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Ticket To Work Proposed Regulations

The Social Security Administration has proposed revisions to its Ticket to Work regulations. Here is Social Security's summary of the proposal:

• So that the program will be more accessible to beneficiaries who require additional training to return to work, we propose to add requirements for educational or technical training to supplement the work requirements under the timely progress guidelines for beneficiaries;

• We propose to revise the work requirements under the timely progress guidelines and the documentation and other requirements for progress reviews to simplify and streamline the process for determining whether a beneficiary is making timely progress toward selfsupporting employment;

• We propose to eliminate the current ‘‘initial 24-month period’’ after ticket assignment during which a beneficiary is considered to be making timely progress if actively participating in his or her employment plan;

• We propose to replace this 24- month period with two successive 12- month progress certification periods during each of which the beneficiary must complete either a work requirement of an educational or technical training requirement in order to be considered to be making timely progress until the next scheduled progress review; and

• We propose to recognize one-stop delivery systems established under the program of the U.S. Department of Labor under subtitle B of title I of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 as qualified ENs.

An Image From 1965

Really Simple Scams Do Work

From television station WGRZ in Buffalo, NY:

A few days ago Lizzie Jones of Buffalo was visited by three men who claimed they were from the government.

Lizzie Jones, Buffalo Resident: "We're from Social Security and we want to make sure the people are getting their social security check."

Lizzie said she gave them personal information including her social security number because they showed her identification.

Lizie Jones: "He did it real fast. He did it so fast I couldn't see it really."

But Lizzie's grandson Avery was suspcious. After the men left he had his mom call Social Security.

Avery Hutchenson, Lizzie's Grandson: "They don't send anyone door to door and they did not send anyone in this area during that day."

SSAB Meeting Agenda

The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has issued the following agenda for its next meeting. It is nice to see them putting this out well before the meeting.

Social Security Advisory Board
Meeting Agenda
Friday, August 24, 2007

1:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Discussion with Technical Panel and the Trustees Working Group

Cert. Petition In Public Citizen Case

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) contained items that modified Social Security law, particularly in regard to the payment of back SSI benefits. The DRA has been controversial because it was not passed by the two houses of Congress in exactly the same form. The most prominent litigation on this has been Public Citizen v. Clerk, U.S. District Court.

The DRA has been upheld by the District Court, 451 F.Supp. 2d 109 (D.D.C. 2006) and the Court of Appeals, 486 F.3d 1342 (D.C. 2007). Public Citizen has now filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. Although this litigation has gotten short shrift so far, it is of basic constitutional importance and cert may well be granted.

Tamperproof Social Security Cards Proposed

This is the proposal that Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, says would require a doubling of his agency's staff, which means this Senator's costs estimates are off by an enormous factor. From the Associated Press:

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday he will introduce legislation to replace all paper Social Security cards with plastic biometric cards that can't be duplicated, so employers can be certain of the legal status of their workers. ...

Employers need a system they can rely on to determine the legal status of potential workers, so Graham said he plans to introduce a bill this fall to replace all Social Security cards over the next 10 years at a cost of $8 billion to $10 billion. The new cards would be tamperproof.

A Resurrection

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

SPOKANE -- Eight years after a judge declared him dead, the Social Security Administration says Judy Sullivan's husband is alive, and it wants back more than $90,000 in survivor's benefits she has received.

But Sullivan doesn't think the person who applied for a new Social Security card and a driver's license in an unspecified Eastern state is Jack Sullivan, her husband of 25 years who disappeared without a trace in 1991. ...

Social Security officials have not responded to her requests to prove the person is not an identity thief, Weiser said. ...

"I can tell you it's devastating because I don't know now. I just can't believe that my husband is alive," she said. "I just can't believe he would do something this way. It's not him. He's just not this kind of a person." ...

Meanwhile, the legal clinic [representing Mrs. Sullivan] has asked for a waiver of the benefits "overpayment" until the matter can be resolved. Allen Gilbert, an official of the agency's Spokane office, told The Spokesman-Review the chances of the waiver being approved are good because Sullivan applied for and received the benefit money in good faith.