Mike Crapo Raises Concern About Work Affecting Eligibility for Social Security Disability Benefits

3 months ago

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) gave opening remarks about how work affects eligibility for Social Security disability benefits.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing examining how work can affect

00:05eligibility for Social Security disability insurance benefits and supplemental security

00:10income payments. This is an important topic and one that the Finance Committee has not examined

00:16in many years, so thank you for paying attention to it. Individuals who receive Social Security

00:22disability benefits and want to work should be afforded that opportunity. Unfortunately,

00:28that is not always the case, and these individuals often face multiple challenges

00:34when attempting to rejoin the workforce. One of the challenges stems from the concern that

00:40if they resume working, they will lose access to their disability benefits and health insurance.

00:46There are provisions in place intended to help the transition, such as allowing SSDI beneficiaries

00:53to try working without immediately losing their benefits and extensions for health insurance

00:58coverage if their disability benefits stop due to work. However, these work incentives are complex

01:07and not well understood. I look forward to a discussion about what more can be done to

01:12improve awareness and understanding of the current work-related rules and incentives.

01:18Proposals to modify disability program rules to reduce barriers to work also merit serious review.

01:26However, we must be clear on the costs and other tradeoffs that come with a given

01:30simplification proposal. The Social Security Administration's recent track record of finalizing

01:36rules that increase mandatory spending by billions of dollars should not be the framework for program

01:43reforms. Work-related overpayments represent another challenge that many individuals with

01:49disabilities face if they try returning to work. Work-related overpayments can occur when the Social

01:56Security Administration does not receive or process earnings information in a timely manner

02:03and adjusts an individual's benefit amount accordingly. To help reduce the reporting

02:08burden on individuals and provide the Social Security Administration with timely earnings

02:14information, the bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 allowed the agency to enter into an information

02:21exchange with a payroll data provider. In February, after years of delay, the Social

02:28Security Administration issued a proposed rule describing the agency's planned implementation

02:33of this provision. The proposed rule represents progress, and I urge the Social Security

02:40Administration to continue taking the steps necessary to implement this exchange. Although

02:47this new payroll information exchange will help, it will not include earnings information for all

02:53disability beneficiaries. The SSA must continue identifying ways to prevent or limit work-related

03:01overpayments before they occur. While barriers to returning to work are an important part of

03:07today's hearing, this is not the only way an individual's work activity can affect the

03:12individual's eligibility for disability benefits. The Social Security Administration uses a five-step

03:20process to determine eligibility for disability benefits. The fourth step in this process

03:27evaluates whether an individual can still perform past relevant work. If not, then the fifth step

03:36evaluates whether the individual can perform any other work that exists in the national economy.

03:43The SSA continues to rely on woefully outdated occupational data to make these determinations.

03:51This data both includes jobs that no longer exist in significant numbers and excludes jobs that do.

03:59It also does not accurately reflect how jobs are actually performed in today's economy.

04:06The Social Security Administration has already invested substantial time and resources into

04:11developing an alternative to this outdated occupational data, and I continue to urge the

04:17agency to move this project forward as well, as it is vital to ensuring applicants get an accurate

04:24disability decision. I thank our witnesses today for being here.

04:30I look forward to hearing your testimony, and thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mike Crapo Raises Concern About Work Affecting Eligibility for Social Security Disability Benefits

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