Proposal Under Consideration Would Increase Grid Rules By Five Years

     The Wall Street Journal article on the plan to alter Social Security’s grid regulations used in determining disability is now available outside the paywall. Here are some excerpts:

... “Evidence shows that in the modern economy the vocational impacts of age, education and work experience are markedly different from what they were when we published the current vocational regulations,” according to the text dated Oct. 18. ... 

The proposed rule ... would no longer assume age seriously affects a person’s ability to adapt to simple, entry-level work. It would raise the age at which education and work experience are considered in determining eligibility to 55, from 50. The new rule would also update data on occupational skills that the agency uses to determine eligibility, based on new information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ... 

A person familiar with the proposal said it has been a top priority for some Social Security Administration officials, who have met at least twice a month with White House and OMB officials. While some of those officials have embraced potential changes to vocational factors, others were concerned the agency hasn’t yet provided enough data or analysis to support the rule change, the person said. ...

     When we heard of this idea before during the George W. Bush administration the rumor was of a three year increase in the age categories, not a five year increase. This new proposal seems in line with the maximalist instincts of the Trump Administration. 

Trump Plan To Make It Harder To Get Social Security Disability

     The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump Administration is working on a plan to make it harder to qualify for Social Security disability benefits, apparently by revising the grid regulations. The paper says it has seen a copy of the draft.

     You have to wonder who leaked this. Was it someone in the Trump Administration proud of the plan? The fact that this appeared in the Wall Street Journal suggests that. That's crazy since this is bound to be unpopular with far more people than it's popular with. It's also possible that this was leaked by an opponent who wants to make it clear what the stakes will be in this November's election although that seems unlikely. You have to wonder if this, like the assassination in Iraq, is an attempt to curry favor with an impeachment juror.

     In any case, there's virtually zero chance this will happen before the election. The provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act make that essentially impossible. Also, Social Security would have to allow publication of the new Occupational Information System it's been keeping under wraps. The agency's website suggests that's not imminent.

Initial And Recon Allowance Rates

     Social Security has posted numbers on the disability claim allowance rates in each state at the initial and reconsideration levels of review. Note the disparities. Click on each page to view full size.

Well-Meaning Advice Can Still Be Misleading

    Tom Margenau has written a syndicated column giving advice on dealing with Social Security. Mostly I agree with him but the column is an example of how something that is good advice for most people can be misleading for others.

     Margenau recounts complaints from Social Security employees about claimants who call in to file claims for widows benefits who haven't bothered to find their husband's Social Security number (SSN) before calling. He says to find it before calling. Great advice for most people but what if you can't find that number? What if you were separated and lack access to any of your late spouse's records? What if you're divorced but were married long enough to get surviving divorced spouse benefits? Are you barred from filing a claim since you lack the SSN? No, you can still file the claim. Social Security can look up the SSN. It's certainly better to save their time by finding the SSN if you can but if you can't Social Security is still prepared to help you file the claim. Margenau goes on to recommend that claimants have not only the SSN but also date of birth, date of marriage, date of divorce  and date of death. I'm pretty sure that while it would be best to have this information that it's not strictly speaking necessary.

     You have to understand that I'm constantly dealing with clients who have already procrastinated for months if not years before filing a Social Security disability claim. Often the reason given for the procrastination is that they were trying to get their information together to file a claim. The claimants often wait to reach out for help from someone like me until they're destitute. That's irrational but people who become disabled often act quite irrationally. Mental illness causes this irrationality but just the dislocation coming from what is often an abrupt change in one's life brings about mental confusion. I wish I had had the opportunity to insist that claimants get on with it before the wolf gets to the door. Dealing with desperate clients who are facing homelessness is wearing. You want to do something for them immediately but while Social Security can expedite adjudication in cases of homelessness or threatened homelessness, it still takes months for a case to proceed through the process. Please, don't encourage procrastination in filing Social Security claims.

A Little Help Needed

     From WSAV:

78-year-old Sheila Conary says it’s been a long seven months in terms of her finances. It started in June of 2019 when she was told by her bank (Wells Fargo) that her account was short.

“I noticed I was getting insufficient funds in my checking account and I thought that can’t be because I’ve got money in there,” Conary told me.

But she was wrong. Four Social Security checks for the months of February, March, April and May had not been electronically deposited as normal. After going to the local Social Security Administration office she was shocked by the information they provided.

“When I went to Social Security they said they couldn’t help me,” said Conary. “They told me I should go to the Bank of America and said my funds had been diverted to an account there, that the change had been set up online by me. I said ‘no I never did that’ and told me I don’t have a Bank of America account.”

She now knows that someone somehow was able to go online to Social Security and change her deposit information. ...

She says seven months later, part of the situation has been resolved, i.e. that as of June her checks went back to her own Wells Fargo account.

“But I’m still missing February, March, April and May (checks) so over $8,000 is still sitting in Bank of America under some account that I didn’t open,” Conary says. ...

     Yes, she should have noticed it earlier but Social Security should have been far more helpful. Why was she initially told Social Security couldn't help her? Why hasn't her money been restored? No, Social Security doesn't have to recover the money before making Ms. Conary whole. This wasn't her fault. Her situation isn't rare. It's happened many thousands of times across the country.

Was Social Security Actually Issuing Decisions On Christmas Day?

     My firm has gotten two or three decisions supposedly issued by Social Security on December 25, 2019. I'd call that a dead giveaway that the dates that the agency puts on decisions are at best an approximation of the date they're actually mailed. I don't think anyone but a few security guards and computer people were working at Social Security that day and no one could have mailed a decision because the mail doesn't run on Christmas day. 

     I think this has to do with centralized printing and mailing. My guess is that the people actually making the decisions just put artificial dates on them assuming they'll be printed and mailed within, let's say, three days after they're ready to go out. Maybe the system does this automatically. Sometimes the printing and mailing people get it out on that date. Sometimes they get it out earlier; sometimes later. Who cares? Claimants have a fixed length of time to file appeals based upon when a decision is mailed. When it comes to appeal rights Social Security takes the dates on its decisions quite literally when it shouldn't

     Why is it that centralized printing and mailing is a good thing anyway?

Why Would An ALJ Do This?

     Why would an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issue a recommended decision instead of just a decision, as is normal, when there is no basis in Social Security's manual for issuing a recommended decision. The manual says to not do this but I hear that it's not unusual for a few ALJs to do this. What is their thought process? Literally asking for a friend. It's not my case.

"We Don’t Need Fewer Entitlements For The American Middle Class. We Need More."

     From Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard, former Treasury Secretary and former economic advisor to President Obama, writing for the Washington Post:

Few economic virtues are more universally applauded than thrift.

Going back at least to Ben Franklin, Americans have equated greater thriftiness with greater worthiness. Progressives decry the limited saving and wealth accumulation of middle-income families ... Conservatives applaud thrift as an aspect of self-reliance and propose ideas such as health-savings accounts to help families prepare for emergencies. Moderates believe universal social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which they label as entitlements, should be modest or even curtailed out of fiscal prudence.

In the current economic context of extremely low interest rates, however, these views are more wrong than right. The federal government should provide more, not less, social insurance. If it did, the result would be reduced inequality, a more secure middle class and a stronger economy.

The real challenges that keep middle-class families up at night are retirement, economic dislocation and supporting their children as they go to college and then buy a first home. These ... are not best met by personal saving. Rather, a generous and well-functioning society in which Social Security meets retirement needs, appropriate unemployment and wage insurance programs cushion economic shocks, adequate public funding holds down college costs, and health insurance has generous coverage would greatly reduce the need for most households to save.

It is highly inefficient to rely on individual saving rather than universal public programs to deal with life’s contingencies. Social Security, for example, pays out close to 99 percent of the revenue it collects in benefits. In contrast, individuals saving for retirement or the proverbial rainy day can over a lifetime dissipate as much as 20 percent of their savings in commission payments to financial institutions. Similar, and probably greater, efficiencies are associated with government provision of other forms of insurance.

There is the further point that self-reliance is an especially implausible way to deal with catastrophes such as disability or the loss of a good-paying job without the availability of an alternative. Genuinely preparing for such contingencies would involve building up a large nest egg at a substantial cost in terms of current consumption. Meanwhile, the feared contingencies never arise for most people. That’s why pooling risk through insurance is the best strategy. ...

We don’t need fewer entitlements for the American middle class. We need more.