Pete Buttigieg is the first Presidential candidate to issue detailed proposals to help disabled Americans. Here’s the section of his plan dealing with Social Security:
- Eliminate the “benefit cliff” for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) so benefits gradually phase out until recipients reach nearly $45,000 in annual earnings.
- Eliminate SSDI’s ineffective current work incentives.
- Reduce excessive wait times for SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) appeals cases.
- Enable SSDI participants to start receiving income benefits as soon as they are admitted to the program.
- Eliminate SSDI’s 24-month waiting period for Medicare coverage.
- Update critical SSI thresholds to allow people to receive greater assistance as costs of living rise.
I do not understand points 1 and 3 at all. How does he plan to reduce wait times? The economy is slowing and SSA is going to start RIFing ALJs in FY 2021 -- two things that will catastrophically increase wait times by FY 2022. What's his plan to reduce in light of all that? And what is a "benefit cliff" and how does eliminating SSD benefits for low earners help anybody?
ReplyDeleteI like the idea ....which is not new....of eliminating the two year waiting period for Medicare... I would favor the idea of eliminating the five full month waiting period. for some but not all cases. Maybe for CAL cases but that also would result in some undesirable effects.... As in we have enough to allow but have to wait to prove some Listing is met. Currently the waiting period is only waived for ALS and I think it should be broadened
ReplyDelete10:28 - Regarding bullet 1, the benefit cliff occurs because you get a check for SSD or you do not when you are in the Trial Work Period and your earnings exceed a certain amount; it is an all or none payment. SGA after the TWP results in total cessation of benefits. There is no gradual decrease in the benefit as your earnings increase. This plan proposes that instead of all or none monthly benefits, your monthly benefit would be gradually reduced for earnings until you cross the threshold of $45K in earnings/wages, where no benefits would be available. It is not saying that it is eliminating benefits for low earners.
ReplyDeleteRegarding bullet 3, I agree that the basic statement is pie-in-the-sky without details of how he intends to achieve that.
I agree with most of these ideas. The five-month waiting period is ridiculous in light of a qualification for disability being that the disability is expected to last a year or more. If you are disabled, you should be paid. Likewise, Medicare should also be immediately available upon entitlement. And, while I am not a fan of the SSI program, I do agree that the asset limits are woefully outdated and should be tied to inflation. The sticking point for all of these ideas, though, is how the additional costs incurred by these changes would be covered.
Raise the cap, ditch recon, keep operations bureaucrats out of the hearings process, affirm APA and work with instead of against your unions. Raise the benefit level, allow for temporary disability, abolish the 2 year Medicare wait as well as the 6 month dib wait and allow people to work in some capacity. If only ...
ReplyDelete10:28, the benefit cliff is that after the trial work period, income in a given month that's over substantial gainful activity triggers ineligibility for SSDI benefits for that month. So if you earn $1 under SGA you keep all your SSDI and if you earn $1 over SGA you get no SSDI. This proposal would create a gradual stepdown--similar to SSI, where every $2 you earn (after a small amount of excluded income) results in a $1 reduction in benefits.
ReplyDeleteSo this plan doesn't have the goal of reducing SSDI for very low earners so much as it's about increasing it for people who are earning a more than $1220 a month. It doesn't provide enough details to say exactly where the offset will begin (which could mean that some people earning close to SGA will be worse off with it) or whether the offset will be $2 for $1 or something else. Those details definitely matter.
The benefit cliff has been explained, it's a reason why folks are afraid to work because the consequences of earning "too much" are so severe. And that rolls right into the ineffective work incentives. I'd say that doing bullet one addresses bullet 2 is very substantive ways.
ReplyDeleteReducing wait times isn't pie in the sky, it's stating the obvious. But it's an obvious that cannot be restated enough. Elimination of the waiting period for cash and Medicare - well, they were put in place essentially to reduce costs, so yes, eliminating them will help people on disability.
And SSI as a whole needs to at least come into the 1990s, if not the 21st century regarding payment rates and income and resource thresholds.
I am not at all concerned that these points aren't provided along detailed policy, program or fiscal supports. I'm just fine with goal setting and putting a flag in the ground on these subjects and let the detail work come later.
And don't care about "how can we pay for it" because the truth is, it can be paid for if people have the backbone to want to do so. There are costs but there are ways to address them and I refuse to let talk of costs sidetrack or make stillborn a very needed conversation.
Totally irrelevant as he he/she has -32% chance of becoming president.
ReplyDeleteMaking monthly adjustments to payments for earnings up to $45,000. Would seem like a nightmare to administer without over or under payments. As it is people can make any amount they like in each of the 9 months of the TWP. They can make $200,000 in one month each year for 9 years theoretically or more typically 60, 000 in three months of seasonal work for three years. After their 9 months are up they can work the same as one or three months an get paid for the other 11 or 9 months. These amounts are not typical but earnings well above SGA are. In addition it should be noted that any work in the TWP or EPE is nor considered relevant in terms of finding they can do work they did in the past. Expedited reinstatement cases also have to use the same criteria as when they were allowed. Work does not count against them but some training programs might. Also, except in some cases when there was a medical reexam established and too much time gas not passes we cannot initiate a medical reexam while someone is in a TWP. The criteria are not as onerous as folks are led to believe
ReplyDelete10:28 - "RIFing ALJs in FY 2021" ... source, please?
ReplyDelete@9:22:
ReplyDelete"10:28 - "RIFing ALJs in FY 2021" ... source, please?"
It's a self-generating blog rumor. Now that it has been noticed, it will expand and bloom as all great rumors do.
The good news it that by repeating it, we have now created an official Social Security ALJ Rumor.
Share it with your friends:
"ALJ's are now at risk for being RIFed in FY 2021!"
You heard it here first!
Thought they were sending the ALJs from SSA to Immigration.
ReplyDeletePsychologically, a "benefit cliff" is very real. People plan to barely work under SGA. Having done my fair share of Work CDRs, I can attest that there are a sizeable portion of DIB beneficiaries that are "managing" their work to stay just under the limit, with employer compliance not uncommon. A graded reduction would probably be better. The numbers that work to appropriately create incentives to "reenter the work force" and what periods of time are used for accounting are best would have to be worked out empirically. I believe there was a [privately managed] pilot attempt at such a thing called "BOND". The results and data from that should be made available for more of us to evaluate.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the poster complaining about possible ways to abuse the TWP provisions: It is possible to greatly abuse it, but in my experience doing Work CDR's it was relatively rare compared to the "SGA management" I mentioned above. Also the abuse of it I saw (and sometimes had my hands tied even when I knew it was happening) was never to the extreme levels suggested by the poster.
Eliminate the “benefit cliff” for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) so benefits gradually phase out until recipients reach nearly $45,000 in annual earnings.
ReplyDelete++++++
I bet most of the disability claims filed are for people that make less than $45K and we are going to continue paying those people how long?
Eliminate SSDI’s ineffective current work incentives.
++++++
Agree that they could use some reworking.
Reduce excessive wait times for SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) appeals cases.
++++
Yep, everyone agrees on this. Let's balance the budget while we are at it.
Enable SSDI participants to start receiving income benefits as soon as they are admitted to the program.
+++++
Over half the claims are denied and we should pay these people right away? Let's reduce the retirement age to when you stop working, be it 66 or 26.
Eliminate SSDI’s 24-month waiting period for Medicare coverage.
++++
Makes sense but who is going to pay for it?
Update critical SSI thresholds to allow people to receive greater assistance as costs of living rise.
+++++
Are you kidding me? Free phones, subsidized housing, food stamps, free medicine, free medical care, discounted utilities, In Home Support and Services tax free wages and more. I'd say put a family or residential max. There's folks with say 3 disabled kids (ADHD) that live at the equivalent of $80-90K salary and you want to give them more? Nope.