$250 Economic Stimulus Payment Questions And Answers

Here are some questions and answers that I have prepared about the $250 stimulus payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA):

• Who is eligible? Anyone who was entitled to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or to any of the following Social Security benefits at any time during the period November 2008 to January 2009: retirement, wife's and husband's, disabled adult child (but not other child's benefits), widow's and widower's, mother's or fathers', parent's, disability insurance benefits, special age 72 benefits. Note that my answer relates only to eligibility based upon Social Security entitlement. There is also eligibility based upon receiving VA or Railroad Retirement benefits.
• Update: Are children eligible for $250 payments? I thought that I had already made this clear, but I keep getting questions about it, so let me be very specific. Children only qualify if they are on SSI or if they are receiving disabled adult child benefits. Only children who are receiving benefits because they are disabled are eligible for the $250 payments. Generally, children do not qualify for the $250 payments.
• Update: Do I have to do something to get the $250 payment? No. It is supposed to come automatically.
  
• Does the payment to Social Security beneficiaries come out of the Social Security trust funds? No. The Act says that these payments come out of appropriated funds.
  
• Will the payments be made to people living outside the U.S.? No. The Act limits it to those whose listed residence is in the U.S. or a U.S. territory.
• Will I be taxed on this income? Not by the federal government.
• Can my $250 payment be seized for payment of my debts? Generally no, but it could be seized for a federal tax debt or a child support obligation to the same extent that Social Security benefits could be seized. I think it could be seized for a debt owed the Social Security Administration or for another federal debt, such as a student loan, but I would have to study it more to be certain.
  
• Will an individual who is entitled to two benefits, such as Social Security and SSI, get two checks for $250? No, but avoiding this will be a challenge for the computer systems at Social Security and the other agencies involved. Mistakes, even a lot of them, would not surprise me. The databases were not set up with the idea of administering this program.
  
• Can more than one $250 payment be made on a Social Security number? Yes.
• Can more than one $250 payment be made to a household? Yes.
  
• When will the checks or direct deposits be issued? As soon as the Treasury can do it, but no later than 120 days after enactment. If President Obama signs the bill on Tuesday, February 17 as planned, the deadline for payment would be June 17. Update: Social Security hopes to get the payments out by late May.
  
• I am applying for benefits for the time period November 2008 to January 2009 but I have not yet gotten the benefits yet. Once I get approved for these benefits, do I get the $250 payment? Yes, but there is a time limit on this. No payment can be made after December 31, 2010.
• I am on SSI. Does the $250 count as income which would reduce my SSI benefits? No and it will not affect your Medicaid or Food Stamps or other federally funded needs based benefits either.
• I am an attorney who represents Social Security claimants. My fee is one-quarter of my clients' back benefits. Some of them will receive a $250 payment as back benefits. Will I receive a quarter of the $250 payment? Probably not. Update: I had earlier thought that the problem of claimants dying before receiving payment was an argument in favor of these payments being treated as a Social Security benefit subject to attorney fee withholding, since the Social Security Act has rules which are convenient to the agency on how payments to decedents are handled, but this Act actually forbids payment to those who die before receiving payment. That does not completely solve the problem of people dying before receiving their money but it does greatly limit the problem -- and Social Security may be able to offload the remaining problem to the Department of the Treasury anyway. Probably, they will not treat these benefits as being subject to attorney fee withholding since the Social Security Act limits withholding to benefits paid under the Social Security Act. 42 USC §406(a)(4). The ARRA does not amend the Social Security Act, so the benefit payments are not made under the Social Security Act. It may be easy for Social Security's Office of General Counsel to say this, but it may be considerably more difficult for Social Security's payment centers to implement it in this way.
  
• Will computing and authorizing these payments and dealing with questions from the public relating to them cause problems for an understaffed Social Security Administration? My guess, or perhaps hope, is that this will not be too hard for Social Security. The Act is fairly simple and Social Security is getting a $90 million appropriation for administering it. The holdup might be Social Security's computer system. They did do something like this last year without much of a problem, but this is still going to be a challenge. Avoiding double payments may be the hardest part and that problem goes beyond Social Security, since the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Railroad Retirement Board are also involved.
  

An Extra $90 Million!

I had missed it. There is an extra $90 million appropriation for the Social Security in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (page 392) on top of the $1 billion that I had already posted about. The $90 million is for the costs of administering the $250 economic stimulus payments to Social Security beneficiaries. I doubt that the Social Security Administration could say with any confidence what it is going to cost them to administer this, but my gut tells me that $90 million is a very generous amount to give Social Security for administering these payments.

"Looting" Social Security

William Greider of The Nation has posted a piece claiming that President Obama is planning to "loot" Social Security or maybe he thinks that Obama will just get hoodwinked into "looting" Social Security. It is a hard to tell what he thinks.

What I think is that the piece is beyond alarmist and may be all the way to paranoid. Of course, those on the right provide a counterpoint by claiming that a Social Security catastrophe is at hand and the only way to save Social Security is to destroy Social Security as we have known it.

"Reforming" Social Security

From Dean Baker at TPM Cafe:

Word has it that President Obama intends to appoint a task force the week after next which will be charged with "reforming" Social Security. According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which is giving the country its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression. ...

My guess is that this task force will not be very popular except at the Washington Post [which it might surprise you to know has become a right leaning newspaper] and on Wall Street.

Social Security Seeks Case Management System

Social Security has posted this notice at the FedBizOpps website:

The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is to gain knowledge of potential qualified sources (i.e., vendor, government, commercial, etc.) that can provide a case management system to support disability case processing for the Social Security Administration (SSA). This Sources Sought Notice is not a request for proposal and in no way obligates SSA to award a contract. This Sources Sought Notice contains the currently available information. SSA requires a case management system and technical consulting services to implement the system.

Social Security has a number of specifications for the system it seeks.

Update. Lots of vendors are expressing interest in this contract.

Commissioner Makes Ethics Pledge

A press release from Social Security:

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced that he has voluntarily signed President Obama’s Ethics Pledge, an action required only of new political appointees in this Administration. Commissioner Astrue was confirmed by the Senate in 2007 for a six-year term.

“I gladly signed President Obama’s Ethics Pledge because I strongly support the President’s view that we serve only the interests of the American people. As the President has stated, ‘The American people deserve more than simply an assurance that those who are coming to Washington will serve their interests. They also deserve to know that there are rules on the books to keep it that way. They deserve a government that is truly of, by and for the people.’”

To view a signed copy of the pledge, click here.

New Rulings On Childhood Disability

On Tuesday, the Federal Register will contain six new Social Security Rulings on evaluating the disability claims of children, but the new rulings are available today.

• SSR 09-1p Determining Childhood Disability Under the Functional Equivalence Rule – The “Whole Child” Approach
• SSR 09-3pDetermining Childhood Disability - The Functional Equivalence Domain of "Acquiring and Using Information"
• SSR 09-5p Determining Childhood Disability - The Functional Equivalence Domain of "Interacting and Relating with Others"
• SSR 09-6p Determining Childhood Disability - The Functional Equivalence Domain of "Moving About and Manipulating Objects"
• SSR 09-7p Determining Childhood Disability - The Functional Equivalence Domain of "Caring for Yourself"
• SSR 09-8p Determining Childhood Disability - The Functional Equivalence Domain of "Health and Physical Well-Being"

I have no idea why there are no Rulings numbered two or four.

$1 Billion For Social Security

The text of the economic stimulus bill (page 178) that is nearly certain to be adopted today is finally available. The part that is relevant to Social Security is below. Many thanks to the White House, Congress and everyone who lobbied for this. We have a long way to go, but this is a great start on cleaning up the mess at Social Security.

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION LIMITATION ON ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES(INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)

For an additional amount for "Limitation on Administrative Expenses", $1,000,000,000 shall be available as follows:

1) $500,000,000 shall remain available until expended for necessary expenses of the replacement of the National Computer Center and the information technology costs associated with such Center: Provided, That the Commissioner of Social Security shall notify the Committees on Appropriations of' the House of Representatives and the Senate not later than 10 days prior to each public notice soliciting bids related to site selection and construction and prior to the lease or purchase of such site: Provided further, that the construction plan and site selection for such center shall be subject to review and approval by the Office of Management and Budget: Provided further, That such center shall continue to be a government-operated facility; and

(2) $500,000,000' for processing disability and retirement workloads, including information technology acquisitions and research in support of such activities: Provided, That up to $40,000,000 may be used by the Commissioner of Social Security for health information technology research and activities to facilitate the adoption of electronic medical records in disability claims, including the transfer of funds to "Supplemental Security Income Program" to carry out activities under section 1110 of the Social Security Act.

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL

For an additional amount for the "Office of Inspector General", $2,000,000, which shall remain available through September 30, 2012, salaries and expenses necessary for oversight and audit of programs, projects, and activities funded in this Act

Hearing Processing Time Report

Above are thumbnails of the most recent report on average processing times at Social Security's hearing offices. Click on each one to view it full size.

I have one reader who keeps asking me to post these. Please note that I obtain these from the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) newsletter. NOSSCR obtains the reports from Social Security. The newsletter containing this report arrived at my office by e-mail at 11:58 last night and I am posting it at about 9:45 this morning. There is no point asking that I post these earlier since I cannot post something I do not have. You might get them a few hours faster if you joined NOSSCR or subscribed to its newsletter if you do not qualify to join, but that is the only way you will get them faster unless your job gives you direct access to them.

Here is how the national processing times have changed over time:

• January 25, 2007 -- 508 days
• May 25, 2007 -- 523 days
• July 28, 2007 -- 528 days
• August 31, 2007 -- 523 days
• November 30, 2007 -- 500 days
• February 29, 2008 -- 511 days
• May 30, 2008 -- 523 days
• June 27, 2008 -- 529 days
• July 31, 2008 -- 530 days
  
• September 3, 2008 -- 532 days
• November 5, 2008 -- 476 days
  
• December 3, 2008 -- 480 days
• December 31, 2008 -- 480 days
  

$1 Billion For Social Security In Stimulus Bill?

A draft summary of the Conference Report on the economic stimulus bill circulating among Democrats shows $1 billion for Social Security, with it being equally split between the national computer center and the Limitation on Administrative Expenditures or LAE (which is the technical name for Social Security's operating budget), but is is unclear how that could be spent.