A bipartisan bill that improves protections of Social Security’s representative payee program was signed into law April 13 by President Donald Trump.
The bill was introduced by the chair and ranking member, U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) and U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-CT) of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee. The purpose of the bill was to modernize the representative payee program to better protect Social Security beneficiaries who are unable to manage their own benefits.
“This new law is great new for the millions of Social Security beneficiaries who rely on a representative payee to help them manage their benefits. Not only will I provide much-needed accountability for the representative payee program, but it also puts measures into place that ensure newly selected representative payees are qualified and trustworthy,” Johnson said in an issued press release. “I thank Congressman Larson for working with me on this important legislation that will ensure Americans – from children, seniors, to individuals with disabilities – will have more peace of mind when it comes to having a representative payee they can trust.”
The first representative payee program started in 1939 when Congress first authorized Social Security to make benefit payments to another person or organization, when it was determined a beneficiary is not capable of managing his or her own Social Security benefits. Unfortunately there have been instances of representative payees mismanaging the benefits of beneficiaries and the program has not faced any significant changes for well over a decade.
Specifically, the Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2018 will:
- Strengthen oversight of representative payees by increasing the number of performance reviews of payees, requiring additional types of reviews, and improving the effectiveness of reviews;
- Reduce the burden on families by eliminating the requirement to file the annual accounting form for representative payees who are parents living with their children or who are spouses;
- Protect the most vulnerable beneficiaries through improved information-sharing by requiring the Social Security Administration (SSA) to identify whether a beneficiary is in foster care and reassess whether the payee is appropriate, and by directing the SSA to study how better to coordinate with Adult Protective Services and with state guardianship courts;
- Enhance personal control by allowing beneficiaries to make a designation of their preferred payee in advance, and improve payee selection by requiring the SSA to assess the appropriateness of the order-of-preference list it uses to select payees;
- Limit overpayment liability for children in the child welfare system; and
- Ensure that no beneficiary has a barred payee by codifying the policy that bans individuals with certain criminal convictions from serving as payees (including individuals currently serving as payees) and prohibiting individuals who have payees from serving as a payee for others.
