An Iowa Congressman provides insight on a piece of legislation that was implemented to assist senior citizens.

U.S. Representative Zach Nunn recently introduced the Social Security Overpayment Relief Act as a way to limit the recovery to people that were overpaid due to errors on the part of the Social Security Administration. He explains that seniors are constantly asked to return thousands of dollars to the government, when that money is normally spent on groceries, housing, and medicine. 

Nunn tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the legislation would prevent the SSA from tracking down overpayments that are over 10 years old unless there’s fraudulent activity associated with it. He emphasizes that the SSA’s responsibility is to aid individuals who are in need, and Nunn doesn’t want to see people treated unfairly.

“Iowans (and) Americans have paid into this. They’ve earned these benefits, they deserve to keep them. And the challenge is when we have seen repeatedly after decades worth of bad management at the SSA, we should not go out there and claw back resources from individuals.”

Nunn also shares that he wants to eliminate the fraud, waste and abuse that’s happening, where people are tricking senior citizens in order to give them money, but then will keep it for themselves. He indicates that his office is working to address these issues with the SSA to help give senior citizens the benefits they deserve.