From the Pennsylvania Capital-Star:
... Research released by Community Legal Services of Philadelphia shows that Supplemental Security Income awards, one of two key funding streams, fell [in Pennsylvania] by more than a quarter (26 percent) between 2019 and 2020, the steepest decline of all 50 states. ...
[A] decade-plus of underfunding has “made it extraordinarily difficult for people to access the vital benefits they need to survive.”
That underfunding issue was exacerbated by the pandemic, which saw the U.S. Social Security Administration shutter offices, choking off the flow of aid so badly that the federal agency issued a half-million fewer SSI awards than at pre-pandemic levels, researchers found. ...
They were getting unemployment based on gig jobs and didn't need to file.
ReplyDeleteThe number of awards fell, not the number of applications.
DeleteThe pandemic unemployment benefits arguably did lead to more denials before the agency stopped counting those as income (and stimulus payments for resources, too), but that was nationwide.
There were emergency instructions in place to curtail / and apply tolerances for verification requirements. They were obviously not being followed on PA.
ReplyDeleteprobably a combination of
ReplyDelete* fewer people applying (because FOs were closed, phone service was bad, and people were cut off from normal support networks, but also because PUA and other funds made people less needy and because immigration plummeted and fewer people were becoming citizens or other statuses that qualify for SSI).
* more denials for things like PUA before SSA issued guidance, or after because SSA doesn't apply any rule correctly 100% of the time
* fewer DDS (BDD) awards, not necessarily because the percentage of awards went down but because the number of decisions did: the transition to telework, high attrition among staff, and trouble getting CEs meant cases took longer to get from SSA to DDS and then just sat there rather than getting decided. This is a nationwide issue but maybe PA was on the worse side?
reps could have stepped in more to aid with online applications.
ReplyDelete2:48, iSSI is very limited in who can use it. While some people can do an online DI claim and check the box that they intend to file for SSI, that doesn't work for children (who also can't use the iSSI tool). Plus, reps can only help the people who reach out to them.
ReplyDelete