Senate Finance unites against the traps federal rules set for workers with disabilities

Democratic senators and Republican senators agreed Tuesday that Congress and the Social Security Administration must stop Social Security rules from ruining the lives of people with severe disabilities who try to work.

Federal laws and regulations do let people getting Social Security disability insurance benefits and Supplemental Security Income work, senators acknowledged at a hearing on the issue organized by the Senate Finance Committee.

But the rules are so complicated that people with devastating disabilities and limited means who simply want to work may end up facing SSA demands that they pay back tens of thousands of dollars in benefits overpayments, according to Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden.

The Oregon Democrat said people with disabilities often tell him that they want to work in the private sector.

“But the laws that are on the books today, when it comes to work and Social Security, are a bureaucratic, suffocating, mindless straitjacket,” Wyden said.

Too often, he said, people with severe disabilities who simply want to do a good job can end up “earning too much.” When they earn too much, he said, they may lose critical Medicare or Medicaid health insurance benefits, lose Social Security disability or supplemental income benefits, or face letters demanding that they send the Social Security Administration what to them appear to be absurd sums of money.

Wyden called for quick action on the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act bill, which would increase what single people on SSI can earn to $10,000, from $1,500, without triggering benefits “clawbacks,” or demands for repayment of what the SSA believes to be excess benefits.

He also asked for support for the Work Without Worry Act bill, which would let more children with severe disabilities obtain Social Security disability benefits based on the work record of their deceased parents.

Today, disabled children can collect benefits based on their parents’ history only if they are found to be severely disabled by age 21. The Work Without Worry Act would let children collect disability benefits based on their parents’ work history as long as they became disabled by age 21, even if they were officially found to be disabled after that age.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., recalled meeting the parents of a woman who suffered severe learning disabilities because of being deprived of oxygen at birth and who worked as a bagger at a local grocery store for 31 years.

In 2022, “she received notice that her benefits were cut off and that she would have to re-pay $17,000,” Cassidy said.

The woman’s parents had to fight for two years to get SSA to back off, Cassidy said.

“She was frightened enough, and the whole thing was so unpleasant, she has reduced her hours just to steer clear of having to go through this ever again,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy joined with Wyden to support the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act and Work Without Worry Act bills.

Members of Congress and others have been pressing SSA to change the strategies it uses to get excess benefits payments back from beneficiaries in a wide range of situations, especially when the excess payments were made due to SSA errors rather than beneficiary misstatements.

Related: Social Security ends its ‘clawback cruelty’ when collecting overpayments, says chief

YouTube users who watched an excerpt of the hearing video posted on the feed of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI., said in the comments that they have seen the kinds of problems discussed in the hearing affecting their own lives.

“I wish I’d never have fallen off that roof at work,” said iketherather9126. “Being disabled is like living in a prison with just bread and water.”

Another user, ralphmunn6689, said he was retired, legally blind and collecting SSI while living in his car in the woods. He got a job stocking produce at a grocery store to make ends meet, and, after he did this for several months, the state of Massachusetts said it would no longer pay his Medicare premiums because he was earning too much.

“In my case, the amount of ‘extra’ money I earned was LESS than the added debt I incurred,” the user said.