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Social Security announced a while ago it was changing its rules regarding eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments so that beneficiaries would not be penalized for receiving Economic Impact Payments (EIP) and other kinds of financial support. The SSI program provides monthly benefits to individuals who are retired or disabled who meet strict financial guidelines. The SSI program was meant for individuals with limited income and assets, but too many individuals were being negatively impacted by SSI’s limits so the agency recently adjusted its income and asset rules. Below is a message from Social Security and a list of types of payments that should not negatively impact SSI beneficiaries. We recently changed our rules about what financial assistance can affect your eligibility for SSI or your monthly SSI payment amount. Specifically, we no longer count the financial assistance listed below against your eligibility or payment amount. We are reviewing SSI claims and other SSI records going back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to restore SSI payments for people whose SSI was affected by receiving any of the assistance listed below. • Economic Impact Payments (EIP) • State Stimulus Payments (Some exclusions may apply.) • Unemployment Assistance (also includes regular unemployment) • Paycheck Protection Program (PPP): Loan Forgiveness to Employers and Self-Employed Individuals • Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program: Loans/Grants to Employers and Self-Employed Individuals /Grants • Coronavirus Food Assistance Program – Direct Payments to Farmers and Ranchers • COVID-19 Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program • COVID-19 Funeral Assistance • Emergency Rental Assistance Fund • Emergency Assistance for Rural Housing/Rural Rental Assistance • Homeowner Assistance Fund • Housing Assistance and Supportive Services Programs for Native Americans • Tribal Payments from the Coronavirus Relief Fund and the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds • Supporting Foster Youth and Families • Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund • Emergency Assistance to Children and Families through the Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund • Farm Loan Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers • USDA Assistance and Support for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers, Ranchers, Forest Land Owners and Operators, and Groups. Despite Social Security’s action to adjust the rules regarding SSI payments some beneficiaries have seen benefits reduced because some of these types of payments, which should be a mistake and will require Social Security to make adjustments. If your SSI payments have been reduced due to receiving assistance from any of the sources listed above Social Security should be aware, but it may take some time to resolve the issue. Below is an explanation from Social Security of what beneficiaries should do if they discover their benefits have been reduced due to one of these types of payments. In most cases, you do not need to do anything. If we do not need any information from you to restore your SSI payment, we will restore your SSI payment and we will mail you a letter explaining the change. We will send the letter to the most recent address we have available for you. If you have an appointed representative, or a representative payee, we will also send this information to your representative. If we need information from you first, or if we need to take a new SSI claim, we will mail you a letter. The letter will explain that we need to talk with you at a scheduled appointment. If your SSI stopped because you received or still receive the assistance below, and you moved since your SSI stopped, please call your local office to report your move and talk with us.

On Monday April 4, 2022 the Social Security Administration issued a press release announcing that Social Security offices would be reopening again after more than a two-year closure. Since March of 2020 Social Security offices have been closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Security officially opened its doors to customers again April 7, 2022 and now will finally allow customers to receive face-to-face assistance from Social Security without scheduling an appointment. The agency is still recommending appointments due to expected long wait times. There are enhanced safety protocols in place to continue to protect against the COVID-19 pandemic.  Below is a portion of the press release offered by Social Security and Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi, who announced the move. The release below includes new guidelines the agency will enforce when assisting customers at a Social Security office. New Guidelines To avoid waiting in line, I strongly encourage people, who can, to use our online services at www.socialsecurity.gov, call us, and schedule appointments in advance rather than walking in without an appointment. Phone appointments can save you a trip to a busy office. I thank the public for your patience as we work to increase service. Customers who walk in without appointments may encounter delays and longer waits at our offices. Be aware that our offices tend to be the busiest first thing in the morning, early in the week, and during the early part of the month, so people may want to plan to visit at other times. Given that many of the people we serve have health vulnerabilities, and consistent with our union agreements, we are continuing to require certain safety measures including masking, physical distancing, and self-health checks for COVID-19 symptoms. We will provide masks to the public and employees if they need them. Thoughtful planning and preparation have shaped our process to restore in-person services. Social Security employees are dedicated to serving the public, and we are ready to welcome the public back to our offices. Our local managers understand and can address the needs of their communities. We have also implemented office-to-office support as well as brought recently retired employees back to assist the public. We thank the many interested stakeholders including the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living and national advocate organizations for your help.

Social Security recently released a wish list of initiatives if it gets an increase in funding, something President Joe Biden is backing. Biden wants to increase Social Security funding by close to 10 percent and part of the increased funding would be spent on improving payment accuracy on benefits and an enhanced debt collection system. Both initiatives were detailed in the recent Social Security report about the president’s budget plans. Improving Payment Accuracy As good stewards of taxpayer dollars, we must continue to improve our payment accuracy. Given the scope of our programs—with over $1 trillion dollars paid in combined Social Security and SSI benefits in FY 2020—even a small error rate causes substantial improper payment amounts. This Budget supports streamlining and modernizing our debt management systems; improving our death data processing; and refining the way we collect and use data to improve payment accuracy. In addition, we continue developing, rolling out, and enhancing our case processing systems to improve the accuracy of our decisions. Debt Collection Currently, we use numerous systems to record, track, and manage our OASDI and SSI overpayments. We have begun a multi-year initiative to develop a streamlined, modernized enterprise Debt Management System to enable us to more effectively and efficiently post, track, collect, and report our overpayment activity. As part of this initiative, we recently implemented a new online payment solution that allows debtors, who do not receive Social Security or SSI benefits, the ability to repay overpayment debts, partially or in full. We also partnered with Department of Treasury (Treasury) to use the services of U.S. Bank, Treasury’s financial agent, to implement a lockbox service to assist with our paper remittance processing efforts and streamline the process. Lockbox banking is a service provided by financial institutions to help receive and process customers’ payments. Additionally, we published an interim final rule on the waiver of recovery of certain overpayment debts accruing during the COVID-19 pandemic  FY 2022 Congressional Justification 29 period between March and September 2020. We also completed a program debt write-off initiative to remove uncollectible debt.

One of the more bewildering aspects of government benefits is where they draw the line in terms of income limits. How much do you earn before Social Security decides that you are self-supporting and don’t need the benefits? Let’s break this down. What is the Upper Limit? Let’s start with the simple answer. You qualify for SSDI if your income is less than $1,350 a month. If you are blind, the income limit is $2,260 a month. Your marital status doesn’t affect this. This amount is called the Substantial Gainful Activity level, and it changes every year. The basic idea is that if you can take in more than that amount, the disability isn’t interfering with your earning abilities. The good news is that SSDI, unlike SSI, doesn’t count your assets. Things such as money in your savings account, your car, and your jewelry have no bearing on whether you are considered disabled enough to receive SSDI payments. What Sources of Income Count? The stumbling block for most people is how to calculate their monthly income. Your wages from your job count as income, but SSI determines it in an interesting way.  They take your gross monthly income and then subtract: 1. Sick leave pay 2. Vacation pay 3. Wage subsidies 4. Impairment Related Work Expenses Those last two take some explaining. A wage subsidy is a condition where you earn the same amount that someone else in the same position does, but certain actions have been taken to accommodate your disability that reduces your productivity. These conditions are: 1. You get more supervision than your colleagues. 2. You do fewer tasks for the same pay. 3. You need coaching or mentoring at your job. Wage subsidies come into effect after the Trial Work Period ends. Impairment Related Work Expenses are documented payments for equipment or services that you need because of a disability in order to do your job. An example might be a wheelchair if you need it to get around your workplace. Copayments for prescriptions, doctor visits, and other medical expenses count as IRWEs. An IRWE can only be subtracted from your income if you have documentation of money spent on the item, such as canceled checks and receipts, and Social Security has to approve of the expense. The Self-employed Have Different Rules Not everyone who is disabled works for someone else. If you have your own business, Social Security has three tests to see if you meet the SGA qualifications. The first test is: 1. Do you own and run a business by yourself (except a farm?) 2. If you own the business with other people, are you doing more than half of the managing or do you spend more than 45 hours a month managing the business? 3. Is your net countable income more than $1,350? They decide this by taking the net profit, reducing it by 7.65%, and then deducting unpaid labor expenses, IRWEs, and unincurred business expenses. The second test is: 1. Is your Work Activity comparable to someone who isn’t disabled? In other words, are you working the same hours, using the same skills, putting in the same effort, and taking on the same responsibilities as someone in a similar business without disabilities? The third test is: 1. Is your work worth more than $1,350? If someone else was doing it, would you pay them more than the limit to do the job? If the answer to any of these three tests is ‘yes,’ you won’t qualify for SSDI. You Might Need A Lawyer Navigating the income limit is tough and requires expertise. This is why Greeman Toomey PLLC specializes in helping people apply for SSDI. We have assisted more than 90,000 people get the money they need, and we would love to see what we can do for you. Contact us for more information.

Getting rid of student loan debt is no easy task for anyone, but consider the possibility of a worker becoming unable to work due to a medical impairment and having no way to make payments without steady income, something that has happened to millions of Americans. Discharging student loan debt is possible, not easy, but it is possible and the administration of President Joe Biden is trying to make discharging loads due to disability much easier. A new plan was issued by the Department of Education. Currently, the Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge program provides student loan forgiveness to borrowers due to disability, but the rules are stringent and it is difficult to qualify for the program. Below are some of the key changes the Biden Administration wants to implement to make it easier to qualify for a discharge of student loans. Eliminate Post-Discharge Income Monitoring. Under the new rules, the Department would eliminate the three-year post-discharge income monitoring period. This would codify temporary changes made by the Biden administration earlier this year to eliminate income monitoring during the Covid-19 pandemic. Expand Who Can Certify a Disability. The Department would streamline the TPD Discharge application process by allowing more medical professionals including nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, and psychologists to certify a borrower’s disability. Currently, only medical doctors (MD) or doctors of osteopathic medicine (DO) can certify the TPD Discharge application, which has limited the ability of some borrowers to obtain relief if their primary care provider is someone other than an MD or a DO. Expand Eligibility For Recipients of Social Security. For borrowers receiving Social Security disability benefits, the new rules would eliminate the requirement that a borrower’s disability review period be at least five to seven years. Instead, borrowers who have been receiving Social Security disability benefits for at least five years prior to applying for TPD relief, or have a disability onset date at least five years before applying, would be eligible. This would effectively expand the pool of eligibility for disabled borrowers and make it easier for borrowers to show that they qualify for relief.

We realize it may be a stretch for ordinary people to want to keep up with the comings and goings of the Social Security Administration, but sometimes circumstances permit where someone does want to follow the latest news regarding the agency due to a possible retirement or disability interest. This blog is an ongoing piecemeal of recent stories that have involved Social Security. Some are tidbits and some are important things that should be known in the world of retirement or disability and others are just interesting stories and nothing more. Reopening Plan Still On Track The Federal News Network recently reported that Social Security’s plan of reopening up field offices March 30, 2022 is still on track and Social Security is even bringing back retired Social Security employees to assist with the number of walk-in customers the agency expects beginning in April. Because Social Security offices have been closed to visitors for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that Social Security offices are likely to be flooded with customers come the reopening and reinforcement employees are needed. Below is a portion of the announcement indicating retired Social Security workers will be sought to assist with customers in field offices on a temporary basis, as obtained by the Federal News Network. Solicitation of Interest Calling SSA Retirees!!! Looking for another opportunity to help serve the American people? If so, we are seeking retirees to help the agency as we begin to transition to reentry and re-open our field offices to the public. We are seeking temporary support for approximately 400 field offices during reentry. HOW: Interested retirees will be given a temporary 30-day appointment. Salary will be a GS-11 salary ($74,074 base rate) plus locality (based on where assigned) plus a dual compensation waiver (you will continue to draw your full monthly annuity and a full Salary—no reduction). Retirees must have retired from a non-bargaining unit position and under optional retirement. WHEN: Deployments to assigned offices will begin in early April. LENGTH: Assignments will be to a field office for up to 30 days. Appointments and assignments may be extended depending on office need. The agency will make every effort to assign individuals to field offices nearest to their home to minimize the need for overnight travel. In some cases, however, overnight travel may be required. Travel expenses, including lodging and per diem, will be paid by the agency. Phone Trouble At Social Security If you tried to contact Social Security by phone over the last week or so you might have had trouble with calls connecting to the agency, this is due to issues the agency has had with its phone system on a nationwide basis. No formal release from the agency even mentions the problems with the phone system, but last week the agency did release an automated message indicating the issues the agency was having. This disruption to phone service created even more obstacles to reaching a Social Security employee for assistance when the offices have already been closed to the public since March 2020.

The good news after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) updated its projections for the solvency of Social Security’s retirement program, officially known as the Old Age and Survivor Insurance (OASI) trust fund, is that the retirement trust fund will remain solvent a year longer than previously expected. The bad news is Social Security’s chief actuary has still not released updates on the assessment of the OASI trust fund in the form of an annual report, which is typically released in the spring. The projections released by the CBO were reported on by MarketWatch. The CBO, which is a non-partisan agency that analyzes budget impacts of legislative proposals, estimates the solvency of the retirement trust fund to be 2032. Previously solvency of the trust fund was expected to last until 2031. In the story reported by MarketWatch, it was reported that the chief actuary’s office sent an email indicating it was not up to the chief actuary when the annual Social Security report would be issued, that decision is up to the U.S. Treasury Department. The annual Social Security trustees report was due out April 1, 2021, but five months later the report still has not been issued and members of Congress are now getting involved and want questions to where the trustees report is. To be fair, the trustees report is not always issued on time, but now that it is five months overdue officials are questioning why and are eager to see the latest report in determining the health Social Security’s trust funds. Until the report is issued, the projections from the CBO are the closest thing we have to determine the health of Social Security’s trust funds. Below is the shortfall projections released in the CBO report. Shortfall Projections Because the trust funds’ revenues are currently lower than their outlays and projected to grow more slowly than those outlays, the Social Security program has a long-term actuarial deficit. Over the next 75 years, if current laws remained in place, the program’s actuarial deficit would equal 1.7 percent of GDP, or 4.9 percent of taxable payroll, CBO projects. Thus, according to the CBO’s projections, the federal government could pay the benefits prescribed by current law and maintain the necessary trust fund balances through 2095 if payroll taxes were raised immediately by about 4.9 percent of taxable payroll, if scheduled benefits were reduced by an equivalent amounts, or if some combination of taxes increases and spending reductions of equal present value was adopted. A policy that eliminated that 75-year shortfall by increasing revenues or reducing outlays – and that did so by the same percentage of taxable payroll each year – would not place Social Security on a financial path that was sustainable beyond that period. Estimates of the actuarial deficit do not account for revenues and outlays would rise thereafter. Because projected shortfalls are generally smaller earlier in the period than they are later, such a policy would crease surpluses in the next few decades but result in deficits later and would not leave the system on a sustainable financial path after 2095.  

After Social Security was established in the 1930s and Social Security cards were distributed it was not long after when the first Social Security payments were actually made. It’s hard to believe, but there was actually a Social Security payment made of 5 cents, which is the smallest Social Security payment ever made. Below is a narrative from Social Security about those first payments. From 1937 until 1940, Social Security paid benefits in the form of a single, lump-sum payment. The purpose of these one-time payments was to provide some “payback” to those people who contributed to the program but would not participate long enough to be vested for monthly benefits. Under the 1935 law, monthly benefits were to begin in 1942, with the period 1937-1942 used both to build up the Trust Funds and to provide a minimum period for participation in order to qualify for monthly benefits. The average lump-sum payment during this period was $58.06.  The earliest reported applicant for a lump-sum benefit was a retired Cleveland motorman named Ernest Ackerman, who retired one day after the Social Security program began. During his one day of participation in the program, a nickel was withheld from Mr. Ackerman’s pay for Social Security, and, upon retiring, he received a lump-sum payment of 17 cents. Payment of monthly Social Security benefits began in January 1940, and were authorized not only for aged retired workers but for their aged wives or widows, children under age 18, and surviving aged parents. On January 31, 1940, the first monthly retirement check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, in the amount of $22.54. Miss Fuller, a Legal Secretary, retired in November 1939. She started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65 and lived to be 100 years old, dying in 1975.