Yesterday's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee featured testimony from David Weaver, Social Security's Associate Commissioner for the Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Support and from Daniel Bertoni of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Here are a couple of charts from Weaver's testimony showing the complexity of Social Security's work incentives.
Bertoni testified that GAO had "identified a number of situations where beneficiaries report work or earnings, but staff may not enter information into the system, which is inconsistent with federal internal control standards, or may not provide a receipt, as mandated by law." (footnotes omitted).
By the way, the House Ways and Means Committee has redone its website recently. It's a real mess. It's hard to find anything on it. I think that Paul Ryan needs to show some leadership and get this fixed. It's a poor reflection on this venerable Committee.
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This only addresses the SSA portion or RTW. Energy and food assistance programs, Medicaid for duel eligibles reducing prescription and copay costs, housing and transportation programs are all impacted by the RTW wages. In the end, unless you can step from SSDI/SSI to $35000/yr income you are screwed.
ReplyDelete10:22 AM wrote:
ReplyDelete"In the end, unless you can step from SSDI/SSI to $35000/yr income you are screwed."
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And yet claimants' representatives often try to deflect credibility concerns by insisting that nobody would apply for disability benefits if they could work. As you point out, the financial incentive isn't just the relatively modest SSDI and SSI payments - it's also the pool of means-tested programs that use SSA requirements as the standard for qualification.
no, this is not how we encourage return to work...it's what happens when claimant's return to work and fail to tell us.
ReplyDeleteEXR in SSI cases is a bit rare.
ReplyDelete