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Sorry Figures: SSA Launches Customer Service Tracking Program

May 9, 2024

A recent press release from our friends at Social Security announced the arrival of SecurityStat, which the agency declares is “an agencywide, cross-cutting performance management program—to accelerate the deployment of customer service improvements.” Further reading...

Slimming Down: SSA Simplifies Rules on In-Kind Support and Maintenance

Apr 19, 2024

The former Governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley took over the reins of Social Security in December last year in his role as the agency’s commissioner. Naturally, it’s still o early to see what lasting effect he’ll have but he has recently overseen a change that is...

Opportunity Cost: HUD Eliminates the Earned Income Disregard

Apr 11, 2024

In an essay from 1976 the Italian economist Carlo Cipolla outlined some fundamental laws of stupidity. He avers that we underestimate the number of stupid people out there; we underestimate the destructive power of stupidity; stupid people are the most dangerous of...

Cleaning Up: Changes to SSI Waivers of Overpayments During Covid

Mar 29, 2024

Thanks to the settlement decision of a court case that was resolved in January this year up to two million Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries who were recorded as having had overpayments now won’t have to pay the money back. The decision determined that...

Equality Control: Social Security and Section 504

Mar 15, 2024

Seventeen years before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), President Richard Nixon, of all people, signed into law the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This act was something of a precursor to the ADA but had requirements limited to federal agencies and those who...

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Settlement Program: Refugee Transitional Cash Assistance

One of the lesser-known services administered by Maryland’s Department of Human Services must be the clearly titled Refugee Transitional Cash Assistance program. Funding comes from the federal government and allows those who are eligible to receive a little bit of...

Asset Protection: Accessing On-line Social Security Accounts Updated

In another move that seems to have been instituted by the new Social Security Commissioner, Martin O’Malley Social Security is asking all of us who set up regular old MySSA accounts before September 2021 to set up a new one using a different format. Before too long...

Time Off: SSA Looks to Simplify SSDI Application

As part of the effort to provide better customer service across the board in the government Social Security has recently made a couple of small change to the SSDI application that makes the often tedious process a little easier and a little shorter. Already in place,...

A Kinder Cut: SSA Simplifies Rental Subsidies for SSI Recipients

A few weeks ago we discussed a change to the rules governing SSI’s In-kind Support and Maintenance (ISM) which seemed to have the needs of the beneficiary at heart as they looked to take out the calculations on food costs. While that appears to be a somewhat flawed...

Remembering the Greats: Subsidies and Special Conditions Work Incentive

In this weekend of remembering the past it’s worth noting that SSDI emerged from a program initiated during the Second World War to compensate and assist civil defense workers who became disabled in the course of their work to protect the nation. One of the key work...