The Social Security Administration (SSA) is important because it helps Americans who can’t work because of illnesses by giving them money. The Social Security Administration (SSA) helps people live better by making sure they get the money they need through its Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs. Although these programs are very important for many, getting disability benefits can be hard for people who are trying to get them.
The SSA recently made big changes to how disability eligibility is decided. These changes are meant to speed up the process and make it better for applicants overall. The goal of these changes is to make the review process easier, especially when it comes to looking at applicants’ past jobs. President Biden’s Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government is what sparked this project and other efforts to improve federal services.
Changes in Social Security Disability Evaluation
The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently made important changes to how it evaluates disability. These changes will make the process of applying for disability benefits faster and easier for people who want them. The main goal of these changes is to make it easier to look at past work records, which is a key part of figuring out who can get disability benefits.
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Reduction in Work History Review
The SSA will use a new way to look at an applicant’s work experience during the disability determination process starting June 22, 2024. The most important change is that the time period being looked at has been cut from 15 years to just five years. This change is meant to make it easier for applicants who had to give long, detailed information about their work background, which could be hard to remember correctly and completely.
Exclusion of Short-Term Employment
Another notable update in the evaluation process is excluding any employment that lasted fewer than 30 calendar days from consideration. This adjustment will likely reduce the complexity and improve the accuracy of the work history assessment, focusing only on more sustained employment periods that are more indicative of an applicant’s work capability.
Benefits of Changed Disability Eligibility
The general effectiveness of the disability evaluation process should improve in a number of ways as a result of these changes:
By limiting the work history review to five years and excluding short-term jobs, the SSA reduces the information applicants need to gather and submit. This makes the application process less daunting and can help applicants focus on compiling only the most pertinent and recent work details.
SSA examiners can more correctly judge an applicant’s current work skills by focussing on more recent and relevant work experience. This relevance is important for making fair and quick decisions because it shows what skills a person has recently used at work without including old or useless jobs.
It might be possible to speed up the evaluation process by cutting down on the amount of information that is looked at and focussing on recent, relevant job experience. This means that applicants can get choices and, possibly, benefits faster, which is good because long wait times can be stressful for both money and emotions.
Broader Regulatory Updates
The SSA has made a number of changes to its regulations to improve its disability programs, with the main goal of making them easier to use and providing better services:
- Public Assistance Household Definition –The SSA has changed the meaning of “qualified” in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program so that more people and families can get benefits.
- Exclusion of Food Value from SSI Calculations – Food aid will no longer change how SSI benefits are calculated. This means that people who get food aid will still be able to get their benefits and their amounts will not change.
- Nationwide Expansion of Rental Subsidy Exception – This policy, which used to only apply in seven states, now applies all over the country. It means that some rental benefits are not counted as income, which makes it easier for SSI recipients to pay their rent.
The SSA wants to make its programs for Americans with disabilities more effective and quick, and these changes will make SSI easier to access, make sure that all of its benefits are available, and speed up the administrative process.