Recently, a Senate investigative subcommittee issued a report regarding 300 Social Security disability claims approved by Administrative Law Judges (ALJ). Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is the ranking Republican member of the subcommittee and has been one the public faces of the subcommittee’s investigation. Senator Coburn has stated he called for this investigation of the disability program after learning that a man he hired to removed trees on his property was also receiving Social Security disability benefits. From what it appears, Senator Coburn’s interaction with this unnamed tree trimmer led him to suspect widespread cheating of the system and to call for the subcommittee to perform its investigation – the result of which was highly inflammatory and wildly misleading report about the Social Security disability hearing process. The problems with the report itself are numerous, and will be the subject of additional blog posts in coming days. Today’s post will concentrate on a more discrete issue: whether the mere fact that the unnamed man was working made him ineligible for Social Security benefits as presented by Senator Coburn.
Per the Washington Post article, the man requested Senator Coburn to make the check out to his mother, the man was “working on the side” while collecting disability, and the man “canceled his disability claim.” As the saying goes, the Devil is in the details and the various articles mentioning Senator Coburn’s story do not clarify whether the man was actually awarded benefits, waiting for a determination on a pending application, what the man was alleging his disability or disabilities to be, or how long the man had been working. Attempting to hide income is inarguably deceitful and likely illegal behavior, but the mere fact that someone is doing any kind of work does not mean that said person is not disabled.
A person’s ability to work and eligibility to receive benefits is based upon said person’s residual functional capacity (RFC) to perform work on a regular and continuing basis (IE – eight hours a day, five days a week). We know Senator Coburn was suspicious because the unnamed tree trimmer was “able to shimmy up tree trunks,” but we do not know if the unnamed man’s disability involved physical or mental limitations. We do not know if the unnamed man suffered from chronic asthma and severe COPD that would have made it necessary for him to spend a full day to recover from performing an eight hour day or work, leaving him unable to work on a full time basis. Perhaps the unnamed man was suffering from an impingement in his lower back and is able to work only one or two days a week until the pain is too unbearable and he is bedridden for several days.
It’s also possible the unnamed man suffered from a mental disability, something that has no effect on his ability to physically perform the tree trimming job. A person could have the strength of an Olympic-class weightlifter, the balance of a gymnast and the endurance of a marathon runner but could still qualify if his or her verbal, performance or full score IQ is scored at a 59 or less, rendering the person unable to maintain competitive employment on a full time basis. Or, the unnamed man could be suffering from a severe case of PTSD that includes frequent flashbacks and extreme nightmares, giving him maybe one to two “good days” a week; Senator Coburn’s trees could have easily been cleared on a “good day.”
How often the unnamed man worked and how much he was getting paid is another detail we are missing. Work performed under the Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) threshold of $1,010 gross monthly income is allowed under the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) rules – Senator Coburn’s unnamed tree trimmer may have been performing the work on a part-time basis because of his disabilities and receiving less than $1,010 a month in payment – in this scenario, the unnamed man would still have been eligible for benefits.
Finally, even if the unnamed man was working full time or grossing more than $1,010 a month there are at least two scenarios where he could continue to receive benefits. If his claim was still pending and he had been working for less than six months, then his return to work could likely be treated as an unsuccessful work attempt (UWA) and not affect his claim for benefits. If he was already receiving benefits and had been working for less than nine months, his work could be considered a trial work period (TWP) and he would be entitled to continue to receive benefits until the TWP ended.
Potential fraud notwithstanding, Senator Coburn’s implied assessment of the unnamed man being ineligible for benefits merely because the unnamed man was able to trim trees on a single property is, at best, irresponsible. A person does not need to show that they are unable to do any job, be it one day of tree trimming or even a one hour a week job stacking papers – a person is eligible for disability if they are unable to perform substantial gainful work. Arguing, even implicitly, that a man or woman is not entitled to benefits because he or she can do a single day of work reflects (perhaps willful) ignorance or gross mischaracterization of the Social Security disability process and belies a mistrust of anyone applying for benefits. If these were the guiding principles underlying Senator Coburn’s commissioning of an investigative report, its results should be viewed with caution and skepticism.
