The rate is a default, not a verdict: three separate forms exist, and each one asks the agency for a different thing.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) withholds 50% of a monthly Social Security benefit to recover an overpayment, the rate the agency settled on after briefly moving to 100% in March 2025. For Supplemental Security Income (SSI) the default has never changed and remains 10% of the monthly payment. Which rate applies, and whether the money is collected at all, turns on three forms: SSA-561, SSA-632 and SSA-634.
What the 50% rate means in practice
An overpayment happens when SSA pays more than a beneficiary was entitled to receive. When the agency identifies one, it sends a notice and then recovers the money out of future benefits. The 2025 change, announced in an SSA press release on March 7, 2025, first raised the Title II default to full withholding before the agency settled at half the monthly benefit.
As an illustration of the scale involved, half of the average retired-worker benefit of $2,085.98 in July 2026 would be roughly $1,043 a month, while 10% of the $994 SSI federal benefit rate is about $99. Those are calculations from the published averages and rates, not figures for any individual case, but they show why the difference between the two defaults matters so much.
SSA-561: appealing that the overpayment happened
Form SSA-561, Request for Reconsideration, is the form to use when the disagreement is with the facts. It argues that there was no overpayment, or that the amount SSA has calculated is wrong.
That is to say, SSA-561 disputes the debt itself. It does not ask for forgiveness of a debt that exists; it asks the agency to look again at whether the debt exists and, if so, how large it really is.
SSA-632: asking for the debt to be waived
Form SSA-632, Request for Waiver of Overpayment Recovery, accepts that the overpayment occurred and asks SSA not to collect it. It is the route for a beneficiary who was not at fault and for whom repayment would cause hardship.
By contrast with the reconsideration form, a waiver request is about consequences rather than arithmetic. It requires a detailed account of income, expenses and assets, because the agency is being asked to weigh whether recovery is affordable.
SSA-634: lowering the rate of withholding
Form SSA-634, Request for Change in Overpayment Recovery Rate, does not challenge the debt or ask for it to be cancelled. It asks SSA to take a smaller slice each month, stretching repayment over a longer period.
This is the form for someone who accepts the overpayment and expects to repay it, but cannot survive losing half a monthly check. Likewise, it is the option that keeps a payment stream intact while the debt is cleared gradually.
What to do with a notice
The three forms are not alternatives to be chosen at random. They answer three different questions: whether the money is owed, whether it should be collected, and how fast. A beneficiary who disputes the amount and also cannot afford the withholding may need more than one of them.
Even so, the single most important variable is time. An overpayment notice sets deadlines for appeal and for requesting a waiver, and withholding begins on the agency’s schedule unless something is filed. Anyone who receives one and does nothing is, in effect, consenting to the 50% default. Every form and the current rules are published on SSA’s own site, which is the only reliable place to confirm what a particular notice requires.