Debt Limit Extension Bill Would Apply Food Stamps Work Requirements To Those Applying For Social Security Disability Benefits

    From Pamela Herd writing on Substack:

...  SNAP [commonly known as Food Stamps] is a critical safety valve for people trying to access Social Security Disability programs — for which delays in benefit receipt can extend into years. The expansion in work requirements for this age group [as part of the debt limit extension bill just agreed to by the President and the Speaker of the House] seems innocuous, but they are highly consequential. Even those who dislike work requirements don’t fully understand the ramifications. ...

But wait!  Aren’t disabled people excluded from the work requirements?

Yes, but this is where administrative burdens matter. In order to prove you are disabled, you must become eligible for Social Security Disability, either Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. But this process takes significant amounts of effort and time. ...

The net result is that it can take years to prove disability in order to access either SSDI or SSI, as well as now prove that you can’t meet the work requirements for SNAP. 

And the wait times have been steadily increasing. Between 2014 and 2022, average wait times rose from 106 days to 183 days. The average beneficiary now waits six months to access their benefit, and *prove* their disability.  ...

Hearing On Identity Fraud

     Last Wednesday the House Social Security Subcommittee held a hearing on the Social Security Administration's role in preventing identity fraud. Below in the witness lineup:

Mr. Sean Brune
Deputy Commissioner for Systems and Chief Information Officer, Social Security Administration
Witness Statement

Ms. Katie Wechsler
Co-Executive Director, Consumer First Coalition
Witness Statement

Ms. Margaret Hayward
Private citizen and mother of three
Witness Statement

Mr. Robert Roach
President, Alliance for Retired Americans
Witness Statement

Mr. Jeffrey Brown
Deputy Assistant Inspector General, Office of Audits, Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration
Witness Statement

Memorial Day 2023

 

U

NADE Newsletter

      The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of the personnel who make initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims, has issued its Spring 2023 newsletter. There’s information about a couple of meetings they’ve had with agency officials.

Good Luck Getting Anyone At Social Security To Answer The Phone Much Less Help You

      Elon Musk’s Social Security number was found among Tesla papers made public by a whistleblower.

Unhappy ALJs

      Some of Social Security’s Administrative Law Judges really don’t like that Washington Post piece on all the federal court remands of their decisions. Take a look at what they have to say.

Social Security Faring Poorly In Federal Court

     Lisa Rein at the Washington Post has written an article on how frequently Social Security loses when denied disability claimants appeal their cases to federal court. Here are a few snippets:

• In the last two fiscal years, federal judges considering appeals for denied benefits found fault with almost 6 in every 10 cases and sent them back to administrative law judges at Social Security for new hearings — the highest rate of rejections in years, agency statistics show. ... The scathing opinions have come from district and appellate court judges across the political spectrum, from conservatives appointed by President Ronald Reagan to liberal appointees of President Barack Obama.
• The high rate of rejections for cases handled by administrative law judges and the attorneys who write their decisions is driven by stringent monthly quotas set by Social Security officials and growing pressure to deny more cases, according to current and former officials, audits and attorneys who represent the disabled. The agency’s policies have been reshaped to give less deference to the expertise of doctors who, in some cases, have treated claimants for years, and its policies routinely depart from federal appellate court rulings. ... Social Security has stacked the cards against the approximately 2 million people each year who apply for help when they can no longer work.
• Social Security has also tilted the scales in recent years away from key medical evidence, critics say, in another sign of the shift toward granting fewer claims. While administrative law judges once based much of their decision on evidence from primary care doctors or psychiatrists who best understood their patients’ medical issues, that policy changed in 2017. Now judges are free to disregard the opinions of these treating physicians and rely heavily instead on contracted doctors who examine claimants for as little as 15 minute.
• Less weight is given to certain musculoskeletal conditions, for example. IQ tests that show mental impairments do not automatically grant benefits.

Numbers Please

      The common wisdom is that claimants receive the same decision whether their hearing is in person, over the telephone and by video but do we really know? We think we know that the rate at which claimants were approved did not decline, at least to a significant extent, when the pandemic began and the switch was made to telephone hearings but do we know this for sure? I don't recall ever seeing any numbers from the Social Security Administration. A 2% difference probably wouldn't be enough to be noticeable without numbers from a database but a 2% change is not insignificant for a claimant. For that matter, numbers from the beginning of the pandemic are not the same as numbers from the current environment in which claimants can choose the method, although maybe "choose" should be in quotes since many law firms and other representing claimants -- and not just national firms -- always advise phone or video, mainly because it's more convenient for them. I doubt that the differences between phone, video and in person are great but we ought to get the numbers. 

    I have to say, though, that there will be confounding elements to the numbers, if we ever see them. In person is now the default mode. That's where a claimant ends up if he or she doesn't make a choice but unresponsive claimants certainly get denied at a higher rate than claimants who choose a method for their hearing. Also, the selection of video is one generally made by better educated claimants. Their chances of success may be different than for less well educated claimants who can only do telephone hearings. Yes, many, perhaps most, Social Security disability claimants lack the technical skills to download an app, register with the app and then access the app when the time comes for their hearing. There's also the problem that those who live in small towns and rural areas are more likely to select telephone or video since they have to travel farther for an person hearing than those who live in urban areas. Rural and urban claimants don't necessarily get approved at the same rate. Rural claimants, on average, have lower educational levels and less access to health care than their urban cousins.