Shorter Fully Favorable ALJ Decisions Coming

      A notice directed at those representing Social Security claimants:

Redesigned Notices for Certain Fully Favorable Disability Hearing Decisions

Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Dear Colleague,

We are pleased to share that we have redesigned the decision documents you and your clients will receive for certain fully favorable disability decisions at the hearing level. The redesign aims to make these decisions more concise, easier to understand, and faster to deliver.

What Is Changing

For certain fully favorable hearing decisions, you and your clients will receive a single document titled, “Decision Notice.” This concise notice will include:

• A statement that the decision is fully favorable.
• The date the claimant’s disability began.
• The reason for the finding of disability.

Your clients will also be able to access the Decision Notice through their personal mySocial Security account. The notice will explain how to request more detailed information about the decision, which will be contained in a Decisional Worksheet available in the electronic folder.

What Remains Unchanged

The Decision Notice will continue to provide information about receiving benefits, filing an appeal, and contacting us for assistance. If a fee agreement is involved, a Fee Order will be included as an enclosure. All other aspects of the process remain unchanged.

When These Changes Begin

In October, we began introducing the new Decision Notice for a limited number of fully favorable hearing decisions, and we will expand its use over time. We will continue to issue decisions using our standard Notice of Decision and Decision and Fee Order documents during this rollout as we monitor implementation.

     Anybody else old enough to remember “short form decisions”? Everything old is new again. 

A Poll

 

Why Does This Keep Happening?

      From Fulcrum:

Social Security's inspector general opened its books this week and found a number that should stop any controller cold: roughly $1 billion in improper Supplemental Security Income payments, made to 333,800 recipients, sitting on top of a backlog the agency has known about for years. The cause was not a hacker, not a sophisticated fraud ring, and not a policy loophole. It was an earnings alert nobody closed out.

Here is how the mechanism actually works, and why it matters more than the headline figure. When a recipient's reported earnings change, the Social Security Administration's system generates an alert flagging that the payment amount may need adjustment. An employee is supposed to resolve that alert, verify the wage documentation, and correct the payment before the gap compounds. The inspector general's office pulled a sample of 100 such cases. Only 20 had been resolved. Sixty-three had gone untouched entirely, left pending for an average of 733 days, just over two years. Seventeen more were marked "cleared" without the wage documentation ever being fully verified, meaning the case was closed on paper while the underlying question remained open.

Multiply that failure rate across the full caseload and the agency's own auditors landed on 417,291 recipients with alerts still pending, and roughly $1 billion in resulting overpayments — $344 million of it still recoverable, and $664 million gone for good under the administrative finality rules that bar the agency from clawing back money once too much time has passed. That second figure is the one a controller would flag first. It is not merely money the government failed to collect. It is money the government forfeited its own legal right to ever collect, because the paperwork sat too long. …

     Fulcrum assumes this happened because of lazy, incompetent government employees.  Of course, most people reading this blog know that’s not the case. The problem is a lack of employees to do the work. Give the agency another 15,000 employees and problems like this start to get solved in a hurry. Continue along the current track of ratcheting down the number of agency employees and this sort of problem keeps getting worse.

     Of course, the right has a solution for this. Devote whatever agency resources it takes to stamp out overpayments no matter what impact that has on those legitimately applying for and receiving SSI. If you believe that SSI shouldn’t exist in the first place, who cares whether those due benefits are paid those benefits? Those on the right only care about government benefits when it’s them or someone close to them who needs benefits. Them they’re stunned by how bad things are and often blame “them.” You know who “them” are: black and brown people, immigrants, etc. It’s a depressing part of Social Security and SSI.

Provide Your Own Comment

      A press release from Social Security:

Baltimore, MD—The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced the best overall performance in the agency’s history. In fiscal year (FY) 2026, SSA expanded its use of technology and process management to better meet customers where they are—online, by phone, or in field offices—resulting in double-digit improvements in every service metric.

“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, we are protecting and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” said Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano. “SSA’s digital-first strategy is driving transformational improvements and historic results across the agency as we execute on our mission to be a premier service organization. We are delivering better, faster, higher-quality service across all channels while safeguarding the long-term stability of our programs.”

At President Trump’s direction, and under Commissioner Bisignano’s leadership, SSA is transforming into a model of excellence—an organization that operates at peak efficiency, provides world-class service to every American, and protects and strengthens Social Security for future generations. Productivity at the agency improved at historic levels over the last two years—a 10 percent productivity increase year-over-year in FY 2025 followed by an eight percent year-over-year increase in FY 2026. SSA delivered measurable improvements across core service areas in FY 2026:

• Reduced National 800 Number wait times: Achieved an average speed of answer of 5.6 minutes in fiscal year (FY) 2026, an almost 80 percent improvement from 28 minutes in FY 2024; maintained a zero percent busy rate over the last six months; and had the highest answer rate in more than a decade. Intelligent call routing and expanded interactive voice recognition (IVR) technology handled 40 percent of calls.
• Shortened wait times in field offices: Reduced average wait times by over 30 percent compared to FY 2024, while serving nearly 30 million visitors nationwide—and, for the first time, every field office caller now has access to an automated self service option, replacing the absence of IVR in FY 2024.
• Ensured 24/7 website availability: Eliminated 29 hours of weekly website downtime, enabling Americans uninterrupted access to their personal my Social Security accounts, resulting in over ten million additional logins over the past year.
• Expanded online services: Completed over 571 million online transactions in FY 2026—a 30 percent increase from FY 2024.
• Grew online adoption: Surpassed 105 million registered my Social Security account holders, a 20 percent increase from FY 2024, making SSA the nation’s largest digital financial services provider.
• Improved disability claim processing: Shortened the overall average processing time for initial disability claims by 40 days or 17 percent compared to FY 2024. SSA reduced the initial disability claims backlog by 23 percent from nearly 1.2 million at the end of FY 2024 to 911,000 at the end of FY 2026. Similarly, the annual average wait time for a hearing decreased by 72 days since FY 2024.
• Resumed the Treasury Offset Program: Returned $645 million in delinquent programmatic debt to the Trust Funds since we resumed this use of collection authority in March 2025.
• Improved the integrity of vital records: Completed the most comprehensive Social Security number (SSN) database clean-up in agency history, correcting nearly 15 percent of all active SSNs, adding 17 million previously missing dates of death, and updating approximately 25 million records that lacked citizenship information, while implementing stronger internal controls to prevent future data-entry inaccuracies.

The improvements at SSA saved the public 200 million hours, equivalent to 100,000 work years, that would otherwise have been spent waiting for service in FY 2025. SSA also implemented a better control environment, reducing open audit recommendations to a 40-year low, generating $16 billion in savings since FY 2024, and reinforcing the agency’s commitment to stewardship and program integrity.

Looking ahead, Commissioner Bisignano will continue building on these historic achievements: expanding digital access, further improving service, and fulfilling President Trump's mandate to protect and strengthen Social Security.

More Politicization Of Social Security

     From MSNOW:

 In July several Democratic senators wrote to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano with a specific concern. The agency he leads, they wrote, has sent “unsolicited” messages to Social Security recipients, pushing misleading statements about Donald Trump. 

“You are misusing official resources to heap praise on him,” the letter said, adding that the Social Security Administration appeared to be “bombarding Americans with blatantly partisan emails” touting the president. 

If Bisignano saw the letter, he apparently didn’t care. 

On Thursday morning, with less than two weeks remaining in the election cycle and with early voting underway across much of the country, the Social Security Administration sent out yet another political message, which began: 

Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Working Families Tax Cuts, which included a historic tax cut for America’s seniors. That law also created Trump Accounts, individual investment accounts for America’s children designed to grow with the U.S. economy and build long-term savings. 

Today, nearly 70 million Trump Accounts are open for all American children. … Trump Accounts are one of the most significant investments in the next generation of Americans in our nation’s history, by giving every American child a stake in our country’s success and a strong financial foundation for the future.

The relatively brief email referenced the president’s surname 10 times. …

SSA To Promote Trump Accounts

      From Fox Business:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has begun including instructions for claiming a $1,000 government investment contribution with Social Security cards issued to newborns, expanding a nationwide effort to inform American families about President Donald Trump's children's investment accounts, Fox News Digital has learned.

The new inserts, distributed through the agency's Enumeration at Birth program, explain how parents can sign up for Trump Accounts and claim a one-time $1,000 contribution from the U.S. Treasury Department for eligible children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028. …

This Is Completely Misleading

      A Social Security press release:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced substantial progress in its ongoing effort to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the Social Security Number (SSN) database. This work represents the most comprehensive SSN record clean‑up in the agency’s 91-year history.

“The Social Security Number database is our country’s books and records. The database’s accuracy is essential to maintaining integrity of government services for citizens. Accurate SSN records prevent fraud across federal programs and support the proper administration of benefits,” said Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano. “This is the first time SSA has undertaken an effort of this scale, and I am proud of the work we have done to strengthen the foundation of identity data relied upon throughout government and the economy.”

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, SSA has corrected nearly 15 percent of all active SSNs across approximately 330 million U.S. citizens and nearly 390 million total records. SSA records are referenced by agencies across the federal government and in states to validate identities and prevent improper payments of taxpayer dollars. These improvements demonstrate a government‑wide commitment to safeguarding identity data, preventing fraud, and preserving proper program administration.

As part of this effort:

• SSA has added 17 million dates of death to records that previously lacked this information, using a combination of internal SSA systems and Department of State data.
• Through data received from the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) service, SSA has updated approximately 25 million records that previously had missing citizenship information.
• SSA is currently in the process of correcting an additional 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status.
• The agency has implemented stronger internal controls to prevent inaccuracies due to manual data entry from occurring in the future.

These improvements reflect the first time SSA has undertaken a record‑integrity initiative of this magnitude and marks a significant step toward strengthening the SSN system for the American public.

     All that has been corrected is the relatively insignificant Numident which has little use other than to look up Social Security numbers. It’s so unimportant that the agency has never made much effort to get it 100% accurate. Correcting it is a waste of scarce resources. But it makes it look as if they’re preventing fraud and looking like they’re doing something positive is all they’re after.

SSNs For Less Than A Big Mac

      From Government Technology:

Stolen Social Security numbers can cost less than $2 each on the dark web, which is cheaper than a Big Mac, a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk, according to new research from the identity protection company Coveron.

Coveron, with support from NordLayer Intelligence, examined dark web forums and private messaging channels from June 2024 through June 2026, identifying 5,885 posts that involved the sale of personal information packages containing Social Security numbers. Some listings offered bulk discounts, dropping prices below $1 per package. …

Gambling With Social Security Money

      From WTRF:

A study has shown that on days when Social Security pays, gambling rates go up. 

A West Virginia University doctoral student, Matt Mullis, has found concerning patterns in West Virginia’s gambling data.

One finding shows that senior citizens may be spending most of their Social Security income on gambling. …

     Most? 

Drum Roll Please

      Social Security’s Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) effective next year is 3.6%. The cap on wages subject to the FICA tax will be $192,300, up from $184,500.

How?

      A quote from Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano reported in The Hill:

This is a long journey. [Social Security] is 90 years old. It’ll be around for another 90 years.

Loss In Court On Job Loss

      From Human Resources Director:

The Social Security Administration can press ahead with plans to cut 7,000 jobs after a court threw out a disability discrimination challenge to the layoffs. 

Five advocacy organisations and seven individuals receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits had argued the cuts - roughly 12 percent of SSA’s 57,000-strong workforce - created “systemic access barriers” that hit people with disabilities harder than everyone else. They pointed to prolonged phone delays, reduced field office hours, missing sign language interpreters, and an online portal that kept locking them out. 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed all three claims on October 9, 2026.  …

Not Something You Expect A Commissioner To Do

      A tweet from yesterday by Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano:

It was a privilege to ring the @NYSE Opening Bell this morning to commemorate Columbus Day and celebrate Italian American heritage. 🔔 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 

I was honored to do so alongside many friends including true legends of business Ken Langone, Dick Grasso, and Vinnie Viola.

Social Security Beneficiaries To Lose $2,000 A Year Due To Trump Immigration Policies

      From The Guardian:

Elderly Americans can expect to lose an average of $2,152 in annual social security benefits each, a projected 8.6% reduction in their retirement payments, by 2034 and every year after as a direct consequence of the economic fallout from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration campaign, if that carries on, according to a new report shared exclusively with the Guardian. …

The report, Economic Impacts of Trump Administration Immigration Policy, was commissioned by America’s Voice and conducted by researchers at Economic Insights and Research Consulting, a firm focused on economic analysis. …

The federal government risks losing a large segment of the $26bn in payroll taxes from unauthorized immigrants who help to support the US social security fund that pays out to American seniors – while not being able to access those benefits themselves.  …

Workers Comp Offset Problems

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Social Security Act (Act) requires that SSA reduce Social Security disability benefits when a beneficiary receives workers’ compensation (WC) or a Public Disability Benefit (PDB). However, WC/PDB does not reduce SSA retirement benefits. Thus, when disabled beneficiaries reach age 62, SSA employees must determine whether they are eligible for higher retirement benefits and notify beneficiaries as early as possible about their option to file. The application filing date sets the earliest month of entitlement, as SSA can only pay retirement benefits retroactively to that month. Delays may result in lost benefits. Starting February 13, 2026, SSA employees must present filing options without offering advice and document these discussions, as beneficiaries’ decisions can impact their benefits. 

From a population of 35,185 disabled beneficiaries, we reviewed a sample of 125 beneficiaries from the Master Beneficiary Record who attained age 62 from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2022 and whose disability benefits were offset by WC/PDB. 

Of the 125 beneficiaries we sampled, SSA employees were not required to notify 53 (42 percent) because their disability benefits after WC/PDB offset were higher than the retirement benefits. Employees were required to notify 72 (58 percent); however, they did not notify 31 beneficiaries (25 percent). Employees were required to notify the remaining 41 (33 percent) beneficiaries and did so, as required. …

     This report concerns what claimants’ attorneys, at least, refer to as the RIB-DIB election. The usual assumption is that many workers comp off sets will be done incorrectly. I imagine that even most Social Security employees don’t understand the offset. That’s OK. The whole subject of workers compensation offsets is complicated. Most agency employees don’t have to deal with it. It’s one of those complications that can’t even be imagined by the current Commissioner who probably believes that Social Security is simple, its employees aren’t very bright (because if they were bright they wouldn’t be working in government) and that those employees are fungible.  In truth, the agency’s business is often complicated and its employees undertrained and lacking in the time needed to get everything right.

Right Wing Having A Tough Time Facing Reality

      From Newsweek:

… In a survey from the Cato Institute, 89 percent of Americans over age 65 said Social Security benefits should be protected even if it meant higher taxes for younger workers. 

This sparked conservative backlash on social media. 

“Just as it isn’t boomers’s fault that politicians stole their social security — or that leftists of all generations voted for the pols who did it — it’s not the responsibility of the generations that follow to make up for it by giving up more of our incomes,” conservative radio host Dana Loesch wrote on X.  

Political commentator Matt Walsh wrote: “Stealing from young families to pay much higher net worth Boomers is immoral and ridiculous. Young families already have to deal with an economy where everything is exponentially more expensive than it was for Boomers at the same age. Older people clamoring to raise taxes on the young, on top of it all, is just perverse.” … 

“Just as it isn’t boomers’s fault that politicians stole their social security — or that leftists of all generations voted for the pols who did it — it’s not the responsibility of the generations that follow to make up for it by giving up more of our incomes,” conservative radio host Dana Loesch wrote on X. 

Political commentator Matt Walsh wrote: “Stealing from young families to pay much higher net worth Boomers is immoral and ridiculous. Young families already have to deal with an economy where everything is exponentially more expensive than it was for Boomers at the same age. Older people clamoring to raise taxes on the young, on top of it all, is just perverse.”  …

Some Clergy Want A New Deal

      It’s poorly advertised but clergy can opt out of Social Security. Here’s how it works:

… To opt out of Social Security, ordained ministers must sign Form 4361 “Application for Exemption from Self-Employment Tax for Use by Ministers, Members of Religious Orders and Christian Science Practitioners.” The form does not say, “If you are a minister and prefer not to pay these taxes, sign here.” If you read the form carefully, it says that you are conscientiously opposed or opposed because of your religious principles to “the acceptance…of any public insurance that makes payments in the event of death, disability, old age, or retirement; or that makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medicare” in exchange for services you perform as a minister. In other words, signing Form 4361 means that, as a minister, you oppose receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits for your ministerial work 

   Some of those who exercised this option want to get out of the deal they made. As World reports:

… Members of the clergy would have a chance to join Social Security under a bill passed by the Senate this week. The bill, which is headed to President Trump’s desk for signing, creates a two-year window for clergy members to opt in to Social Security and Medicare benefits. Currently, clergy members can opt out of those programs to avoid associated taxes on ministerial earnings. Their decision to re-enroll is irrevocable. If signed into law, the window for re-enrollment would begin in 2029.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, or ERLC, on Thursday said its members were thrilled that the Senate passed the Clergy Act this week.  …

     You may notice I have little sympathy for the clergy members wanting to remove the irrevocability. I imagine that some, like monks under a vow of poverty, are sincere (but they’re probably not trying to revoke their choice.) The rest, I strongly doubt that many are or were sincere. You knew the deal going in and now you start realizing that opting out of Social Security may not be have been such a great idea so you want to renegotiate the deal. Besides

     Doesn’t this come under the “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” provision that is part of the faith, at least for Christians? I guess that’s why most clergy don’t exercise this option.

     By the way, have you run into the “Love Offering” dodge, as in “I never received wages for being a minister, I received “Love Offerings” and those are gifts so they’re not taxable”? Yeah, that’s just as sincere.

Alternative Work Schedules Ending

From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications <Human.Resources.Internal.Communications@ssa.gov> Sent: Monday, October 5, 2026 3:48 PM 

Subject: Ending Alternative Work Schedules 

A Message to SSA Employees Subject: Ending Alternative Work Schedules 

Effective Monday, November 16, 2026, SSA is ending alternative work schedules (AWS), including 4/10 and 5/4/9 schedules, agency wide. All employees will transition to a standard five-day workweek. 

The American people depend on SSA to deliver on its mission every day, and that mission depends on a workforce that is present and available throughout the week. AWS, which allow employees to complete their work hours in fewer than five days, reduce staffing on the days employees are off. The cumulative effect across the agency is significant and impacts our service to the public. Every SSA employee, whether or not they work directly with the public, is part of how we deliver on our mission. A consistent five-day workweek strengthens our ability to deliver the service the public expects. 

Employees currently on a 4/10 or 5/4/9 schedule may continue that schedule until Friday, November 13th. After that date, all employees will work a five-day schedule beginning November 16th.Instructions will be forthcoming on how to ensure employees are transitioned to the standard work schedule timely. 

Thank you for your professionalism and your commitment to the public we serve. 

Chief Human Capital Officer

This Doesn’t Look Quite Right To Me

      From the National Law Review:

MySSAgent's free Google Chrome extension is the first browser extension for one-click Social Security earnings-statement retrieval, as of October 1, 2026, based on public product documentation. It has been available since July 2026.

The client signs in to their own my Social Security account at ssa.gov. The extension adds a "Send to MySSAgent" button to the statement page. One click sends the official earnings record into MySSAgent, and a full claiming analysis is ready in minutes. There's no file to download, nothing to upload, and nothing to re-type. MySSAgent never asks for a Social Security number. …

From the client's official record, the analysis covers every claiming month from age 62 to 70, including spousal and survivor benefits. With the household's income entered, it also shows the Medicare IRMAA bracket at each claiming age. Every benefit figure comes from a deterministic engine built on the Social Security Administration's published formulas. …

      This looks like it could be something from the Social Security Administration but it’s not. I have a couple of questions: Does this look too much like an official government site? Did this setup require cooperation from Social Security? It looks like it might be a security issue.

     If you do much Googling on Social Security subjects you find many, many articles and websites dealing with that eternal question, “What is the right age to file a claim for Social Security retirement benefits?” It seems to be a subject that fascinates those with an MBA or related training. In the real world, however, claimants mostly make the decision based upon their need for the money. They don’t have the luxury of delaying claiming benefits. Besides, they can have the money now while they’re still able to use it. I’m sure there’s a subset of claimants who worry about this question but it’s small. Just look at the low percentage of claimants who wait until age 70.

SSA Refuses To Cooperate With State DDS Audit

      From WIS-TV:

A new state audit is raising questions about South Carolina’s ability to address delays in the disability benefits process, highlighting the complicated relationship between state and federal agencies that share responsibility for reviewing disability claims. … 

According to a report released by the Legislative Audit Council, the agency responsible for reviewing disability claims has lost more than a third of its disability examiners since 2021. Auditors found a 35% reduction in examiner staffing between January 2021 and June 2026, with workforce shortages likely contributing to processing delays. The report also cites employee turnover, pay concerns and the loss of telework opportunities as factors making recruitment and retention more difficult. … 

The audit was commissioned after state lawmakers sought answers about lengthy disability claim delays and growing backlogs. However, auditors say they were unable to fully determine how long applicants are waiting or identify the primary causes of delays because the Social Security Administration denied access to key claims-processing data requested during the review. …