May 30, 2007

OIG Report On SDW

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on Phase 6 of Social Security's Special Disability Workload (SDW).

So what is the SDW? SDW concerns 466,000 SSI recipients who appeared to be insured for Title II benefits, but who were not getting those benefits, basically as a result of the agency's failure to take all appropriate claims. As a result, more appropriated funds were spent on SSI benefits and those people, most of them disabled, did not receive all the benefits they were due. Many were underpaid by huge sums of money.

The SSI recipients entitled to SDW review were identified through computer searches of Social Security's databases. Social Security started working through those 466,000 cases in 1999 and is still not finished. This report has only to do with some of those scheduled for SDW review who could be properly excluded from review by a more advanced database search, but the report gives a good background on SDW. The public has paid little attention to SDW, but it has been and remains a very big deal for the Social Security Administration and for the affected claimants.

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