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Same-sex couples sue social security over benefits snafu

Same-sex couples sue social security over benefits snafu by Trudy Ring, The Advocate (3/10/15).

The SSA overpaid some benefit recipients because it didn’t recognize their marriages, and now it wants the money back — but recipients say they shouldn’t pay for the agency’s mistake.

The Social Security Administration overpaid some supplemental security income recipients because it didn’t recognize their same-sex marriages when it legally should have — and now it wants the money back, but recipients say they shouldn’t be held responsible for the agency’s error.

Civil rights groups and private attorneys today filed a class action lawsuit against the SSA on behalf of SSI recipients who married someone of the same sex in or before June 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which kept the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. But the Social Security Administration “has only recently begun to treat married couples of the same sex as married for purposes of calculating their SSI benefits and eligibility,” says the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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