security.”
Following the hearing, KFF Health News and Cox Media Group dispatched multiple emails to the Social Security press office over several weeks, requesting clarification on whether the numbers Kijakazi presented at the hearing were representative of all Social Security Administration programs or merely a subset.
A spokesperson for the SSA, Nicole Tiggemann, refrained from providing a definitive response.
The news organizations submitted the FOIA request for a copy of the document from which Kijakazi read the numbers at the hearing.
The document demonstrated that Kijakazi withheld information from House members.
She repeatedly read numbers for two benefit programs but left out numbers for a third one run by her organization under the Social Security Act. The omitted numbers were greater in magnitude than the disclosed numbers, and they appeared directly beneath the disclosed numbers on the sheet of paper.
She excluded over one million individuals annually.
It was over seven weeks before she was able to transmit the contrition to Congress.
“We ought to have provided further context after the hearing,” she wrote in her letter. “The obligation that every federal official furnish the Congress with precise information is taken extremely seriously, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting in touch with you to further elaborate.”
KFF Health News and Cox Media Group were able to obtain a copy of the letter. I addressed one copy to the chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, Representative Drew Ferguson, R-GA. A Democratic member of the committee received the other copy.
When queried about the recipients of the letter among members of Congress, Tiggemann responded via email, “The correspondence was between committee members and Acting Commissioner Kijakazi.”
An interview request was not received in response from Tiggemann regarding Kijakazi.
Kijakazi essentially disavowed the data she provided to the committee in her letter. She stated that the agency is striving to acquire “the appropriate data to effectuate significant enhancements.”
We will disclose this information to the Committee and the general public once we have thoroughly scrutinized it.
The responsibility of addressing overpayment issues and communicating with Congress regarding them will shortly pass to another individual.
On December 18, the Senate confirmed former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley as commissioner of Social Security by a vote of 50 to 11.
O’Malley stated in November, during his confirmation hearing, that he would “absolutely prioritize” reorganizing the appeals process for individuals requested to repay money and minimizing overpayments.
O’Malley stated, “Some of these accounts of individuals who are subject to government collection efforts “without their consent” and “without regard” for their circumstances have been heartbreaking to read.”
Former presidential candidate O’Malley stated at the hearing, “We must acknowledge the justice that is at stake in each of these specific cases more effectively.”
O’Malley stated that he would emphasize data disclosure, metric measurement, and customer service improvement.
Instead of advising people to hoard information,” he said, “we should share information openly and transparently.
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