Waiting Period For Social Security Disability Leads To Bankruptcy For Mother Of Gold Medalist

     From the Associated Press:

Court records show that the mother of Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas [who won the gold medal for women's all around gymnastics] filed for bankruptcy earlier this year in Virginia. ...

Documents filed in January in the Eastern District of Virginia show Douglas' mother, Natalie Hawkins, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy ...

Hawkins is separated from her husband and lists about $2,500 in income a month, which comes from Social Security disability benefits and child support, according to the documents.

Natalie Hawkins went on long-term medical disability in 2009, and there were six months when the single mother of four had little to no income. In addition to mortgage payments for her home, there were expenses for Douglas' training and her other three children.

     Where would you be if you had no income for six months?

Read Whmorhere: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/08/05/2247264/gymnast-gabby-douglas-mom-filed.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/08/05/2247264/gymnast-gabby-douglas-mom-filed.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpyNatalie Hawkins went on long-term medical disability in 2009, and there were six months when the single mother of four had little to no income.

Reamore here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/08/05/2247264/gymnast-gabby-douglas-mom-filed.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Readmore here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/08/05/2247264/gymnast-gabby-douglas-mom-filed.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/08/05/2247264/gymnast-gabby-douglas-mom-filed.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Another Pointless Attack On Social Security

     From the Associated Press:

People retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It's a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. ...

"For the early generations, it was an incredibly good deal," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy Social Security commissioner who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "The government gave you free money and getting free money is popular."

If you retired in 1960, you could expect to get back seven times more in benefits than you paid in Social Security taxes, and more if you were a low-income worker, as long you made it to age 78 for men and 81 for women. ...

A married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

     This "study" is misleading since it ignores the value of Social Security disability, survivors and dependent benefits. A person who remains healthy to retirement age and has a spouse who has earned wages at about the same rate never uses any of these benefits but a person who buys homeowners insurance receives nothing tangible from the insurance until they suffer some calamity such as their home burning down. That does not mean that homeowners insurance is useless. The study stacks the deck against Social Security by assuming that the married couple had similar incomes. If one spouse had a significantly higher income there would be dependent benefits which would change the equation dramatically. The equation would also be changed dramatically if the couple had a child who became disabled before age 22 or if they had to adopt one of their grandchildren. By the way, I can't find this study at the Urban Institute website.

     The best answer to this attack is to point out that the public just isn't buying it. See this survey issued in July 2012 by the Hofstra University  Center for Suburban Studies:

     So continue the attacks on Social Security, Republicans.The attacks play well on Fox News, so they must be good politics, right?

Slowdown In Payment Of Benefits

     Social Security has posted updated numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants. These fees come out of the back benefits of the claimants involved. If the money weren't going to the attorney, it would be going to the claimant. Since the attorneys are paid at the same time as the claimant, these numbers show how quickly or slowly Social Security was able to pay benefits after a decision approving benefits. There was a dramatic slowdown in July. This means that it was taking longer for a claimant to be paid after approval. Why? Lack of overtime? Other priorities?

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-12	29,926	89,749,312.99
Feb-12	43,946	134,207,416.10
Mar-12	47,376	139,571,577.57
Apr-12	38,239	113,225,483.07
May-12	37,648	112,446,283.39
June-12	43,816	128,559,225.66
July-12	33,342	97,458,955.82

Two Diverse Documents

     Over the years, hell, decades, I have accumulated a collection of documents pertaining to Social Security. From time to time I notice one that might be of interest to other people. Here are a couple of very different documents that I have uploaded to Scribd.

• An American Medical Association Ethics Opinion stating that it is unethical to withhold medical records for non-payment of medical bills. Note that this PDF starts out as if it just applies to North Carolina but keep going. It's national. This issue comes up from time to time in representing Social Security disability claimants.
• The Comptroller General's 1981 report that provided justification for throwing hundreds of thousands of people off Social Security disability benefits. I heard rumors at the time that some person or persons at Social Security angled to get the Comptroller General to write this report  Regardless, this document was a major factor leading to policies and practices that created the biggest crisis that Social Security has ever faced.

A Possibility For Social Security?

     The Department of Justice has announced openings for Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys. The job involves "researching legal issues, drafting briefs, conducting hearings and trials and attending judicial proceedings."According to the announcement "only applicants with outstanding academic records and superior legal research and writing skills will be considered." There's just one little problem with the job.There is no pay. That's one way of dealing with a lack of adequate funding. Of course, this only works when there is a ridiculous oversupply of newly minted attorneys unable to find employment which is what we have at the moment. Would it work at Social Security?

NOSSCR Issues Press Release

     The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has issued a press release announcing that it is "launching a campaign to fight back against misleading allegations being made about the SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] program..." I mention this not because the press release itself has much importance but because as far as I know this is the first press release that NOSSCR has ever released. This means that NOSSCR now has a public relations firm and is ready to fight back against the lies and misrepresentations being spread about the Social Security disability programs.

Op Ed Piece In The Hill

     Charles Martin and Debra Shifrin, attorneys who represent Social Security disability claimants, have an op ed piece in The Hill (as in Capitol Hill), a D.C. newspaper for those working on Capitol Hill. The op ed piece is directed at the lies and misrepresentations being spread about the Social Security disability programs.

     Churchhill said that "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." I'm afraid that we're facing this reality when it comes to the Social Security disability programs. 

     I wish I had a better idea of what group or groups are behind this campaign of lies and distortions and exactly what their motivations are. This isn't organic. It's not happening spontaneously. It's organized.

Is This Right?

     This is from a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] administrative finality rules permit it to continue paying incorrect payment amounts to some beneficiaries and recipients. During our prior and current reviews, we determined that SSA did not correct beneficiary and recipients’ payment amounts when it invoked administrative finality. For example, we identified a beneficiary receiving a full retirement benefit under her own SSN [Social Security Number] and another full benefit under her deceased spouse’s SSN that resulted in an $870 monthly overpayment. The overpayments started in July 1982 and created a total overpayment of approximately $215,000. Since our 2007 recommendation to revise its administrative finality rules, SSA has paid this beneficiary approximately an additional $40,000.10

We identified another beneficiary receiving a full retirement benefit under her own SSN and a full benefit under her deceased spouse’s SSN that resulted in a $373 monthly overpayment. The overpayments started in June 1988 and created a total overpayment of approximately $85,000. SSA had paid this beneficiary approximately $16,000 since our 2007 recommendation. Because of SSA’s administrative finality rules, it will not reopen these cases and these overpayments will continue increasing throughout the beneficiaries’ lifetimes. In addition, SSA does not pursue recovery of these types of improper payments.

      Is this an accurate statement of Social Security's position? I haven't seen one lately but I've certainly seen cases in past years where Social Security changed current benefits and declared large overpayments in this type of case.
     Really, OIG should not be pressuring Social Security on the overpayment part of this kind of case. There's a very good argument that it's against equity and good conscience to try to collect an overpayment when the mistake was clearly made by the agency, could not have reasonably been caught by the beneficiary but should have been caught by the agency's data systems. "Against equity and good conscience" is enough under the statute to get an overpayment waived.