Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the agency is making new data about beneficiaries and the agency’s disability and hearing processes available to the public.

Here are a few examples of the valuable Social Security datasets available today:

* Researchers can find out about the work-related experiences of our beneficiaries receiving Social Security disability benefits and give us policy guidance for our disability programs.
* The public can see information about hearings workloads and a breakdown of the types of decisions made by Administrative Law Judges.
* Researchers can study the effects of current and proposed legislative and program provisions.
* People who have requested a hearing on their disability claim can estimate the amount of time they may have to wait for the hearing to be held and for a decision.
* The public can see general information requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
To read the President’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, click here:

Share this article with

From the (California) Capitol News: The worst recession in decades is a scary period for many American families. But it is a time of particular peril for those living with work-limiting disabilities, especially in states such as California, where involuntary furloughs and layoffs of state employees who process Social Security disability claims further bog down a system that is already in crisis.

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) system worked well for decades, but it is creaking under the weight of a growing population of people with disabilities, increasing demands on the Social Security Administration and a wave of government retirements. Social Security employees work as hard as they can to help people who deserve care, but their best efforts are only slowly winnowing down a hearing backlog of nearly 723,000 disabled Americans—including 66,000 Californians—waiting months or years to receive their rightful benefits.

The recession is making things even worse. From 2004 through 2007, application levels were stable, with the SSA processing between 2.1 million and 2.2 million SSDI applications each year. Last year, more than 2.7 million people filed SSDI applications. See article here:

Share this article with

The Social Security Administration has been working for years to reduce its backlog of disability claims, which now stands at 780,000 claims. It even hired and trained 8,600 new employees last fiscal year.

But any progress it made has come to an abrupt halt. Largely because of the recession, Americans filed 400,000 more disability claims than predicted last year and the agency expects 700,000 more to be filed this year than in 2008.

SSA is not alone. Agencies across government that provide federal assistance are seeing their workloads explode as Americans seek unemployment insurance payments, health care insurance, school lunches, food stamps and college loans. Benefit claims and payouts have jumped in the last year at assistance programs run by the Labor, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services departments, among others. See article here:

Share this article with

Many do not realize that federal Social Security disability claims are processed by state workers before the denial that sends them to a judge.  As more states are decimated by falling tax revenues,  there have been staffing redductions, layoffs and reductions on hours worked.  While there have been very small improvements in the backlogs at the hearing offices, now the delays are manifesting at the initial and reconsideration stages.  I guess that is one way to improve the hearing office  statistics: reduce thenumber of cases being sent there!  Here is an article that discusses the impact of these RIF’s:<a>

Share this article with

There have been vast increases in pending cases across the country. This chart, courtesy of NOSSCR, details the initial and reconsideration pending cases by state. Click on image to enlarge. 

Share this article with

A nationwide surge in Social Security disability claims has hit Michigan disproportionately hard.

The flood has caused a case logjam at the state’s five Social Security hearing offices, which have some of the longest wait times in the nation: nearly two years.

The delay in benefits approval, experts say, can mean a slow slide into poverty, with laid-off workers eating up their savings or even losing their homes. Older workers with health problems are increasingly turning to disability to stay afloat after losing their jobs because they are often less likely to find new employment, experts say. See story here:

Share this article with

According to Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue and other experts on disability claims, the faltering economy is causing an increase in applications of between 15 percent and 25 percent. SSA originally anticipated receiving 2.6 million to 2.65 million applications for disability benefits in fiscal 2009, but upped its prediction to 3 million and another 3 million for 2010. Recently, the agency adjusted its estimates again, increasing the projection for 2010 to 3.3 million applications. …

Astrue says the agency has been making inroads, reducing processing times by 4 percent each of the past two years. The recession, however, has reversed the progress on the backlog of cases. At the beginning of 2009, SSA had 550,000 cases pending at the state level. The state-run SSA-funded Disability Determination Services do much of the initial processing and eligibility determination for applicants. The number of claims pending at the state level, which does not account for applications at other stages of adjudication, is now up to 725,000. …

“We’ve been stymied at the state level,” Astrue says. “There’s this callous ‘Kumbaya’ attitude that if there’s going to be pain, everyone has to suffer. For me, it’s beyond comprehension that you would make a civil service suffer unnecessarily and make claimants in desperate need of assistance wait much longer than they otherwise would.” …

Share this article with

The Chicago Tribune reports that for millions of Americans, getting a check in the mail from Social Security each month is a ritual.

But in the last year, theTreasury has been campaigning to get Social Security and Supplemental Security Income recipients to switch to a prepaid debit card.

The program, called Direct Express, is aimed primarily at the 4 million Social Security and SSI recipients who don’t have a regular bank account, but it’s available to anyone. The plastic card is automatically loaded with the amount of your monthly payment.

It’s billed as a safe, convenient way for consumers to get their government income while preventing fraud, theft and loss of checks.

Every year, the U.S. Treasury receives 1.4 million complaints from Social Security and SSI recipients.

“Those paper checks are problematic. They get lost, stolen or aren’t received on time,” said Phil Belisle, regional director of the U.S. Treasury’s financial center in San Francisco. “The debit card is a very safe alternative.”See full story here:

Share this article with

Bloomberg reports today that the Social Security Administration has agreed to pay a total of $500 million to 80,000 people whose benefits were wrongly withheld by a federal program intended to deny payments to those fleeing arrest, the National Senior Citizens Law Center said.

The agreement was part of a class-action settlement given initial approval yesterday by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California, the center said in a statement.

The Social Security Administration used a computer system matching arrest-warrant names with agency data to deny benefits, according to the law center statement. The agency was attempting to carry out a law that seeks to prevent people from using government benefits to avoid arrest, the group said.

Many matches involved false or unproven allegations, minor infractions or dormant warrants, said the legal group, which represented plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit. See story here:

Share this article with

This unconfirmed news indicates that Social Security is planning for a significant expansion of hearing offices sites and judicial staff to address the backlog at the heaing offices:

“To provide the level of staffing needed to address rising appeals workloads, the agency is increasing the number of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) being hired from 1,450 to 1,600. The additional ALJs will be added in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 and 2012. To ensure that there is sufficient space available to house the additional staff and to address workload issues around the nation, the Commissioner has decided to increase the number of ODAR hearing and satellite offices. The final locations have been selected for 10 offices, with 5 additional locations to be finalized. The new offices are projected to be opened in the second or third quarter of Fiscal Year 2011. The new locations selected by the Commissioner are as follows:

Hearing Offices:

Rochester, New York
Paterson, New Jersey
Augusta, Georgia
Hoover, Alabama
St. Paul, Minnesota
El Paso, Texas
Columbia, Missouri
Moreno Valley, California

Satellite Office

Reno, Nevada

National Hearing Center

St. Louis, Missouri

Offices Pending Final Location Decisions

Hearing Offices

Tennessee – Jackson or Franklin
Indiana – Muncie or Terre Haute

Satellite Offices

Marquette, MI/Upper Peninsula area
Eureka, CA area
Montana – Helena or Missoula”

Share this article with