From BuzzFeed:
Two legal nonprofit groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration Tuesday for its treatment of married same-sex couples after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prevented the federal government from recognizing their marriages.
For almost a year after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in June 2013, the SSA continued to treat Hugh Held and Orion Masters as unmarried.
Despite Held asking the local Social Security branch office in Los Angeles whether the court’s ruling, in light of his 2008 marriage to Masters, would mean a change to his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, he continued to receive his benefits of $877.40 a month.
Then, in June 2014, Held’s benefit was reduced to $308.10 a month on account of his marriage to Masters.
Held and Masters were fine with that change, but they are not OK with the $6,205 bill that the Social Security Administration (SSA) also sent Held, the amount, SSA asserts, that Held was overpaid in benefits since the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor. ...
15 comments:
when you say "doesn't seem fair", I hope you are referring to the fact that the overpayment received by Held is not fair to taxpayers.
He wanted to be treated as married, so he was. What is the problem?
Maybe it would be more fair if they billed him back to 2008 when he got married. His bill would be more like $50,000.
7:10 and 9:35, are you for real?
What is not fair is that SSA is refusing to recognize enough gay marriages sufficient to establish a class action
Yet
They recognize the marriage of the couple in the article in order to charge an over payment.
What is fair about refusing to recognize to award benefits but simultaneously recognizing to reduce benefits.
I would really love to hear your answers.
SSI is completely different from Social Security Benefits. This is going to be a disaster nation wide.
@ 12:08...I'm really not sure what you mean. They did not recognize his marriage, then when they did, they realized he had been married and that his prior benefits were actually larger than he was entitled to, resulting in an overpayment. There would have been no overpayment if was not married.
Having a lower "couples" rate is kind of ridiculous in the first place, but it saves the agency money, so it will take legal action to overturn it.
I should say it saves tax dollars, the cost to the agency is actually enormous considering the increased processing time.
There are many SSI gay couples that were happy being able to live together, or as SSI calls it "holding out" and not have their SSI welfare affected. It was a great deal for them until Windsor.
I remember many cases with rich men holding out with young boyfriends, not having their income and resources "deemed" to them like hetero-holding-out couples. The SSI claimants in that case kept their full benefits
This couple is different since they actually got married. However, since the agency was waiting on instructions they had to continue the overpaid monies. I do not think the overpayment should be waived in this case.
They wanted to be treated as a married couple; an SSI recipient with an ineligible spouse. So it happened. The result is that the SSI recipient is overpaid because of the deemed income of the spouse. Happens to all married couples. The only thing different about this is that the computer system could not automate the computation because it has not been upgraded to allow for M/M marriages. So the manual computation took longer to do. A lot more labor intensive. Just like trying to deem income from spouses or parents without SSN's. Unable to automate so the comps take longer and use legacy systems. The claims reps use their limited down time for such cases. Paper folders have to be created and then all the documents scanned into other electronic repositories. Takes a while to sort through as well.
Explained very well. SSI can be a huge headache to comp with all the variables - never mind same sex couples which which will eliminate the "holding out" concept all together over time. Much easier to eliminate the couples rate, but I don't see that happening sine that would mean paying more out.
Revised regulations specifically exempt same sex couples from "holding out". It should also be noted "holding out" does not mean "holding out from getting married for whatever reason". Closer to its true meaning is "holding out to the community that you are married in order to avoid the scandal of living in sin" Yeah, it's that much of an outdated concept.
If same sex couples can't be considered "holding out", if I were a man and woman labeled as "holding out", couldn't you sue? I mean wasn't this about being equal?
@6:23PM I'm not an attorney, but I would think you could and it may be a matter of time until someone does. If you want to really get crazy you could almost say the POMS revision is asking for a lawsuit so the policy people can get rid of holding out and then wash their hands of the increased benefit payments. Read for yourself. (Notice the IMPORTANT: in bold.) Read for yourself
We are supposed to ask all opposite sex couples living together if they are holding out, but the new instructions specifically state NOT to ask same sex couples this question. Kind of a reverse discrimination I think. Frankly, I wish they'd do away with holding out completely.
The holding out issues have to do with specific language in the Social Security Act. It specifically uses the terms man and woman when it discusses holding out. This will require a legislative change.
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