Benefit Offset Demonstration To End

The Social Security Administration published a notice in the Federal Register today that the Benefit Offset Pilot Demonstration will end.

Here is a description of the pilot:

On August 1, 2005, we began a pilot demonstration testing the effects of applying a benefit offset as an alternative to the current rules for treating the work activity of a title II disability beneficiary who has completed a 9-month trial work period. Under the benefit offset in this demonstration project, we reduce disability benefits $1 for every $2 a beneficiary earns above the SGA threshold amount instead of stopping benefit payments.

The pilot program is ending because "the process we developed for administering the benefit offset under the BOPD [Benefit Offset Demonstration Pilot] proved to be inefficient and administratively burdensome," but Social Security says that " ... we are developing a system to provide an efficient method for administering a benefit offset provision under the national demonstration project."

A lot of people have had a lot of hope for this benefit offset demonstration. Maybe Social Security can still make it fly, but this notice cannot be a good sign. Of course, the real problem may be that the Social Security Act makes it so difficult to get on disability benefits that few disability benefits recipients have any real capacity to return to work no matter what incentives they are given.