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Want to Improve SSI? Here’s A Chance

The Senate Finance Committee Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy is holding a hearing at 2:45pm next Tuesday, September 21 with the expressed purpose of working towards establishing policy options that will improve Supplemental Security Income...

Parent’s Benefits: Financial Support if the Worst Should Happen

It’s said that there is no worse prospect in life than that a parent should have to bury her child. That it should happen while the child is still young or later in adult life there is little that can alleviate the agony of the experience. Social Security have made...

Social Security Expands Compassionate Allowances Program

A couple of weeks ago Social Security announced that a dozen more severe conditions had been added to the list of those already allowed under their own Compassionate Allowances Program. The program was designed to speed up the SSDI and SSI application process by...

Social Security National Disability Forum Coming Soon: Register Now!

Social Security have been running a National Disability Forum for a number of years. It’s designed to allow anyone with an interest in the workings of the agency to give their insight and to share their experiences. Social Security tend to hold these forums around...

Social Security Changes Policy on Stimulus Checks and SSI

Back in 2020 when the first Economic Impact Payment (EIP), more commonly known as the stimulus check, was rolled out the Social Security Administration made it be known that SSI recipients who would were eligible for the payment would not have to worry about losing...

Forking Out: SNAP Updates and Maryland’s Response

It is now widely known that it is forty-two million Americans who receive SNAP benefits, still also known as food stamps. They remain at the mercy of a government, which has remained shut down for thirty-seven days at the time of writing, and shows no sign of opening...

SSA Announces 2026 COLAs

2026’s Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) was recently published and there are some limited but welcome increases across the board. Benefits are due to go up 2.8%. In terms of how that looks to SSI recipients, it means that the Federal Benefit Rate (FBR) will rise to...

SSA Reveals Service Plan during the Federal Government Shutdown

Social Security has issued a statement on its Advocates webpage highlighting the level of its availability during the government shutdown which went into effect today, October 1. Crucially, all SSI and SSDI payments will continue without change and on the same payment...

Oscillate Wildly: Changes to SSDI Overpayment Recovery Rates

It may have escaped your attention, as it did this writer’s, that on August 29 this year Social Security issued Emergency Message 25029 REV. Emergency Messages are the agency’s method of notifying every office of the new protocols to follow. This one’s purpose is to...

Tapping In: Maryland’s Assistive Technology Financial Loan Program

To judge from the figures presented in the 2024 review of Maryland Department of Disabilities’ Technical Assistance Program (MDTAP) there’s not much knowledge within the state of the program itself or any of its projects. MDTAP has provided the Assistive Technology...

Listen Up: Maryland DDA’s Low Intensity Support Services Program Accepting Applications

Maryland’s Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) has long understood the need to provide funding to children and adults in the community in order that they might lead happier and more fully integrated lives in the community. What was once called Rolling...

Social Security Turns 90!

To commemorate this landmark birthday, we've re-published the open letter from Frank Bisignano, the agency's current commissioner. Today, we celebrate the 90th anniversary of Social Security—a program that has stood as a pillarof economic security and dignity for...

Healthy Options? USDA Encouraging SNAP Food Restrictions

In further changes under the new administration (remarkably, it has only been seven months) the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services are now actively seeking states to implement further restrictions on what you can buy with food...

As You Were: VCU’s National Training and Data Center Re-opens

Last week we reported that Virginia Commonwealth’s NTDC has been closed and all services terminated. This week Social Security announced that the center is open once more. Melanie Webb, the Branch Chief of SSA’s Employment Programs, sent out an n email to the nation’s...

VCU’s National Training and Data Center Closed Down

Benefits Counselors around the country received the news today that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was forced to close the National Training and Data Center (NTDC) on July 29. The brief announcement from Melanie Webb, Branch Chief of Employment Programs at...