What About The "Third Signature" Problem At The Payment Centers?

     Yesterday, we heard that Social Security was increasing the amounts of SSI benefits that could be authorized by appropriate employees at agency field offices without approval from a supervisor. This cuts down on the number of times that a "second signature" is required before a payment can go out. That helps but I think the bigger problem has been with Disability Insurance Benefits and other benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act. Individual benefits authorizers at the Title II payment centers can only approve so much without obtaining a "second signature" and if the amount goes even higher a "third signature" is required and that can take several months. They never announce these limits but I think the "third signature" threshold has been something like $50,000. A claimant with a high Primary Insurance Amount can get up to this limit with only a little over a year of back benefits. Is something being done about the Title II problem? The situation with the "third signature" cases is terrible. With inflation and higher agency backlogs there are more of the "third signature" cases. These cause severe backlogs. If you're going to do something about the SSI cases you certainly ought to do something about the Title II cases.