From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:
We randomly sampled 275 cases from about 190,900 that ALJs [Administrative Law Judges] initially denied in FY [Fiscal Year] 2011. At the time of our review, 79 claimants (29 percent) were receiving benefits, and another 36 (13 percent) were still awaiting a decision on a new application or appeal for disability benefits. Seventy-five claimants (27 percent) reported earnings in Calendar Year 2011 or later, of which about half reported annual earnings between $12,400 and $66,700. In general, these earnings exceeded a threshold used by SSA [Social Security Administration] to determine eligibility for disability benefits. Another 63 claimants (23 percent) were not receiving Agency benefits or reporting earnings. However, some in this category had unsuccessfully appealed or reapplied. The final 22 claimants (8 percent) either were deceased or had unique situations, such as Medicare-only benefits, incomplete records in SSA systems, or children receiving benefits because of a parent’s status.
6 comments:
It would be interesting to compare the earnings of those that are managing to work with their previous earnings. I'm guessing the decrease would be significant, with many barely able to do the jobs they are attempting. I'm also going to predict that these numbers will only get worse when looking at claimants from 2013-2016.
The report says 16 out of the 275 person sample of people denied were dead by the time of the survey. A lot could be learned by studying those cases if a person were interested in reducing the number of wrongful denials.
Almost 10 percent were dead. I have represented some of those. It makes me sick!
Ask ODAR officials when they expressed any significant interest in reducing the number of wrongful denials. Congress would have a conniption (with an emphasis on "conn").
You hardly need a study to know that many claimants keep applying until they get approved.
Shocking that OIG did not measure the number of those receiving benefits AND working. Big gap in this analysis in my opinion.
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