Showing posts with label Disability Payments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disability Payments. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

$100 Billion in Benefits Awarded by Judges with High Social Security Approval Rates

Administrative law judges awarded plaintiffs nearly $100 billion in total between 2005 and 2012Hundreds of judges across the country with abnormally high approval rates for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments awarded about $100 billion in lifetime benefits between 2005 and 2012, raising further questions about a program that could be insolvent in just three years.
An analysis by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that judges with approval rates higher than 80 percent, about 30 percent of all administrative law judges (ALJs) nationwide in past years, awarded billions of dollars in benefits in almost 140,000 cases as recently as 2009. The number of awards has since declined to about 46,000 last year.
“Not all of those are incorrect but there are significant amounts,” said Rep. James Lankford (R., Okla.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements, at a hearing Tuesday, adding that even small amounts of improper payments can imperil the program for the truly disabled.
“We cannot ignore glaring issues that are driving this program into insolvency,” he said.
Almost 11 million disabled workers, spouses, and children receive SSDI benefits—a 45 percent increase from a decade ago—with average monthly payments of $1,130 for disabled workers and $300,000 total over their lifetimes. Social Security estimated in 2009 that less than 1 percent of more than 560,000 beneficiaries reviewed would eventually leave the system because of improved health, suggesting that many recipients stay on the program for life once they start collecting benefits.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Feds Paid Prisoners $1 million in Disability Payments

Wikimedia CommonsThe Social Security Administration (SSA) gave more than $1 million in improper disability benefits to 440 prisoners, according to the inspector general.
The Inspector General for the SSA (IG) based its report on a sample of 100 beneficiaries, and found that one-fourth had improperly received disability while they were incarcerated.
“SSA issued improper DI benefit payments to beneficiaries for periods they were in correctional institutions,” the report said. “Of the 100 sample cases we reviewed, SSA appropriately took action to suspend DI benefit payments for 75 beneficiaries who had periods of conviction and incarceration, but overpaid DI benefits to the remaining 25 sample beneficiaries.”
“Based on this sample, we estimate SSA overpaid about $1 million to 440 beneficiaries,” the IG said.
Roughly 317 prisoners received $879,000 in disability insurance, and 123 more were paid $143,000 despite the SSA having suspended their benefits. A total of $1,022,000 erroneous payments were made.
One man was able to collect $22,056 in disability benefits while he was imprisoned in Staten Island, N.Y. from February 2009 to November 2010. Overall, the 440 prisoners received an average of $2,322 in payments.

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