HOW SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION IS OPEN WITH ON-LINE SERVICES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC! (3079 hits)
For Immediate Release From The Hill and SSA.Gov!
According to The Hill, The experience with the SSI program since the COVID-19 pandemic began has been just the opposite, however: The number of individuals awarded benefits by the Social Security Administration (SSA) has plummeted. This is because of continuing problems in administering the program by SSA.
As I noted in The Hill last month, the elderly were the first group to experience problems. Data just released by SSA suggest the problems continue for the elderly - and have now begun to affect people with disabilities.
In May, June, and July of this year, SSA awarded 5,038, 4,572, and 5,122 elderly individuals SSI benefits, respectively. The June award figure is the smallest number of monthly awards for the elderly in the last 20 years. The May and July figures are the second and third smallest in the last 20 years. Further, the total number of awards in these three months is 42 percent lower than the number of awards to the elderly for the comparable 3-month period in 2019.
Problems have now materialized for the disabled groups as well. In July of this year, SSA awarded SSI benefits to 25,200 disabled adults ages 18 to 64. That is the lowest monthly award figure in the last 20 years for this group. It is also 40 percent lower than the figure for this group for July of 2019.
With regard to disabled children, the same pattern emerges. SSA awarded 8,411 children SSI benefits in July of this year. That is the lowest number of awards for any month in the last 20 years for this group. It is also 43 percent lower than the award figure for this group for July of 2019.
The seriousness of the problem can be understood when the cumulative effects of declining awards is considered. In a typical year, more than 720,000 elderly and disabled people are awarded SSI benefits. Declines in awards on the order of 40 percent or more will, over time, lead to hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled individuals missing out on vital cash and health benefits.
The problems besetting the SSI program are occurring because effective outreach has not been put into place to deal with the closure of SSA's 1,200 field offices due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In normal times, the public learns about the SSI program when they are in these offices (often inquiring about Social Security benefits).
SSA has indicated, in light of the field office disruption, that it has reached out to community organizations to provide "contact information" for SSA, but that outreach has no evidence-base behind it and is clearly not working in the case of SSI.
SSA does have an evidence-base behind one type of outreach - notices directly mailed to potentially eligible individuals. In the SSI Elderly Notice Pilot, SSA, in conjunction with the government's Office of Evaluation Sciences, used a gold standard, random-assignment demonstration to test whether notices sent to low benefit Social Security beneficiaries about the SSI program increased applications and awards for SSI. The results of the pilot? The notices worked.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are asking the public to first try to use our online services before calling us. If you cannot use these online services, you can find the phone number for your local office by using our Field Office Locator and looking under Additional Office Information. (Note, if you already had a scheduled appointment with your local office, an employee from that office will attempt to call you at your scheduled appointment time.)
Please read our COVID-19 web page https://www.ssa.gov/coronavirus/ to learn more, including how to get help from the Social Security Administration by phone and online.
Disability Determination Services (DDS) Operating Status: State DDSs have experienced periodic closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have a question about the operating status for a specific state DDS, we recommend calling the DDS. If your attempt to reach a DDS by telephone is unsuccessful (e.g., no answer, no returned call within 24 hours of leaving a message), we recommend contacting the Social Security Regional Communications Director for that specific state DDS. https://www.ssa.gov/agency/rcds.html
