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I am pretty familiar with Disability rules and reporting, including SSI. This is not the boondoggle many think it is. If you read it carefully it mostly changes the reporting requirements of SSI recipients which are very stringent as SSI is a Welfare program for the Disabled and poor aged. Now the first reaction is "damn it's welfare, why make it easier" but this is actually a policy that helps the SSA more than recipients. Anyone familiar with the Social Security Administration current state know that they are woefully under staff with a high turnover and are taken months to do even simple tasks and just try calling them and waiting hours for somebody to pick up the phone. The lesser reporting standards mean Workers will be less burdened by beauracracy and actually get more work done. Now i am concerned with the "expansion" phrasing since thats usually code to giving it to more people who may not currently qualify based on disability or poor/aged status.
For example of some ridiculous reporting requirements, if somebody on SSI gets 20 dollars from a relative for their Birthday they are required to report that to SSA which will count it as income which has to be evaluated to determine if an overpayment has occurred and if so an adjustment made to pay back that overpayment. And remember this all has to be done on a phone with hours wait times. Leaving someone on SSI to either break the rules and not reporting it or following the rules and causing increased work loads(and aggravation) for twenty bucks, likely costing the Government many times that just to process the reported 20 dollars. Oh and another waste to time, technically if you go out to lunch with somebody and they buy you a burger it's counted as In Kind Support which you must report and processed by somebody at SSA and would mean your next SSI payment could be adjusted for receiving that In Kind Support. All that paperwork for a burger.
I am pretty familiar with Disability rules and reporting, including SSI. This is not the boondoggle many think it is. If you read it carefully it mostly changes the reporting requirements of SSI recipients which are very stringent as SSI is a Welfare program for the Disabled and poor aged. Now the first reaction is "damn it's welfare, why make it easier" but this is actually a policy that helps the SSA more than recipients. Anyone familiar with the Social Security Administration current state know that they are woefully under staff with a high turnover and are taken months to do even simple tasks and just try calling them and waiting hours for somebody to pick up the phone. The lesser reporting standards mean Workers will be less burdened by beauracracy and actually get more work done. Now i am concerned with the "expansion" phrasing since thats usually code to giving it to more people who may not currently qualify based on disability or poor/aged status.
For example of some ridiculous reporting requirements, if somebody on SSI gets 20 dollars from a relative for their Birthday they are required to report that to SSA which will count it as income which has to be evaluated to determine if an overpayment has occurred and if so an adjustment made to pay back that overpayment. And remember this all has to be done on a phone with hours wait times. Leaving someone on SSI to either break the rules and not reporting it or following the rules and causing increased work loads for twenty bucks, crazy.
If you report the twenty bucks then they often reduce the next month's payment by twenty bucks. You also have to get the person to fill out a form indicating that they gave you the twenty bucks. They don't just take your word for it that you received twenty bucks. You have to verify it. If you report it and the person doesn't fill out the form, you can end up getting cut off because you didn't verify the information in time. The recipient ends up having to go through all of that to have the twenty bucks they just got taken out of the check.
If you report the twenty bucks then they often reduce the next month's payment by twenty bucks. You also have to get the person to fill out a form indicating that they gave you the twenty bucks. They don't just take your word for it that you received twenty bucks. You have to verify it. If you report it and the person doesn't fill out the form, you can end up getting cut off because you didn't verify the information in time. The recipient ends up having to go through all of that to have the twenty bucks they just got taken out of the check.
It's not just the recipient, many would say "so what, it's welfare" it's the staffing issue's at SSA being overwhelmed by this type of idiotic, time concerning paperwork which prevents employees from doing many other things they need to do. For instance processing somebodies retirement paperwork or replacing a kids lost Social Security card. People need to stop and think of all the costs to all this paperwork as it ends up effecting anybody who has to go to the SSA for anything.
Like a trauma patient on a gurney in the ER, Yellen and Co. are pumping the money/liquidity into the patient via every route possible. Just keep ‘em alive until November…
I am pretty familiar with Disability rules and reporting, including SSI. This is not the boondoggle many think it is. If you read it carefully it mostly changes the reporting requirements of SSI recipients which are very stringent as SSI is a Welfare program for the Disabled and poor aged. Now the first reaction is "damn it's welfare, why make it easier" but this is actually a policy that helps the SSA more than recipients. Anyone familiar with the Social Security Administration current state know that they are woefully under staff with a high turnover and are taken months to do even simple tasks and just try calling them and waiting hours for somebody to pick up the phone. The lesser reporting standards mean Workers will be less burdened by beauracracy and actually get more work done. Now i am concerned with the "expansion" phrasing since thats usually code to giving it to more people who may not currently qualify based on disability or poor/aged status.
For example of some ridiculous reporting requirements, if somebody on SSI gets 20 dollars from a relative for their Birthday they are required to report that to SSA which will count it as income which has to be evaluated to determine if an overpayment has occurred and if so an adjustment made to pay back that overpayment. And remember this all has to be done on a phone with hours wait times. Leaving someone on SSI to either break the rules and not reporting it or following the rules and causing increased work loads(and aggravation) for twenty bucks, likely costing the Government many times that just to process the reported 20 dollars. Oh and another waste to time, technically if you go out to lunch with somebody and they buy you a burger it's counted as In Kind Support which you must report and processed by somebody at SSA and would mean your next SSI payment could be adjusted for receiving that In Kind Support. All that paperwork for a burger.
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