Few People Cut Off Disability Benefits Can Work Enough To Support Themselves

     From Outcomes Following Termination of Social Security Disability Insurance by Michael T. Anderson, Monica Farid, Serge Lukashanets, Denise Hoffman and Kai Filion:

...  The paper found the following:

• Among people whose benefits terminated due to medical improvement from 2005 to 2014, 16 percent of former DI-only beneficiaries and 14 percent of former concurrent beneficiaries returned to DI within five years.
• Among people whose benefits terminated due to work from 2005 to 2014, 32 percent of former DI-only beneficiaries and 50 percent of former concurrent beneficiaries returned to DI within five years.
• Fewer than half of former beneficiaries whose benefits terminated due to medical improvement had average post-termination earnings above the poverty threshold. Those whose benefits terminated due to work were more likely to have post-termination earnings above the poverty threshold than those whose termination was due to medical improvement.
• Age and certain diagnoses were strongly associated with earnings below the poverty threshold and return to disability entitlement, especially schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and intellectual disabilities. ...

    I think the attitude of many people can be summarized as "It's easy to get on Social Security disability. Except for the 'truly disabled' those drawing benefits are mostly lazy or just wusses who don't have the courage to overcome their disabilities and work. I'd never let that happen to me."  That's the attitude among many of my clients who are themselves trying to get on Social Security disability benefits. Of course, they know themselves to be "truly disabled" without realizing that prior to becoming disabled they would have naively judged someone with their health problems to not be "truly disabled" because they didn't look sick enough. Often my clients have unrealistic expectations of their own ability to recover or overcome their disabilities and delay filing claims for disability benefits for years, until they become destitute, and then feel guilty about going ahead with a disability claim when they finally do.

    This study demonstrates that it's damned difficult to get on Social Security benefits. Those who do should be recognized as "truly disabled." It should be acknowledged that they have little hope of ever again supporting themselves with work. However, we see proposal after proposal that purport to demonstrate a path for getting disability benefits recipients can be returned to work.

CRS On Jarkesy Case

     The Congressional Research Service has a piece out on the implications of the decision of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Jarkesy v. SEC, holding that removal protections for SEC Administrative Law Judges are unconstitutional. Supposedly, there are high constitutional principles at stake in cases such as this but it's mostly people trying to avoid punishment for securities violations. Also, there's basic right wing nihilism that equates thwarting administrative agencies with protecting freedom. Nevertheless, this could certainly affect Social Security.

WEP Reform Still Possible?

     From Roll Call:

Key lawmakers are eyeing a possible year-end tax package as their best shot at offering a fix for a Social Security provision that many on Capitol Hill believe unfairly cuts benefits for public employees who also have government pensions.

The issue was thrust into the spotlight after bipartisan supporters of legislation to permanently boost Social Security payouts by hundreds of dollars a month for nearly 3 million individuals were on the cusp of forcing their bill to the House floor using a special procedural tool.

But House Ways and Means Committee leaders who have been working on their own less expansive compromise plan, one they believe has a better chance of becoming law, turned off the procedural gambit by instead marking the bill up on Sept. 20.

The House’s top tax writers believe they’re close to agreement on addressing the “windfall elimination provision,” which lowers Social Security payouts for individuals who qualify for pensions from their work as teachers, police officers, government employees and other public sector jobs and for Social Security benefits from separate employment. ...

Senators Complain About Late Trustees Reports

From a press release: 

U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Senate Finance Committee Republicans sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting the agency monitor the Managing Trustee’s flagrant disregard for statutory deadlines.  Required by law, the Medicare and Social Security Trustees reports are to be issued no later than April 1, yet the 2021 and 2022 reports were issued August 31 and June 2, respectively.  ...  

The Biden Administration has repeatedly ignored Congressional inquiries as to why the trustees reports have not been submitted in a timely manner.  Neither Treasury Secretary Yellen nor the Board of Trustees have signaled any intent to modify internal procedure regulating management of the report schedule, nor have they adopted previous GAO recommendations to improve communication with Congress.  It is the responsibility of the Treasury Secretary to provide these reports to Congress in a timely manner, as required by law, or provide Congress and the American people with explanations for late work.  ...

    These delays are annoying but it's not like the Trustees Reports have arrived on time during Republican administrations. I suspect the delays have to do with staffing at Social Security's Office of Chief Actuary but I don't know. The delay certainly isn't a major problem.

WEP And GPO Elimination Bill Faces Obstacles

     From the Monroe (LA) News-Star:

A bill to eliminate the Social Security penalty for workers with government pensions and their spouses hit a snag in the U.S. House this week, forcing Louisiana U.S. Reps. Garret Graves and Julia Letlow into a last-ditch effort to keep it alive.

Graves and Letlow, both Republicans and co-authors of the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) by Illinois Democrat Rodney Davis, thought they'd secured enough support in August to force a vote on the House floor, but they blamed a procedural maneuver from Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for stalling the vote.

Davis, Graves and Letlow have scheduled a press conference Thursday morning to announce an effort to secure 218 colleagues' signatures on a petition to trigger a floor vote, but time is running out for the current Congress, which will likely meet only a handful of days before and after the mid-term elections.

"Only when we were on the cusp of forcing a floor vote did Democratic leadership take action to ... essentially bog it down in a backlog," Letlow, of Start, said during a House floor speech Wednesday. ...

Average Rent Is $1,500 A Month But SSI Is $750 A Month

     From NPR:

After two months of sleeping in the Salvation Army Center of Hope homeless shelter in Charlotte, N.C., Margaret Davis has had no luck finding an apartment she can afford. ...

Davis is homeless even though she receives funds from the Supplemental Security Income program ...

Davis' job options are limited because she gets dialysis treatment three times a week for kidney failure. As she prepares to spend another night in the crowded shelter, she checks her phone to see whether a doctor wants her to have her left leg amputated.

"My therapist is trying to help me stay positive, but sometimes I just want to end this life and start over," Davis says. ...

Falling into homelessness is not a new issue for people dependent on supplemental income from the Social Security Administration. But moving recipients out of shelters, crime-ridden motels and tent encampments and into stable housing has been getting harder, according to academic researchers, nonprofit attorneys and advocates for people with disabilities. ...

Rapidly rising rents and inflation deserve a share of the blame.

But SSI recipients, activists and others say the issue also underscores for them how the program itself locks millions of people into housing instability and deep poverty even as President Biden promises to fix it. ...

The amount of money Davis says she gets each month from the program is about $60 more than the maximum amount offered 10 years ago, when she first started receiving the benefit. Yet the average apartment in Charlotte, where Davis lives, now rents for $1,500 a month — about 70% more than it did nearly a decade ago, according to Zumper, which has been tracking rental prices since 2014. ...

If a person applies for federal disability income, they can wait months or even years to get benefits. ...

The situation was made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic because the Social Security Administration closed more than 1,200 field offices across the nation and kept them shuttered for roughly two years.

That decision left hundreds of thousands of needy people unable to seek benefits, since phone lines were jammed with calls and the agency provides no way to submit applications online, says David Weaver, a former associate commissioner for research, demonstration, and employment support at the Social Security Administration.

"The number of SSI awards just collapsed," Weaver says. ...

Field Office Waiting Room Now Full

     I went to an in person hearing yesterday. The Raleigh Hearing Office is now located in the same building as the Raleigh field office. I noticed something I hadn't seen before. The field office waiting room was full. Previously, they had kept the waiting room only one-half or one-third full. Masks are still required and, at least at the hearing office, there are plexiglass barriers in hearing rooms that make it hard to be heard.

Movement On GPO And WEP Or Maybe Not

      From Roll Call:

The House Ways and Means Committee will on Tuesday consider a widely backed bill that would scrap provisions under current law that shrink Social Security payouts for some beneficiaries with government pensions. 

The bill from Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., would get rid of two provisions that aim to prevent overly generous benefits for former public sector workers or their spouses who qualify for government pensions but may also be entitled to Social Security payments.

The “windfall elimination provision” limited Social Security for 2 million people who qualified for benefits and had a separate pension as of December 2021, according to a Congressional Research Service memo.

The “government pension offset” reduces benefits for a spouse or widow who has a government pension, aiming to replicate how Social Security paid to a spouse or widow is typically curtailed based on their own benefits under the program. That provision impacted almost 724,000 people as of December, the CRS said. …

While often a sign that legislation is advancing, Ways and Means’ decision to mark up the measure could instead slow it down. The bill has amassed 299 co-sponsors, giving it enough support for a motion to place it on the “consensus calendar” in mid-July.

The consensus calendar is a procedural tool for bringing bills to the floor, which is open to lawmakers with bipartisan bills that draw enough co-sponsors to reach at least two-thirds of House lawmakers. Twenty-five legislative days after Davis’ motion to put his bill on the consensus calendar, it would’ve been added and eligible for a speedier vote.

Committee consideration strips the bill from the process, so Ways and Means’ markup means Davis can no longer fast-track his measure to the floor without Democratic leaders’ consent.

Democrats have also said Ways and Means will consider a measure from Social Security Subcommittee Chair John B. Larson, D-Conn., but the panel has yet to mark up that bill, which has more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors. …