From David Weaver, writing for The Hill:
... In May, June, and July of this year, SSA awarded 5,038, 4,572, and 5,122 elderly individuals SSI benefits, respectively. The June award figure is the smallest number of monthly awards for the elderly in the last 20 years. The May and July figures are the second and third smallest in the last 20 years. Further, the total number of awards in these three months is 42 percent lower than the number of awards to the elderly for the comparable 3-month period in 2019.
Problems have now materialized for the disabled groups as well. In July of this year, SSA awarded SSI benefits to 25,200 disabled adults ages 18 to 64. That is the lowest monthly award figure in the last 20 years for this group. It is also 40 percent lower than the figure for this group for July of 2019. ...
Weaver is blaming the downturn on lack of outreach. Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that having the field offices closed to walk-in traffic is a bigger factor. You certainly can't blame this downturn on disability determination since this includes a major downturn in people qualifying on account of age alone. Those claims don't go through disability determination.
6 comments:
Mr. Weaver's critical thinking skills seem to be lacking. Of course there were fewer awards. Fewer claims were filed. And of course fewer claims were filed. There was a sufficiently generous expansion of unemployment to hold off the usual crush of claims that typically results from a sudden and massive loss of employment.
I agree that the expansion of unemployment along with the stimulus money widely distributed lessened the number of recent SSI claims. Many people found themselves not meeting the financial eligibility for an SSI app. However, once these benefits end, I predict a much larger number of SSI claims will be coming.
In my former SSA office in an urban city in California, our SSI aged claims were mostly (probably 2/3 or more) new immigrants who meet the alien criteria (rare) or immigrants who just obtained their US citizenship.
The expansion of unemployment benefits doesn't seem like a likely reason for aged claims to decline. 65 year olds who have been working recently enough to get unemployment would probably be working and ineligible for SSI, if they could be working.
More outreach, reform and assistance is badly needed. Many disability applicants are unrepresented people with serious mental conditions. The SSI application has 23 pages of detailed instructions and questions, not counting the supplementary forms people with disabilities need to fill out just to get their claims out of the gate. Many disability applicants are intimidated by the application process and simply can't do it without a lot of help which they used to get by going to SSA offices in person. They can't do that now.
Have you ever tried to complete a 23 page SSI disability claim form and additional claim supporting forms over the phone with a person who has a serious mental illness? Good luck, and get ready to spend several hours if you want to do it right. The application process is only accessible to many unrepresented people with mental disabilities while there is in-person help available. It is not effectively accessible for many now and I suspect that accounts for a significant portion the lower claim numbers.
Good news. The Administration's efforts to provide stimulus payments has had the desired, positive effect.
Stimulus payments unlikely to have anything significant to do with SSI awards. Not being able to get school records, schedule CEs or even having people go to their own doctors are greater factors
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