From The Impact Of Losing Childhood Supplemental Security Income Benefits On Long-Term Education and Health Outcomes by Priyanka Anand and Hansoo Ko, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:
Many youth with disabilities rely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) as an important source of income for their families, but they must go through a redetermination process at age 18 if they are to continue receiving those benefits into adulthood. Our project uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine the long-term impact of losing child SSI upon turning 18, due to the 1996 welfare reform, on education and health outcomes. We compare the long-term outcomes of those who turned 18 just after August 1996 with those who turned 18 just before, given that the reform increased the strictness of medical reviews for 18-year-old beneficiaries. Because the respondents are in their 30s and 40s in the later waves of the survey, we also examine the health outcomes of their children.
The paper found that:
- Those who were likely to lose SSI at age 18 have fewer years of education and are less likely to attend college than those who were less likely to lose their benefits.
- There is suggestive evidence of worse health outcomes for the children of those who were likely to lose their SSI benefits at age 18.
The policy implications of the findings are:
- Discontinuing benefits at age 18 has a negative impact on the human capital attainment of child SSI beneficiaries, which may explain their lower long-term earnings relative to other disadvantaged populations.
- The negative impacts of discontinuing child SSI benefits may continue into the next generation.
- Moderate amounts of cash transfers to children of vulnerable families may lead to lasting positive impacts. ...
Wouldn't it be possible to do these age 18 redeterminations in a less harsh way, even without a legislative change? Give at least a little weight to the prior finding of disability? Where the claimant was approved based upon a child Listing and that child Listing is almost identical to the adult Listing, create a presumption that the disability hasn't ended? The current process seems to me to be designed to be as harsh as possible. Can't Social Security do better?
11 comments:
Frankly I don’t know what’s harsh about evaluating them at the adult standard at age 18. It’s only logical. Don’t worry though - the Agency is such a mess that tons of these cases are developed far after the age of 18 giving the claimants far longer potential eligibility timelines than Congress intended.
Ain’t that the truth. My office is so far behind, some are over 20!
So if I tell you for 10 or 15 years you are disabled, I bet after a while you begin to believe you are disabled and act like you are disabled. What makes a kid disabled is totally different than an adult. It should be harsh, it is not universal income it is welfare.
My very first SSI claim out of training was a tuesday morning SSI appointment.
The woman came in and tossed 7 Social Security cards on the table and said "I gotta file for my kids, some of them gotta be disabled."
That’s only hilarious because it’s true!!!
You can’t even imagine what it’s like to work for SSA unless you actually work for SSA.
It’s a circus.
Prior to representing claimants in these cases, I worked for DHS representing the agency in foster care cases. I have seen cases such as 11:25 describes. I recall one case where a lady had 5 kids and 4 of them were getting SSI checks. Its not at all unusual to see parents living off of these checks. I think the child disability program is abused far more than the adult program and needs some reform. That being said it is far too difficult to get benefits for a truly disabled child. And, as far as adults, the fact that there are all these people just looking for a check is a myth. A Commission was appointed, I think in 1989, to look at how the agency evaluated pain (the agency ignored the recommendations, btw). This Commission found that malingering was very rare. There seems to be pervasive thinking within the agency that all claimants are lying. The facts don't support that. Most claimants legitimately can't work. The question is, can they jump through all the hoops and provide all the evidence to get through the agency gauntlet. Some can, some can't. And, the guidelines are so arbitrary leave so much room for discretion, many provide the evidence but are still denied. When you have ALJ's that approve 17 percent and others that approve 80 percent, there is an obvious problem. But, no one cares to address it. Anyway, I'm straying from my point, the child program is problematic and subject to abuse. The adult program is far too tilted in favor of disbelieving credible claimants.
If kids were given Medicaid, home health services for those who need them and other social services but no cash benefits, it would benefit them more in the long run. There's no incentive to become healthy when on SSI as a kid. Your family loses income and you lose Medicaid.
Families with 4 or 5 kids on SSI tend to have ADHD or similar disabilities.
I’ve advocated for this approach ever since I started processing SSI child claims. Provide medical assistance, food assistance, tutoring, child care and rental assistance but no cash benefits.
If people knew there was no cash benefits available, the number of applications filled would drop considerably.
The disability program is difficult to navigate. While some young adults may not be disabled under the new standards applied to them, they did have issues to get a check in the first place. Some transitional services should be provided such as a guaranteed slot at voc rehab or a vocational course at a community college.
@7:22 The truth is that the SSI check is provided instead of child care because child care would actually cost a lot more than they get from SSI benefits. These kids are disabled which means that they would require more child care, especially if the parent is working, and usually would have to pay more to get the child care because these children are often a babysitter's nightmare. Be careful what you ask for; the families would likely be entitled to much more in benefits under your plan than they are getting now.
@all of you: everyone has a valid point except for one bit. You have to be extremely impoverished to technically qualify for SSI. No one is getting to be middle-class on SSI checks. But SSI eligibility is the key to unlock a rainbow of other benefits to help your child be healthy and educated. This includes SNAP, HUD, vocational programs, Medicaid, special ed services, dental programs, and other tx equipment or assistance to help this needy child.
SSA has denied kids so emotionally damaged that they became murderers and didn’t think that was an extreme limitation in a functional domain while the kid was court-ordered to be in a psych facility.
It is not easy to get SSI for anyone, including kids. The lives of everyone benefitting from this program are difficult and meager, and they are humans deserving of dignity in society. If our national goal is to support the most vulnerable people in our society such that they continue to live and have the capacity to improve and grow, then more social and economic support is the bare minimum we can do to develop a functional society.
All CDRs/18RDs are processed later than their diary date because there is not enough staff to process anything timely, and that is a blessing for these people whose lives plummet without support routinely.
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