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Paul Aguilar, an AIDS activist in San Francisco, has received a letter from the Social Security Administration demanding that he repay about $200,000 in disability benefits he has received.
Aguilar, 61, who is gay, started receiving Social Security disability benefits in 2005, after he was diagnosed with AIDS, he told The Bay Area Reporter.Since 2022, he has been the long-term survivor community liaison for aging services for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
“I have worked over the years but faithfully reported my earnings as I was instructed, including being part of California’s ‘working disabled program,’” he said to the Reporter.
Under the California Working Disabled Program, people who meet the federal definition of disability —an AIDS diagnosis qualifies as a disability — and whose net income is 250 percent of the federal poverty level can receive health coverage through Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid.
The letter from the Social Security Administration was dated March 19 and said the payments should have stopped in 2013. It said he had been overpaid by two different amounts — $201,729.10 and $182,177.20 — from January 2014 through February of this year. Aguilar said he didn’t know the reason for the discrepancy. The letter demanded repayment within 30 days but offered an option of partial payment and asked for a reason he couldn’t pay the full amount.
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Aguilar averaged $2,200 a month in income last year, he said. The Social Security Administration says disability benefits may cease for a person making $1,550 a month or more. But at times during the period covered by the letter, Aguilar wasn’t working, he said. He didn’t know why the administration chose the dates it did.
“I simply find it hard to believe that they could overlook an overpayment for 13 years,” he told the Reporter. He received no check from Social Security this month, and that creates a hardship, as his monthly rent is $1,200.
He has contacted LGBTQ+ legal organizations, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff for help. He plans to retain a lawyer. The Social Security Administration left him a voice mail saying its staff had heard from his congressional district office. Aguilar said he won't talk to anyone at Social Security until he has an attorney.
Ming Wong, director of community justice and access at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the groups he contacted, told the Reporter, “NCLR generally does not share who contacts us for assistance or comment on the merits of individual cases we are not directly involved with.”
“However, cases of alleged Social Security overpayment typically involve individuals who are living on a limited income, who are often elderly and/or people with disabilities, and highlight the importance having protections in place for those alleged to have received overpayments, including the availability of waivers, reasonable payment plans, and rights to challenge determinations of overpayment, so as not to create additional economic hardship for them,” Wong added.
There has been deep concern over the access to Social Security information by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, which is planning to move the Social Security database to a different programming language, potentially compromising the system, Wired reports.
The Social Security Administration didn't respond to the Reporter's request for comment about Aguilar's case.
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