The Social Security Administration will begin recouping 100% of overpayments to beneficiaries starting later this month, the agency said Friday.

The agency is reversing a March 2024 move to withhold only 10% of a recipient’s benefits in the event of an overpayment in order to reduce “financial hardship on people with overpayments,” according to a memo from the agency at the time. 

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Until the overpayment is made up, recipients of Social Security who have been overpaid will have all their funds withheld. This will begin March 27.

Lee Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, in the notice posted on the agency website, said the agency is required to make up these payments.

“We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people,” he said. “It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds.”

According to the Office of the Chief Actuary, the change is expected to yield $7 billion in overpayment recoveries over the next decade.

The agency is additionally planning to reduce its workforce by more than 12%, cutting 7,000 employees in the coming weeks. This comes as President Donald Trump and his administration’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have laid off thousands of federal employees in efforts to cut federal spending. Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have claimed widespread fraud in the agency, with millions of people over 100 claiming benefits.

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These allegations are contradicted by a recent report from the nonpartisan inspector general for the Social Security Administration, which found there are 18.9 million people 100 years old or above who do not have death information, like a death certificate, in the agency’s records. None of those people were receiving benefits.

According to a 2024 report from the Social Security inspector general, less than 1% of payments are improper and most that are improper are overpayments.