An Alabama woman who worked for Easterseals is accused of stealing more than $100,000 in Social Security benefits from beneficiaries she was supposed to be managing funds for.
Tamara Jean Conwell, who worked as a representative payee for Easterseals, allegedly took $105,000 in Social Security benefits meant for beneficiaries and spent the money on her own expenses. Representative payees are in charge of managing Social Security benefits for people who have been determined to be unable to manage their own benefits. Typically family members serve as representative payees, but when a family member is not available outside organizations, like Easterseals, become a beneficiary’s representative payee. According to this story, federal prosecutors say Conwell has agreed to pay restitution in the matter, but is still potentially facing prison time.
The Disability Numbers
Over the last few years Social Security has seen a reduction in the amount of disability cases being filed and approved. The recent numbers posted by Social Security also show that there are less people collecting benefits than a few years ago. Below is a closer look at the numbers.
Number of claims received for adjudication:
2018 2017 2010
1,300,668 1,377,803 1,926.398
Number of claims approved:
2018 2017 2010
733,879 762,141 1, 052,551
These numbers clearly show that the number of people applying for Social Security disability benefits is substantially less than it was in 2010 and that the number claims being approved is about 25 percent less than in was in 2010. Both of Social Security’s trust funds have shown improvement over the last few years and if these trends continue there would be less strain on the Social Security disability trust funds. Any notion that the Social Security disability program is running out of control because of increased applications is simply not true.
