Disability Discharges Of Federal Student Loan Debt Made Less Difficult

     Federal student loans may be collected out of Social Security benefits. However, federal student loan debtors can qualify for a "total and permanent disability" discharge of their debts. An increasing number of Social Security disability recipients have student loan debts collected out of their benefits. A new Department of Education website now includes information on how to get a "total and permanent disability" discharge of federal student loan debt and there's an online application. Until recently, the Department of Education didn't even have a paper form specifically for applications for "total and permanent disability" discharge!

     I still say that the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration should do a data match and the Department of Education should summarily discharge student loan debts for Social Security disability recipients whom Social Security puts in the category "Medical Improvement Not Expected" which the Department of Education accepts as being "total and permanent disability." When this can be done automatically, why put everyone, including the agency, through the trouble of an application process?

Americans Favor Many Options For Increasing Social Security Benefits

     From a survey conducted by Greenwald and Associates for the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) in June 2014:

Triple Dippers?

     Apparently at the request of Republican Senator Tom Coburn, the Government Accountability Office has done a study of the concurrent receipt of Social Security disability benefits, Veterans benefits and military retirement. Here is an excerpt:

Out of the 1.9 million DOD [Department of Defense] nondisability and disability retirees, we identified 59,251 individuals who received concurrent payments in fiscal year 2013 from DOD retirement, VA disability compensation, and SSDI.  The payments totaled over $3.5 billion.  From our population of individuals receiving concurrent payments, we also selected a random sample of seven individuals to provide illustrative examples.  These seven examples individually received from $19,210 to $152,719 in concurrent benefits.

It's An Old Story But Worth Repeating

Not A Good Idea

     From WKMG:

Someone got into the Halloween spirit at work, but it's not a co-worker's treat. An employee at the Social Security Administration office in Lake Mary said she's offended by decorations that transformed a cubicle into a fake Ebola hospital ward.

Happy Halloween

Many People Don't Know About Social Security Disability Benefits; Varied Opinions On Benefit Rates

          From a survey conducted by Greenwald and Associates for the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) in June 2014:

"More SSA Crazy"

     Here's an e-mail I received recently from a member of my staff, labeled "More SSA Crazy.": "Prospect [prospective client] called the DO [District Office] to set up an appt to file a SSI claim. Whoever he talked with denied him an appt to file b/c[because] he did not have a doctor." 

     No, that's definitely not Social Security policy and, yes, that person at the District Office wasn't trained that way.  This isn't at all typical but this sort of off the wall thing does happen. 

     We'll get it sorted out.