As the new month is ushered in, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will once again prepare to begin sending out the Social Security benefit checks for the month. The traditional Social Security benefit checks are sent out on every second, third, and fourth Wednesday of the month, whilst the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit checks are sent out on the first of the month.
Starting in July, however, some beneficiaries may be in for a shock if they had previously received a notice of overpayment from the SSA in April. Here is what you need to know.
Social Security begins clawbacks on overayments
As any beneficiary would know, Social Security benefit payments roll out on Wednesdays throughout the month in relation to the recipient’s date of birth. For July, the benefit payment schedule is as follows:
- Wednesday, July 9th – for beneficiaries with birth dates from the 1st to the 10th of the month
- Wednesday, July 16th – for beneficiaries with birth dates from the 11th to the 20th of the month
- Wednesday, July 23rd – for beneficiaries with birth dates from the 21st to the 31st of the month
Some of these beneficiaries may notice that half of their benefit is missing this month, however. This is due to the SSA taking action to retrieve all overpaid funds. In 2022, the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration found that, “73,000 overpayments happened because of errors made by the SSA itself, not because the people receiving the benefits did anything wrong.”
Under the previous Biden Administration, the withholding rate for overpayment balances was capped at 10% so as to prevent causing financial burdens to vulnerable beneficiaries such as seniors or disabled individuals. Under the current administration, however, the withholding rate was brought up to 100% of the benefit and this had been announced in March.
Around 72 million Americans rely on their monthly Social Security benefit checks to get by and potentially losing an entire source of income like this would surely cause significant financial hardship to these households. Subsequently, an emergency meeting was held at the SSA in April and the withholding rate was then dropped to 50% of the monthly benefit.
“From Fiscal Years 2015 through 2022, SSA estimates it made nearly $72 billion in improper payments, most of which were overpayments. While this is less than 1 percent of the total benefits paid during that period, at the end of FY 2023, SSA had an uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion,” according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General of the SSA.
Who will lose half of their benefit in July?
According to the SSA, on April 25th, 2025, notices of overpayment had been sent out to beneficiaries who were found to have been overpaid. Upon receiving this notice of overpayment, the beneficiary had a 90 day window to take any sort of action before 50% of their benefits going forward would be withheld.
If the beneficiary who received a notice of overpayment believes that they had not been overpaid, or that losing half of their benefit would cause significant financial hardship, the beneficiary may apply for a waiver of repayment which can be found on the SSA website. Alternatively, the beneficiary could request a lower rate of withholding. Both of this requests will have had to be filed within 90 days of receiving the overpayment notice.
If the beneficiary failed to submit the request within this period and had taken no other action after receiving the overpayment notice from the SSA, their July benefit could potentially be subject to the withholding rate of 50%, meaning they will only receive half of the amount that they usually do until their overpayment balance is cleared. This is because the 90 day period that begin at the end of April will reach a close towards the end of July.