Some people who received Social Security child’s benefits are still listed as owing overpayments they no longer owe, and the agency’s own watchdog has put a number on how many. The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General estimates that at least 6,980 individuals have such debts sitting unresolved, worth about $38.5 million in total. A second group, drawn from people already flagged for a federal tax refund offset, is far larger.
Inside the kit: The Social Security Check Protection Kit contains the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection (SSA-561, SSA-632, SSA-634) and a first-24-hours plan for a payment that never arrives.
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The 6,980 estimate and the 349 records behind it
Those findings landed September 30 in audit report 052502, “Overpayments to Children.” For a household that received a collection notice tied to a childhood benefit, the audit is a reminder that a balance on SSA’s books is not proof that the balance is correct.
The audit’s stated objective was to determine whether SSA resolved overpayments in accordance with policy for individuals who received child benefits. Auditors first examined 349 people whose child benefits had been suspended or terminated between March 2018 and September 2025 while they were still recorded as contingently liable for overpayments totaling $1,927,342. Those debts remained on the records after the individuals “no longer met the requirements for contingent liability,” in the report’s wording.
From that sample the inspector general projected the result across the full population: “approximately $38.5 million in overpayments” not resolved under policy for “at least 6,980 individuals.” The phrase “at least” matters. It is an estimate with a floor, and the audit itself is the only place the figure appears. The report is signed by Michelle L. Anderson, Assistant Inspector General for Audit as First Assistant, and addressed to Commissioner Frank Bisignano.
A second group: 76,904 people selected for refund offset
The audit also tested people whose overpayments had already been selected for tax refund offset, a process the report describes as reducing or withholding an individual’s federal income tax refund to repay an overpayment. Auditors sampled 175 people out of a population of 249,227. Of those, 121 (69 percent) were handled properly and 54 (31 percent) were not, leaving $227,012 in unresolved overpayments in the sample alone.
Projected across the population, the report estimates SSA did not resolve about $242.6 million in overpayments in accordance with policy for 76,904 individuals. The mechanism matters to a household: according to the report, an SSA system selects qualifying people and sends notice, and if there is no response within 60 days, the case is referred to the Treasury unless the notice came back undeliverable.
Why the records went wrong and what SSA agreed to do
The inspector general’s main cause was structural. SSA, the audit says, “did not have a process in place to make employees aware of all records that required action,” including when a contingently liable person’s own benefits stopped or when an overpaid person began receiving Supplemental Security Income. The auditors added that they could not determine why employees did not act on alerts they did receive.
Five recommendations followed. SSA is to resolve the overpayments for the 403 individuals the audit identified, review an estimated 6,600 more who no longer met the contingent-liability requirements, and build controls so employees are told to remove such overpayments from records. It is also to add alerts that start benefit withholding from SSI and retirement, survivors and disability benefits, and to find out why records were not updated correctly. SSA agreed to implement the recommendations. The audit sets no dates for the review of the remaining 6,600 or for the new alerts, so how quickly a particular household’s record is corrected is not something the report answers. The report does not tell any individual whether a particular balance is among the estimated 6,980.
A waiver and an appeal run on different forms and different clocks
Anyone holding an overpayment notice faces two separate requests, not one. SSA’s publication on overpayments and the appeal and waiver options says an appeal, called a reconsideration, goes on form SSA-561 when the recipient disputes that an overpayment occurred or disputes its amount, and it must be filed within 60 days of receiving the original notice. A waiver, on form SSA-632, asks SSA to excuse repayment: the recipient must show the overpayment was not their fault and that repaying would cause hardship or be unfair. The same publication says a waiver has no fixed time limit if the criteria are met. The publication also says that filing either request stops collection until SSA decides.
The waiver form then asks a household to assemble its own financial picture. Form SSA-632-BK has a financial statement that runs through income (take-home pay, Social Security, SSI, pensions, child support and other sources), expenses (housing, food, utilities, medical costs, loan and credit card payments and more) and assets (cash, checking and savings, retirement accounts, vehicles, real estate). The publication adds that SSA may ask for proof of income and expenses. None of that comes from the notice; the household has to produce it.
The free official route is the one in the publication and on the forms themselves: SSA’s own pages explain both options, and the forms are downloadable from ssa.gov at no cost.
Matching a child-benefit notice to the right SSA form
A child-benefit overpayment notice raises a choice between disputing the debt on SSA-561 and asking for forgiveness on SSA-632, and the 60-day Treasury referral described in audit 052502 runs alongside both. The unfinished job is lining up the notice date, the response dates and the household’s own monthly figures before anything is sent.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit pairs an overpayment response worksheet with the 2026 payment calendar, so the dates on a notice can be set beside the deposit schedule.
Click here to get The Social Security Check Protection Kit →
This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the figures were checked against SSA OIG audit 052502 and the SSA publication and form cited.
