The Social Security Administration has proposed new regulations for representative payees to coincide with new legislation passed in August of 2018.
Representative payees are appointed by Social Security to manage Social Security benefits for people the agency had determined to be unable to handle their own finances. The new regulations limit who can serve as a representative payee. In connection with the new legislation, certain people who have been convicted of crimes are no longer allowed to serve as representative payees.
A summary of the proposed regulations read, “we propose to amend our regulations to prohibit persons convicted of certain crimes from serving as representative payees under the Social Security Act (Act). We are proposing these revisions because of changes to the Act made by the Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2018.”
When considering who can be a representative payee Social Security goes through specific criteria in addressing who is allowed to be the payee. The first thing Social Security considers is the relationship between the payee and the beneficiary. The next thing to be considered is the amount of interest a payee applicant shows in a beneficiary, and, or has any legal authority to act on behalf of the beneficiary. Finally, the agency decides if the applicant has custody of the beneficiary, and, or is in a position to know of and look after the needs of the beneficiary.
Social Security is inviting the public to comment on the new regulations before they are finalized by the agency. These new regulations are a response the new legislation that was passed to better protect beneficiaries who are unable to manage their own funds. Many times payees who have been put in charge of beneficiaries have mismanaged Social Security funds and the beneficiaries have not benefited from the Social Security benefits they were awarded as intended.
