“Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

“Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs — in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs — and can’t find new ones.The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that’s been running in the red for years.

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Diane Braunstein’s large smile and warm laugh can be infectious. She speaks calmly as she sits in a high-backed, dark wooden chair in her spacious Baltimore office, a master bureaucrat.

If that seems a cold or callous characterization, her actions have been anything but. One look at her résumé shows she’s spent a lifetime mastering the minutia of process and regulation on behalf of the elderly, the ill and the disabled at the Social Security Administration and other organizations. Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue appointed Braunstein director of a program called Compassionate Allow­ances in 2007 after she helped him about 20 years earlier when his terminally ill father could not quickly obtain benefits.

The two were working together at the Department of Health and Human Services. Astrue’s father developed glioblastoma, an often-fatal brain cancer that resulted in a coma. Astrue found himself trying to file for benefits on behalf of someone who wasn’t able to speak.

“It was a huge surprise and a time of high anxiety,” he said. “Having someone as competent as Diane was a great blessing.” See story here:

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“More than 728,000 Americans are awaiting appeal hearings for Social Security disability benefits, a 5% jump in pending cases during the last year, a new report shows.

“The increase, partly a result of more disabled persons unable to find jobs during the recession, may make it harder for the Social Security Administration to continue reducing waiting times for benefits rulings, according to the analysis.
“History shows that if this growth is unchecked, as hearing dockets become more and more clogged, wait times will grow,” said the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization at Syracuse University that studied the data through March 31.

“Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue questioned the significance of the increase in pending appeals, which new data from the agency shows have jumped to 740,998 as of May 27. While TRAC officials said that buttressed their report’s findings, Astrue said the more meaningful measure was the faster processing and decision-issuing times produced by his agency’s improvement efforts.

” However, he said it was uncertain whether the agency would meet its goal to reduce the average waiting time for benefits — 367 days on average nationally for October through April — to 270 days by 2013. The TRAC report cites agency statistics that show wait times peaked at an average of 514 days for cases disposed of in federal fiscal year 2008…” More details here:

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There is also a page that estimates disability payments for younger claimants, and it requires you to enter income amounts for the past several years. See that form here:

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“The Social Security program will be tweaked in several important ways in 2011. Workers will get a temporary tax break on the amount they pay into the entitlement program, and several claiming options for retirees will be eliminated. Here’s a look at how the Social Security program will change this year.

“The amount workers pay into the Social Security trust fund will temporarily drop from 6.2 percent of taxable wages up to $106,800 annually to 4.2 percent in 2011 only. For self-employed workers, the Social Security tax rate will drop from 12.4 percent to 10.4 percent next year, due to provisions of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, signed by President Obama on December 17. Employers will continue to pay 6.2 percent of wages into the entitlement program.” See article here:

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The problem is that there are no scientifically valid standardized tests for mental illness or other mental disabilities in adults. Nevertheless, the SSA laid out a detailed set of rules on how the results of such tests would be used in determining an adult’s eligibility for Social Security disability.
“We recognize that the proposed rule did not require the use of test results alone when making determinations of disability,” explained Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare.

The proposal was so controversial that the SSA was forced to reopen the comment period in November. Source: Blog, Law Office of Jeffrey Rabin,

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You can significantly increase your monthly benefit just by postponing your application for Social Security. Even if you don’t work another day, you could boost your benefit to $1,151 a month – one-third more than you’d get at age 62 – by waiting until you’re 66 to start collecting it. (That extra $288 a month is just for the four-year delay; it doesn’t include any annual inflation adjustments, which would raise the amount even more.)

Returning to work also can increase your benefit, even if you earn less than your peak salary. Your monthly Social Security benefit is based on your 35 highest-earning years. Someone who retires from high-paying work after 40 years can boost his benefit a bit, even if he returns to work in a lower-paying job for only a year, because his new earnings may replace an early, lower-paid year in the benefit computation. See full details in this article:

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“Deep inside a 34-page proposed federal regulation are a few sentences that are causing nightmares for mental health advocacy groups.

“The regulation, from the Social Security Administration, could change how people with mental illnesses are evaluated for disability payments.

“The angst is over whether standardized testing will be required to determine such payments. The proposed regulation is not clear on that controversial subject. At one point it says standardized tests will not be required but then goes into detail on how the exams would be used to determine a person’s fitness for work.

‘The confusion over the wording — and fears that it will be interpreted to require testing — has advocates by the hundreds calling in comments to the Social Security Administration, which will accept them until Wednesday.”
“ Full story at this link:

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The HEART Act changes the way the agency treats certain cash payments to members of the uniformed services and veterans under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which will enable some of them to continue to receive government disability benefits and others to receive a higher benefit amount.

“This law allows the men and women of our armed forces, veterans, and their families to keep more of their military-related payments while also maintaining eligibility for valuable cash and healthcare benefits,” Commissioner Michael Astrue said. “We must provide support and assistance to our active duty military and our wounded warriors, and the HEART Act improves our ability to do so.”

Aged, blind or disabled individuals who have limited income and resources can qualify for monthly SSI benefits from the Social Security Administration and Medicaid from the states. As a general rule, if other income goes up, the SSI payment will go down. Income and resources are major factors used in deciding SSI eligibility and SSI payment amount.

The HEART Act does the following:

• Treats most cash military compensation as earned income for SSI purposes, which generally provides a higher benefit to the service member as a result of the SSI program’s more favorable consideration of earned income.

• Excludes certain state annuity payments to disabled, blind or aged veterans from countable income and resources used to determine SSI eligibility.

• Excludes any cash or in-kind payments provided by AmeriCorps State and National and AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps from countable income.

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