Disability Determination Backlogs To Soar

    From David Weaver, a retired Social Security employee, writing for The Hill:

Projections indicate that, in less than two years, there will be a staggering 2.5 million people in Social Security’s disability backlog. That figure is higher than the population of 20 U.S. states and territories. Thus, as we look to the midterm elections next year, President Trump will be dealing with a very large group of Americans who aren’t receiving timely decisions on their benefit applications.

About 70 percent of the projected backlog at the end of fiscal 2026 will be at the initial level of determination. ...

The backlog could easily turn out to be well above 2.5 million cases if current levels of government staffing decline, assumed productivity gains among government workers fail to materialize, or the country experiences a recession and displaced workers with health problems turn to Social Security for help. ...

The large backlog will be a national driver of homelessness, a situation that occurs with some frequency among disability applicants.  ...

Trump’s first instinct may be to look for a technological fix. His executive order creating DOGE stated its purpose as “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” In practice, however, DOGE has become focused on personnel policy and cost cutting, rather than bleeding-edge technology. 

Social Security recently summarized its DOGE-related activities. If members of the public thought the young engineers of DOGE were going to revolutionize technology in the government, they will be disappointed. The Social Security list is basically composed of budget cuts, including two big items: a reduction in the agency’s technology budget and a hiring freeze applied to federal employees and state workers who help process disability claims.  ...

    I am pessimistic about the situation. The present course can lead only to disaster but this will not be apparent to the Trump Administration until the disaster is well upon us. They will then try desperately to turn the spigot back on only to find out that there's only so much that can be done until new personnel are hired and trained and that takes quite some time. And, of course, Weaver is only writing here about impending backlogs of disability determinations and that's only one part of the problem. Addressing field office, teleservice center and payment center backlogs, which will also mushroom, will be even more difficult, especially with a gutted management structure.

Inflation And Social Security Disability Recipients

     From The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability:

... Social Security Disability (SSD) program beneficiaries, like other consumers, have been negatively affected by inflation over the past several years. In a survey from June of 2023, more than half (59 percent) of SSD program beneficiaries reported higher prices for the disability-related goods and services they need to purchase, and more than one-quarter reported reducing food spending to cover disability-related costs, Zachary Morris and Stephanie Rennane found in Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of Disability Program Beneficiaries (NBER RDRC Paper NB23-08).

Using new survey data, the researchers found that 82 percent of beneficiaries reported out-of-pocket expenses related to their disability, with average annual spending of $4,412 and median spending of $384 as of June 2023. Fifty-nine percent of beneficiaries reported higher spending on disability-related goods and services compared to two years earlier. In response to these rising costs, 25 percent of beneficiaries indicated they went into debt; 43 percent found recent COLA adjustments insufficient to maintain their standard of living. ...

In Person Service Matters

    From Effects Of Suspending In-Person Services At Social Security Administration Field Offices On Disability Applications And Allowances by Monica Farid, Michael T. Anderson, Gina Freeman, and Christopher Earles, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications ...

The paper found that:

• There were systematic differences in the characteristics of applicants by mode of application. In-person applicants were older, less likely to have completed high school, and less likely to speak English compared to phone or online applicants.
  

• The suspension caused a 6-percent decrease in the volume of applications, implying that not everyone who wanted to apply in-person was able to apply using other modes. The effect was larger for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications compared to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) applications.
  

• The suspension of in-person services caused some would-be in-person applicants to apply by phone, but it did not cause an increase in the volume of online applications.
  

• We did not find evidence that the suspension disproportionately affected groups of applicants defined by educational attainment, age, or English-speaking status.
  

• Our estimates imply that in-person service suspensions explain more than 50 percent of the decline in SSI and DI applications during the pandemic. ...
  

    The first and fourth points above seem to be in tension with each other.

Listen To The Voters Part II

      From Data For Progress

Listen To The Voters

      From a Data For Progress poll:

What 

This Is Going To Be A Trip For Those Of You Who Have Never Watched John Oliver Before

New Emergency Message On Collateral Estoppel

     From Emergency Message EM-24033 Disability Collateral Estoppel Policy – Change of Position

This emergency message (EM) announces the agency’s change of position (CoP) on the use of collateral estoppel to adopt prior disability determinations and decisions. ...

Beginning 7/13/2024, we will adopt our prior favorable finding of disability in a subsequent claim by the same individual for a different disability benefit or SSI payments if, in our prior final determination or decision, we have already decided that the individual is disabled for the period in question and all of the following criteria are met:

1. Both the prior determination or decision and new claim require application of the same statutory definition of disability.

2. We have not made an intervening medical determination or decision finding that the individual’s disability ceased.

3. The individual has not engaged in substantial gainful activity since the prior established onset date (EOD).

4. The EOD in the prior claim is on or before the date when the nonmedical requirements for entitlement are last met in the new claim.

5. The record with the prior favorable disability determination or decision is not in terminated status.

6. We do not have reason to believe that the prior disability determination or decision was wrong. ...

     I don't have the energy today to try to explain the concept of collateral estoppel in the Social Security world. If you don't already know you probably aren't interested in this change anyway. I'll just say that this is a modest change that helps a few claimants and which saves some work at Social Security. I never knew any reason why the policy was changed before other than generalized hostility to Social Security disability claimants.

But It's Only Been Six Months! Maybe If We Wait Longer He'll Get Better

    From some television station in Atlanta that likes to hide its call letters:

...  For the Dickens, the unthinkable occurred in January when James had a stroke, his wife Schantalyn told 11Alive. The couple had only recently married in November 2023. 

"You plan on getting married, and after getting married, you plan on a happily ever after," Schantalyn shared. "It was so unexpected. We didn't know that the morning of January 5 at 3 in the morning, James would have a massive stroke."

Since his stroke, James has been recovering in a nursing facility. Meanwhile, Schantalyn continues to check in with eligibility officials to see whether her husband's disability claimed has been reviewed and approved. ...

[T]he time it takes to process cases varies widely. The national average for making an initial disability determination is 187 days, while in Georgia, the determination takes an average of 287 days. South Carolina tops the list for wait times, with 325 days for initial determination. SSA attributes much of the delays to staffing challenges.  ...

Res Judicata Won't Apply To Denials Based Upon Ability To Perform Work Outside The New Five Year Time Period

     From Emergency Message EM-24028:

... We will not apply res judicata to bar readjudication of a previously adjudicated period when the prior final determination or decision finding the claimant not disabled is dated prior to June 22, 2024, if the prior adverse determination or decision found the individual could do:

1. PRW [Past Relevant Work] at step four of the sequential evaluation process (SEP) and the PRW cited is not PRW under the PRW rule; OR

2. Other work at step five of the SEP, work experience was material to the decision, and the individual’s work experience is different under the PRW rule.

When these criteria are met, we will not apply res judicata to deny a subsequent claim or dismiss a request for hearing on that claim. ...

    OK, now what about cases pending at the Appeals Council or federal court where there were denials based upon ability to perform other "jobs" that are now considered off limits because they don't really exist any more?

State Disability Determination Services Processing Times

 

Effective Date Of PRW Change Officially Pushed Back To June 22

     From tomorrow's Federal Register:

We published in the Federal Register on April 18, 2024, a final rule to revise the time period we consider when determining whether an individual’s past work is relevant for the purposes of making disability determinations and decisions under our rules. The preamble of that final rule cited an effective date of June 8, 2024. This rulemaking defers that effective date to June 22, 2024.

PRW To Go Down From 15 Years To 5 On June 8

     From a notice that Social Security will publish in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are finalizing our proposed regulation to revise the time period that we consider when determining whether an individual’s past work is relevant for the purposes of making disability determinations and decisions. We are revising the definition of past relevant work (PRW) by reducing the relevant work period from 15 to 5 years. Additionally, we will not consider past work that started and stopped in fewer than 30 calendar days to be PRW. ...

DATES: This final rule will be effective on June 8, 2024.

Past Relevant Work Regs Advance

     The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved final regulations on Intermediate Improvement to the Disability Adjudication Process, Including How we Consider Past Work. When published as a proposal these included a reduction in the time period for considering past relevant work from 15 years to 5. Expect to see the regulations in the Federal Register soon. 

    I hope the effective date isn't six months into the future.

The Effects Of Incarceration On Disability Benefits

     From The Impact of Past Incarceration on Later-Life DI and SSI Receipt by Gary V. Engelhardt:

• Past incarceration reduces the career years of employment, in general, and the likelihood of meeting the DI [Disability Insurance] duration test, in particular, reducing eligibility for DI. 
• Given the likely reduction in eligibility, however, past incarceration leads to a 30-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of applying for DI or SSI benefits, with an 18-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of benefit receipt. 
• Past incarceration raises by about 20 percentage points the likelihood the individual is in poverty as measured by the federal poverty threshold. 

 The policy implications of the findings are:

• At the aggregate level, DI rolls are about 300,000 higher for 50-61-year-old men because of past incarceration; SSI rolls are about 50,000 higher. 
• Incarceration has resulted in about 375,000 additional men between 50 and 61 years of age being under the federal poverty threshold in the 2010-2016 period.  ...

    What I've seen over the years is that imprisonment is bad for your health. Unhealthy food, incredibly stressful living conditions and poor medical treatment are a big part of it but probably not all. Certainly, many convicted felons arrive in prison already suffering from significant health problems, both physical and mental.

A Less Colorful Waterfall Chart With CDR Numbers

 

Click on image to view full size

The Waterfall Chart For 2023

 

Click on image to view full size

This Is What's Going On At Ground Level

    Here's a note made recently by an employee at my firm about a pending disability claim that may give you some idea of the state of service at Social Security :

TC [telephone call to] ____ DO [District Office] and she said there is an initial claim that has been sitting there since 7/14/2023. She is sending it to the CR [claims representative] Mr. ____ but he is off.

    In case you don't understand the context, the DO only takes the claims. They don't make medical determinations. Those are made at Disability Determination Services (DDS). Under normal circumstances -- which don't currently exist -- new claims are forwarded from the DO to DDS in a week or two. Even if there is some technical problem, the claim isn't supposed to be sitting at a DO for six months! 

    For this to happen there has to be no effective tickler system at the DO. I'm sure there's supposed to be one but it's broken down entirely under the enormous pressure of overwhelming workloads.

    I'm not even mad at the personnel involved because I have an idea of just how overwhelmed they are.  If a case happens to fall by the wayside now, we're just about at what I've described before as the "Not now. Not later. Not ever" stage of service. Problems aren't being straightened out.

    And please don't blame my firm. We've been trying for three months to find out what happened to the case. It's almost impossible to get anyone on the phone. There's no smart trick that solves cases like this. There's far too many of them. We're not supposed to be Social Security's tickler system anyway.

Disability Claims Filed And Awarded Increased Modestly In 2023

    Social Security has posted final numbers on disability claims and awards for calendar year 2023. With the pandemic tamped down to a level which permits most people to live normally, the number of disability claims filed and awarded increased modestly.

 

Number of applications
Field office                                                                           receipts	Initial DDS receipts

 

2009 .....	2,816,244	1,798,975
2010 .....	2,935,798	1,926,398
2011 .....	2,878,920	1,859,591
2012 .....	2,824,024	1,808,863
2013 .....	2,653,939	1,702,700
2014 .....	2,536,174	1,633,652
2015 .....	2,427,443	1,552,119
2016 .....	2,321,583	1,473,700
2017 .....	2,179,928	1,377,803
2018 .....	2,073,293	1,300,668
2019 .....	2,015,182	1,309,863
2020 .....	1,838,893	1,226,236
2021 .....	1,820,282	1,210,545
2022 .....	1,804,384	1,205,686
2023 .....	1,904,635	1,248,378

  

Number of Awards

2009 .....985,940
2010 .....1,052,551
2011 .....1,025,003
2012 .....979,973
2013 .....884,894
2014 .....810,973
2015 .....775,739
2016 .....744,268
2017 .....762,141
2018 .....733,879
2019 ....723,858
2020 .....648,121
2021 .....571,952
2022 .....543,445
2023 .....561,585

 

DeSantis Alleges "Massive" Social Security Disability Fraud

     From Florida Politics:

[Florida Governor] Ron DeSantis is sympathetic to people determined to be disabled by the Social Security Administration, but he’s not accepting all claims at face value.

“Either you’re disabled or you’re not,” DeSantis said Sunday in Iowa [where he was campaigning for President]. ...

“There are some people that will kind of fake being disabled then work and then they should, you know, whatever. But I do think that if somebody has a disability and it prevents them from reaching their full potential and they’re eligible fine. But if, then they can do some type of employment that could supplement, you know, I don’t think that that would be a bad thing and I think that’s a good incentive.’ ...

“Now there’s a lot of fraud in the program and I think that’s been a huge issue,” DeSantis said, calling the problem “just massive.”  ...

 

CPBB Chart Book Updated

     The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has issued an updated version of its Chart Book: Social Security Disability Insurance. Here are three charts from the book. As always click on an image to view full size: