At Social Security, our goal is to make sure you are paid the correct amount, on time, every month. Some things have made that job easier over our more than 70 years of paying benefits, such as direct deposit and electronic application systems. But some of the factors that determine your payment amount still depend on good old fashioned human intervention. And in some cases, getting the correct payment amount depends on you. You certainly don’t want to be paid less than you’re entitled to receive. But what can be even more difficult, in the long run, is to be overpaid — in which case you’ll probably have to pay us back, cutting your payment down each month until the debt is repaid.

What can cause an overpayment?