Author: bill@thecomingwave.com

Social Security Administration Slated for Budget Increase

bill@thecomingwave.com

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will benefit from a 9.7% increase in the administrative budget, according to Biden’s first official budget plan. This recommendation will partially reverse chronic congressional underfunding and counter increases in disability reviews. 

SSA to Increase SSI Support

Congress has increasingly channeled funding away from the SSA to disability reviews with intention of removing those in need as beneficiaries. In fact, funding fell 13% from 2010 to 2021 as the number of SSA beneficiaries grew 22%. Contending this saved the government money, Congress exempted these administrative costs from budget caps.  

Disability reviews are now ingrained in the SSA’s work culture. This is at the expense of fulfilling its core mission as a benefits-paying agency keeping millions of elderly and disabled Americans out of poverty.

The SSA Disability Review Process

Disability advocates argued the SSA’s current review process is often harmful, showing more than 800,000 disability applicants over the period 2007-2017 experienced homelessness. Even for disabled persons who have more settled circumstances, complex daily life is evident. 

About 40% of Social Security disability beneficiaries face food insecurity or an inability to pay utility or housing bills while 25% were hospitalized over the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of disability beneficiaries have difficulty walking as little as three blocks and almost 40% have trouble focusing. 

In 2019, SSA suspended payments to 137,000 SSI beneficiaries, up 250% in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, the administration plans to accelerate disability reviews over the next year in an effort to conduct the maximum number of reviews allowed by regulations. 

In fact, the SSA plans to increase the number of full medical disability reviews next year by 36% and increase the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations by 23%. This will potentially lead to hundreds of thousands more losing their benefits. These are beneficiaries in need of financial support to simply live their lives. 

SSA beneficiaries often suffer cognitive impairments and have trouble understanding complex medical and legal issues. Many more beneficiaries deal with routine chaos such as poverty, domestic abuse, and homelessness. These disruptions to their daily lives understandably create difficulty in maintaining the demands of the SSA review process. If you feel the benefits you’re entitled to are being unjustly withheld, seek legal representation immediately. 

SSI & How to Apply 

Are you in need of assistance, but don’t yet have any? Are you in need, but don’t know where to turn? You or someone on your behalf may submit an application for SSI at www.ssa.gov/benefits/ssi/  and learn how to apply.

About Us

William C. Bernhardi Law Offices, PLLC is here to fight for your case and help you reach the safety net that you deserve. We focus our law practice on Social Security disability benefits cases. Our attorneys continue to stay up to date on the latest legislation, regulations, and court decisions, to help clients navigate the application and approval processes. Please feel free to call us if you need help with Social Security Disability or SSI.

 

Social Security Disability Hearings: What to Expect

bill@thecomingwave.com

Those seeking Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) may have their claims approved without representation. But since most claims are denied initially, claimants are recommended to seek legal representation from the beginning.  Anything submitted to Social Security may become evidence at a hearing, so it should be reviewed carefully.

If the claim is denied initially, then a Request for Reconsideration must be filed within 60 days. If that is denied, and most reconsideration decisions uphold initial denials, then claimants have 60 days to request a hearing.

It is especially important to be represented at a hearing, where represented claimants are twice as likely to be approved as unrepresented claimants.

Disability hearings are like judicial proceedings, but with no attorney on the other side.  The Administrative Law Judge, although not an adversary, may ask probing questions.  Before COVID, these hearings were typically held in Social Security Administration (SSA) hearing centers. Now, they are by telephone and more recently, by video conference.  It is unclear if SSA will return to in-person hearings; they may continue to do most of their hearings by video in the future.

Disability Hearings & How the Procedure Works

For your disability hearing, you may submit evidence, such as medical reports, but regulations require that to be done at least a week before the hearing.  You may also review your file before the hearing in case something needs correction or explanation.  The Administrative Law Judge will review your file and any evidence supporting your claim.

During the hearing, you will give sworn testimony regarding your occupation, your medical conditions and current limitations, along with some other relevant topics.  The Administrative Law Judge will ask questions while you may present such witnesses as medical professionals to make your case. Almost all hearings for adults now have a vocational expert- a job placement specialist called by the Administrative Law Judge to give testimony on jobs common to your local economy, if any. These considerations are made given hypothetical sets of limitations.

What if Your claim is denied after the hearing?

If the Administrative Law Judge turns down your claim, you have 60 days to submit a written request for review by the Appeals Council.  If that is denied, you have to right to file a lawsuit in federal court within 60 days, asking the court to review the Social Security decision.

What if your claim is approved?

Social Security benefit amounts can be complicated.  It may help to ask someone with expertise in this area, to be sure you receive all the benefits you should.

SSI & How to Apply

Are you in need of SSI but don’t know where to turn? You or someone on your behalf may submit an application for SSI at www.ssa.gov/benefits/ssi/  and learn how to apply.

About Us

William C. Bernhardi Law Offices, PLLC is here to fight for your case and help you reach the safety net that you deserve. We focus our law practice in Social Security disability benefits cases. Our attorneys continue to stay up to date on the latest legislation, regulations and court decisions, to help clients navigate the application and approval processes. Please feel free to call us if you need help with Social Security Disability or SSI.

The Supreme Court will hear Social Security Disability case concerning the government’s use of vocational experts

bill@thecomingwave.com

Before I tell you about the Supreme Court case, let me tell you something that really happened to me in court this week. It’s related.

I had a vocational expert testify that an individual who cannot be exposed at work to extremes of temperature or humidity still could work full time as a Parking Lot Attendant. In Buffalo, New York. The expert said that jobs in that occupation – every single one, without exception – are done in a climate controlled booth.

When I asked her for studies or other, y’know, facts? to support that, she gave the “my testimony is based solely on my experience” mantra.

When I pressed her on how many parking lots she had observed in a professional capacity, she began the “Never in my life have I been so insulted as to have my testimony questioned” routine. This was from someone whose resume proclaimed her experience in testifying in court. An obvious plea to the judge to protect her.

I thought she was about to say “Trust me, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”.

Okay, the Supreme Court case.

Last month the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to put Biestek v. Berryhill, a Social Security Disability case, on their October 2018 calendar. What it boils down to is this: Do the government’s vocational experts have to back up their testimony with facts? Or can the government deny benefits based only on the expert’s unsupported statements?

Social Security Disability claimants have the burden of proving their limitations. However, once the government concedes that someone with those limitations cannot perform their past work, the burden shifts to the government to prove that the claimant can do other work in a “significant number” of positions in one or more occupations. The government needs vocational expert testimony to deny a large percentage, maybe the majority, of the claims that it denies.

When Social Security was under the gun by Congress a few years ago to deny more hearings (Congress didn’t want to do anything itself about Social Security because it’s politically risky), one of the steps Social Security took was to change how vocational experts were used.

It had only been paying for them when the administrative law judge thought they were appropriate for the case. Starting about three years ago, they have been called in EVERY SINGLE CASE. Obviously the way the government has used its experts has paid off because the hearing approval rate nationwide for all applicants (represented and unrepresented) has dropped from the mid-60% range to below 40%.

The government used to require vocational experts to give numbers of jobs in the region where the claimant lives, or in several other regions of the country. Now it accepts nationwide numbers, and the expert uses reference material which can lump together multiple occupations besides the one they gave. So much for the burden of proof for numbers of jobs within a narrow set of limitations.

The vocational experts used to be asked about studies which supported their opinion. Now, the experts all know that they can get away with just citing their experience, without facts.

They were told as much. Nothing else explains the sudden uniform change in their testimony.