The written testimony of Joyce Manchester, Chief of the Long-Term Analysis Unit of the Congressional Budget Office, and Stephen Goss, Social Security's Chief Actuary, at today's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee has been released.
The Subcommittee has also scheduled another hearing concerning Social Security's disability programs on March 20. The press release on this hearing quotes the Subcommittee Chairman as saying "Instead of relying on objective standards to reach decisions, examiners and judges on the front lines have increasingly had to make more judgment calls. Given the advances in medical treatment and rehabilitation, we need to fundamentally understand how agency policies may be influencing decisions and determine whether these policies still make sense for the times we live in."
Read as "so long GRID".
ReplyDelete@ 10:27...hopefully!
ReplyDeleteLet's toss the worthless GRID rules and also toss functional equivalency for children
ReplyDeleteThe grid rules are the only objective standard that there are! I don't know why you commenters (and I assume it's the same ones each time) hate the grid rules so much. yeah, I've read your take on it. But you keep saying that there's no reason a 50 year old cannot do sedentary work - remember, it's a 50 year old WITHOUT a high school diploma and with only a history of unskilled work that falls within that category.
ReplyDelete@ 1:07, a finding of disability is not a determination of whether someone can get HIRED, it's whether they are able to perform the work.
ReplyDeleteAssembly line work does not require a high school education to perform the work, although the lack of such education may make finding the work difficult.
Getting rid of the GRIDs will never make it out of committee with NOSSCRs new lobby group.
ReplyDelete1:07
ReplyDeleteyou need to re-read the grids, my friend.
201.14, closely approaching, high school or more (does not provide for direct entry), skilled or semi-skilled (but skills not transferrable).
It isn't just poorly educated or those without skilled work experience.
I liked the idea of stopping disability filings at age 62. That makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteCapping at 62 won't do too much--the same people who are actually retired and done working are 56, 57,...61 before they are 62, and will just as easily grid at 55 or 60, securing themselves full retirement age benefits (or close to it).
ReplyDeleteCharles--how do you feel about some sort of means-testing (not quite accurate but I can't think of a better term) for folks applying for disability above age 55--like, say they have a pension and have shown their intent to be done working without any consideration of disability?
For all the people who are done working and were going to be done working regardless of whether they now happen to be limited to light or sedentary--shouldn't there be some way to prevent them from using DIB as a way to get paid higher now rather than biting the bullet and filing at 62 or waiting until 66/etc. to get the higher amount?
You may think this number of people is incosequential, but remembering just how many boomers there are (even if it's a fraction of boomers, there are so many boomers this fraction is not negligible) along with the fact that the people doing this have high PIAs should jar you into the reality that this practice will have a significant impact on SS payments for the next decade or three.
Will you even go on record about this growing phenomenon?
I agree that's a problem but how do you get someone to say they're not disabled? That may sound like a stupid question, but because SSA really doesn't screen people out of eligibility (except SGA and income/resources for SSI), how do you prevent them from "covering all the bases" so to speak. There would have to be a cutoff mark such as age 55? 50? - what would be appropriate?
DeleteI'm not at all sure--extra scrutiny? Not allowing grid-based disability for those who took themselves out of the workforce previously for other reasons? It'd be really difficult to implement (making a finding on intent to retire?). It probably isn't possible, though doing away with or changing the GRIDs is one thing SSA could do that might help this particular issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd to address your question: tell FO employees to stop mentioning DIB for this class of person. Many times these greedy boomers figure it out on their own, but FO employees do mention it to some.
The question of disability is in the application for retirement.
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