I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
— Judge Learned Hand
From a Request for Information posted today by Social Security in the Federal Register:
... This request for information (RFI) seeks public input to inform how Federal agencies can support broader State and local efforts to improve the outcomes of children in the child welfare system who are eligible for Federal benefits. The input we receive will inform our deliberations about potential policy changes. ...
Application
• For children who have contact with the child welfare system but who are not in foster care, what opportunities or challenges exist for child welfare agencies to assist with screening children for SSA benefit eligibility and applying for benefits?
• What opportunities or challenges exist for child welfare agencies to apply for SSA benefits on behalf of children in foster care or living away from their parents with other caregivers? Are there differences depending on whether the child or their family are eligible for other public benefits, such as preventative child welfare services, TANF, SNAP, or title IV–E foster care payments?
SSA Benefit Use and Conservation
• Current SSA rules allow payees, including child welfare agencies, who serve children in foster care to use SSA benefits to pay for the child’s current needs, including the cost of monthly foster care maintenance payments. Payees must conserve SSA benefits for future use only after meeting all of the child’s current and foreseeable needs. How effectively do these rules contribute to the ability of child welfare agencies to serve children in foster care? Are there differences depending on whether the child receives Social Security benefits or SSI payments?• Please describe if it would be beneficial to offer additional guidance or clarification related to when Social Security benefits or SSI payments must be conserved by payees, including, as applicable, child welfare agencies, or expand on what kinds of factors should be considered in a conservation decision.
• For child welfare agencies that serve as payees for children in foster care, how do you make decisions about the use and conservation of the children’s SSA benefits? What do you do with SSA benefits that are not used as part of the monthly foster care
maintenance payment?• For child welfare agencies that serve as payees for children in foster care, a child may be eligible to receive benefits from various sources, including Federal, State, and local. What are the benefits in using SSA benefits before or after other sources of funding to cover the costs of the child’s foster care maintenance?
• For child welfare agencies, if you were required to conserve SSA benefits on behalf of eligible children in foster care, would that affect the agency’s decision about whether to screen or apply for SSA benefits on behalf of a child?
• What would be the implications or challenges if child welfare agencies are restricted from using SSA benefits for foster care maintenance and required to conserve SSA benefits?
• For child welfare agencies that serve as payees for children in foster care, do you conserve any amount of the children’s SSA benefits for future use? If not, why not? If you do, how do you determine how much to conserve? Do you hold the funds, such as in a savings account or a trust account? Do you use Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts or special needs trusts to conserve funds? What are the benefits of and impediments to using ABLE accounts or special needs trusts? Does the decision on whether to conserve benefits depend on the type of benefit provided to the child (e.g., Social Security, SSI, foster care maintenance payments, etc.)?
• For current and former foster youth, what current needs would be met if you had access to your conserved SSA benefits? Are there examples of current needs that are not commonly met by the monthly foster care maintenance payments? If so, which needs?
General
• Are there other aspects of HHS’s or SSA’s programs where guidance, technical assistance, or information can be offered or improved to better support children in foster care or otherwise in contact with the child welfare system. ...
From The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability:
... Social Security Disability (SSD) program beneficiaries, like other consumers, have been negatively affected by inflation over the past several years. In a survey from June of 2023, more than half (59 percent) of SSD program beneficiaries reported higher prices for the disability-related goods and services they need to purchase, and more than one-quarter reported reducing food spending to cover disability-related costs, Zachary Morris and Stephanie Rennane found in Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of Disability Program Beneficiaries (NBER RDRC Paper NB23-08).
Using new survey data, the researchers found that 82 percent of beneficiaries reported out-of-pocket expenses related to their disability, with average annual spending of $4,412 and median spending of $384 as of June 2023. Fifty-nine percent of beneficiaries reported higher spending on disability-related goods and services compared to two years earlier. In response to these rising costs, 25 percent of beneficiaries indicated they went into debt; 43 percent found recent COLA adjustments insufficient to maintain their standard of living. ...
The title of this New York Post article says it all: Twisted son left dad’s corpse in backyard freezer for years — so he could keep cashing his Social Security check.
You might think this is such a bizarre story that it must be without precedent. No, this happens semi-regularly at Social Security. As I've posted before, they've even made a movie about one such case -- Bernie.
From Effects Of Suspending In-Person Services At Social Security Administration Field Offices On Disability Applications And Allowances by Monica Farid, Michael T. Anderson, Gina Freeman, and Christopher Earles, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:
In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications ...
The paper found that:
There were systematic differences in the characteristics of applicants by mode of application. In-person applicants were older, less likely to have completed high school, and less likely to speak English compared to phone or online applicants.
The suspension caused a 6-percent decrease in the volume of applications, implying that not everyone who wanted to apply in-person was able to apply using other modes. The effect was larger for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications compared to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) applications.
The suspension of in-person services caused some would-be in-person applicants to apply by phone, but it did not cause an increase in the volume of online applications.
We did not find evidence that the suspension disproportionately affected groups of applicants defined by educational attainment, age, or English-speaking status.
Our estimates imply that in-person service suspensions explain more than 50 percent of the decline in SSI and DI applications during the pandemic. ...
