Disability Information & Resources

video management, video solution, video streaming Claimant Received Social Security Benefits After Going Back To Work

From Action 9 News in Charlotte, North Carolina comes a story of Tommy Thompson, a disabled man who was billed by the Social Security Administration for overpayments that he received after taking a teaching job while on Social Security disability benefits.  At face value, it may sound like a legitimate case of the government simply trying to recoup money that was fraudulently obtained by someone claiming to be disabled but was secretly working on the side.  Not so.

The benefits recipient, it appears, had taken steps to notify the SSA that he had started working.  Later, when the payments continued, he again notified the feds, requesting that the checks be canceled.  So, by all appearances, it certainly seemed as though this claimant was acting in good faith, doing all that he reasonably could to obey the rules.

It is indeed confusing then, to learn than not only did the SSA not stop sending the payments, but instead sent a bill for the overpayments, as though it was all his fault.  Ultimately, the problem was sorted out and he didn’t have to pay the money.  The Social Security Administration admitted that since the overpayments were not his fault, then he didn’t have to pay back the money.

Lessons Learned And Other Questions

Looking into the facts of this story bring several things to mind. First, there is a long-held standard in insurance cases that, whenever a claimant receives money “in good faith” (meaning that the claimant did not take illegal, unethical, or improper steps to acquire the money) that the claimant is not responsible for repayment in the event that he or she receives more than the claimant would ordinarily be entitled to receive.  Since the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is indeed a government sponsored insurance program, this legal theory should hold in all jurisdictions.

Next, it certainly makes one wonder at what level the administration’s process broke down, and who should be held responsible for this mistake.  While this particular case of overpayment was relatively small compared to other fiscal snafus that occur daily in government programs, this case still represents a clear mishandling of government funds at the cost of the taxpayers.  Additionally, after calculating the additional time, energy and money that the government used to fix the problem  it’s certain that the total amount of the taxpayers’ loss surely must have been significantly higher.

How often does this occur? How many Social Security Disability claimants are innocently overpaid, and then, after receiving notice of the overpayment, simply refund the money, believing that the government would never ask them to pay money that they don’t actually owe?  There is an old addage that states for every person who righteously complain, there are 10 others who go quietly by.  Businesses understand this concept, and I’m certain that our governmental administrators understand it as well.

Now there may be some who would argue that the right thing to do would have been to return the money, in spite of his legal right to keep it.  However, I disagree.  This claimant is clearly a model for others who depend on the government programs which we gladly support.  All his actions were in good faith, and he proved himself a good steward of public funds by doing his reasonable best at ensuring that the taxpayers’ money wasn’t wasted.  Perhaps he knew that as long as he continued to receive the funds, he would eventually be allowed to keep it, yet to his credit, he kept up the pressure until the error was fixed.  Surely, the $700 that he received is a paltry comparison to the potential thousands of dollars that would have been charged for an external auditor to discover the error at a later date.   We should all be as civic minded, dilligent, and responsible as he.