USA Today Editorial: Opposing view: Disability Benefits Remains a Vital Lifeline by Charles Martin

Social Security Disability Insurance remains a vital lifeline for citizens who once held full-time jobs but have become too ill or injured to work. It is a time-honored expression of our nation’s commitment to help care for those who must stop working due to illness or injury.

While any large government program will have problems — and Social Security is no exception — we should work on fixing the problems and not join the current rush to condemn an entire system because of rare instances of abuse or mounting political pressures to cut federal spending.

As an attorney who has spent more than 34 years helping thousands of Social Security applicants, let me be clear that getting disability approval is harder than ever. Undocumented pain, alcoholism and drug abuse have been disqualified. Mental retardation and HIV standards are tougher. Diabetes and obesity are no longer distinct disabilities. Illegal immigrants are now disqualified. Applicants must now present objective medical evidence of disability. This is no rubber-stamp process.

Moreover, it is a misrepresentation to claim that there is a surge in unemployed applicants looking to get on the public dole. Applications have increased due to social, medical and economic mega-trends (such as more insured women and aged workers).

Yes, today’s Social Security Disability Insurance system is huge, complex, costly and certainly imperfect. But it deserves to be improved, not scorned. Claimants’ representatives play an important role by discouraging frivolous applications and assisting those who can prove disability navigate a daunting and often confusing bureaucracy.

The road to restoring Social Security to full health is not to conduct a witch hunt for the rare but inevitable undeserving claimants or deficient judges, but through sensible measures such as giving more help to people with disabilities who want to work, giving employers incentives to hire them, and upgrading the gathering and delivery of medical treatment and information.

Tough times can bring out the best in people. Let’s not let our frustration over a lousy economy cause us to turn on those who are most in need. Let’s improve a system that reflects the true spirit of American compassion.

Charles Martin, a Decatur, Ga.-based attorney, is president of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives.

National Work Incentives Seminar Event (WISE) Webinar Ticket to Work: Support Services for People Who Have a Disability and Are Ready to Work Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 3:00 PM, EST

If you are a Social Security disability beneficiary and want to make more money through work, Ticket to Work can provide the support you need to transition to greater financial independence and self-sufficiency.  The December 21 national WISE webinar will present information about special Social Security programs and rules that may apply to you! You will hear from Work Incentives Planning & Assistance (WIPA) projects, Employment Networks, State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Agencies, and Protection & Advocacy organizations about: • Ticket to Work & Work Incentives • Frequently asked questions • Where to find more information

 Date: December 21, 2011 Time: 3:00 p.m. EST Register online at www.chooseworkttw.net/wise/jsp/wise.jsp  or call 1-866-968-7842 or 1-866-833-2967 (TTY/TDD)

Approximately 2 days before the event, you will receive an email with instructions on how to log in to the webinar. The instructions will also include a link and access code for closed-captioning and a link to download the presentation materials in fully accessible PDF and text-only versions.   Please be sure to check your spam folder. Registration information will also be available online the day of the webinar.

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced that the agency’s most popular online services, the applications for retirement and Medicare and for Extra Help with Medicare prescription drug costs, are now available in Spanish. The new online services are available at www.segurosocial.gov.

In addition to the new applications, Social Security has also recently made online estimates of retirement benefits available in Spanish.   People interested in planning for retirement can get an immediate, personalized estimate of their Social Security benefit by using the Retirement Estimator at www.segurosocial.gov/calculador.   Using people’s actual wages from their Social Security record, the Estimator gives a good idea of what to expect in retirement.   Workers can enter in different dates and future wage projections to get estimates for different retirement scenarios, which is why this service is one of the most highly rated electronic services in the public or private sector.

For the past two years those who receive Social Security Disability and Retirement have not received a cost of living increase to their benefit amount. But in 2012 this is expected to change, when an announcement is made this week and will be effective starting this January.

This increase is because for the first time in the last 2 years the consumer price index – a measure of how much it costs consumers, on average, to buy things like food and transportation – rose considerably from a year ago.

Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (or COLA) is calculated using this index, and payments are increased when the measure jumps from one year to the next.

Based on this index data, the raise is likely to be about 3.5%. A person who receives $10,000 from Social Security last year would receive an extra $350 in 2012.

However, some of this increase will be lost to higher Medicare premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments.

Medicare Part B premiums for 2012 are expected to be announced next week, and the trustees who oversee the program are projecting an increase.

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced  on October 13, 2011, 13 new Compassionate Allowances conditions involving the immune system and neurological disorders.   The Compassionate Allowances program fast-tracks disability decisions to ensure that Americans with the most serious disabilities receive their benefit decisions within days instead of months or years.   Commissioner Astrue made the announcement during his remarks at the U.S. Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Products in Washington, D.C. “Social Security handles more than three million disability applications each year and we need to keep innovating and making our work more efficient,” Commissioner Astrue said. “With our Compassionate Allowances program, we quickly approved disability benefits for more than 60,000 people with severe disabilities in the past fiscal year. We have made significant improvements, but we can always do more.”

The Compassionate Allowances initiative identifies claims where the nature of the applicant’s disease or condition clearly meets the statutory standard for disability. With the help of sophisticated new information technology, the agency can quickly identify potential Compassionate Allowances and then quickly make decisions. Social Security launched the Compassionate Allowances program in 2008 with a list of 50 diseases and conditions. The announcement of 13 new conditions, effective in December, will increase the total number of Compassionate Allowances conditions to 113. The conditions include certain cancers, adult brain disorders, a number of rare genetic disorders of children, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and other disorders.

In addition, the agency recently streamlined its online disability application for people who have a condition on the Compassionate Allowances list.

New Compassionate Allowances Conditions

Malignant Multiple Sclerosis
Paraneoplastic Pemphigus
Multicentric Castleman Disease
Pulmonary Kaposi Sarcoma
Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma
Primary Effusion Lymphoma
Angelman Syndrome
Lewy Body Dementia
Lowe Syndrome
Corticobasal Degeneration
Multiple System Atrophy
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
The ALS/Parkinsonism Dementia Complex

Social Security payments, including disability payments,  for August 3, 2011 will be made on time now that an agreement has been reached to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.  Payments for August 10, 17 and 24 also will be made as scheduled. People still receiving paper checks from Social Security should sign up for Direct Deposit, the secure and convenient way to receive Social Security payments.   All current beneficiaries must switch to electronic payments by March 1, 2013.

Congressional Budget Cuts Force Reduced Public Hours

Effective August 15, 2011, local Social Security offices nationwide will close to the public 30 minutes early each day. For example, a field office that is usually open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. will close daily at 3:30 p.m.

 “While agency employees will continue to work their regular hours, this shorter public window will allow us to complete face-to-face service with the visiting public without incurring the cost of overtime for our employees,” said Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security.   “Congress provided our agency with nearly $1 billion less than the President requested for our budget this fiscal year, which makes it impossible for us to provide the amount of overtime needed to handle service to the public as we have in the past.”

 Most Social Security services do not require a visit to a local office. For example, anyone wishing to apply for benefits, sign up for direct deposit, replace a Medicare card, obtain a proof of income letter or inform Social Security of a change of address or telephone number may do so at www.socialsecurity.gov or by dialing their toll-free number: 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778).

Fast Track Disability Process Will Now Look at 100 Conditions

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced 12 additional Compassionate Allowances conditions involving severe heart diseases, bringing the total number of conditions in the expedited disability process to 100. Compassionate Allowances are a way to quickly identify diseases and other medical conditions that, by definition, meet Social Security’s standards for disability benefits. These conditions primarily include certain cancers, adult brain disorders, and a number of rare disorders that affect children.

“We have reached a significant milestone for the Compassionate Allowances program,” Commissioner Astrue said. “We have an obligation to award benefits quickly to people whose medical conditions are so serious they clearly meet our disability standards. We are now able to do precisely that for 100 severe conditions.”

The Compassionate Allowances initiative is one of two parts of the agency’s fast-track system for certain disability claims. When combined with the Quick Disability Determination process, Social Security last year approved more than 100,000 cases, usually in less than two weeks. This year, the agency expects to fast-track nearly 150,000 cases.

Social Security has held seven public hearings and worked with experts to develop the list of Compassionate Allowances conditions. The hearings also have helped the agency identify additional ways to improve the disability process for applicants with Compassionate Allowances conditions. “By definition, these illnesses are so severe that we don’t need to fully develop the applicant’s work history to make a decision,” said Commissioner Astrue. As a result, beginning in August, Social Security is eliminating this part of the application process for people who have a condition on the list.

For more information on the Compassionate Allowances initiative, please click here

New Compassionate Allowances Conditions:

Aortic Atresia

Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) Recipient

Eisenmenger Syndrome

Mitral Valve Atresia

Endomyocardial Fibrosis

Primary Cardiac Amyloidosis

Heart Transplant Graft Failure

Pulmonary Atresia

Heart Transplant Wait List – 1A/1B

Single Ventricle

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Tricuspid Atresia

The Associated Press reports that the trustees for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds have shortened the life of these two trust funds.

The annual checkup by the trustees said that the Medicare hospital insurance fund will now be exhausted in 2024, five years earlier than last year’s estimate. While the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than before.

The trustees for the trust funds said in their annual report that this has been caused by the worsening economy and they emphasized the need for Congress to make changes to avoid disruptive consequences in the future for millions of people who depend on Medicare & Social Security Benefits.

Associated Press: Those yearly earnings statements that Social Security mails out — here’s what you’d get if you are disabled, retired at 62, at 66, at 70 — will soon stop arriving in workers’ mailboxes. It’s an effort to save money and steer more people to the agency’s website.

The government is working to provide the statements online by the end of the year, if it can resolve security issues, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said. If that fails, the agency will resume the paper statements, which cost $70 million a year to mail, he said.

“We’ll provide it, we expect, one way or another, before the end of the calendar year,” Astrue told The Associated Press. “We’re just right now trying to figure out the most cost-effective and convenient way to provide that to the American public.”

The statements, mailed to 150 million people each year, project future benefit payments, helping workers plan for retirement.

The decision to suspend the mailings was unrelated to the talk of a possible partial government shutdown. It was, however, related to the agency’s operating budget, which has essentially been frozen at 2010 levels — minus about $350 million in economic stimulus money the agency had been using to handle claims.

Claims for retirement and disability benefits are up significantly since the nation’s economy soured in 2008. About 2.7 million people applied for retirement benefits last year, a 17 percent increase from 2008, according to agency statistics. About 3.2 million people applied for disability benefits last year, a 23 percent increase.

Since the 1980s, Social Security statements have been mailed each year to workers older than 25. They include a history of taxable earnings for each year — so people can check for mistakes — as well as the total amount of Social Security and Medicare taxes paid over the lifetime of the worker.

The statements provide estimates of monthly benefits, based on current earnings and when a worker plans to retire. Workers can claim early retirement benefits starting at age 62. Full benefits are available at age 66, a threshold that is gradually increasing to 67 for people born in 1960 or later.

The statements are mailed throughout the year, so many people have already received them this year. Tens of millions have not.

The agency does offer a benefits estimator on its website that Astrue said can be even more helpful than the annual Social Security statements. Workers can enter their Social Security numbers on the website and get estimates of future benefits, depending on when they plan to retire.

The website, however, does not provide the detailed earnings and payroll tax history that workers had been receiving in the mail each year.

Ending the statements is part of a trend in government to conduct more of its business electronically. Social Security already mails out few paper checks. About 88 percent of beneficiaries have their payments deposited directly into their bank accounts.

About 41 percent of applications for retirement benefits come in online, Astrue said. About 44 percent of Medicare applications are done online. In all, the agency’s website attracts about 11 million visitors each month.

The Federal Government may shut down this Friday 4/8/2011, which will probably cause disruptions in all government programs and events.

However in the last shutdown, there were no Social Security Disability hearings, no Social Security Disability decisions issued, no back Social Security Disability payments made, and no emergency SSI payments made. All Social Security offices will be closed, including the hearing offices.

Several little-noticed provisions of the recently-enacted law that extended the Bush-era tax cuts fundamentally alter how the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid programs treat tax refunds and other tax credits, making it easier for people with special needs to maintain their benefits.

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides a small cash benefit to people with special needs who meet very stringent income and asset requirements – most SSI beneficiaries also receive Medicaid coverage. An SSI recipient’s monthly cash benefit is reduced by $1 for each dollar of unearned income a beneficiary receives and by $0.50 for each dollar of earned income that a beneficiary receives for working. Unearned income includes gifts, food and shelter, and other one time payments like inheritances and lottery winnings, and, until these changes took effect, unearned income also included tax refunds and some tax credits. This meant that a SSI beneficiary could lose his benefits if he received a large tax refund.

Under the new law, tax refunds are no longer considered countable income for SSI or Medicaid purposes. Furthermore, any money received through a tax refund will not be a countable resource for 12 months following receipt of the funds, and SSI and Medicaid recipients will be under no obligation to segregate the funds from their other resources (SSI recipients can only keep $2,000 of resources and still qualify for benefits). Because of the change in the law, an SSI beneficiary can now retain his tax refund, even if it puts him over the $2,000 resource limit, for up to one year from the date of receipt, which is welcome news for beneficiaries who usually have to count every penny in order to avoid a disruptive loss of benefits.

The new law also changes the treatment of several other important tax credits. Under previous rules, Making Work Pay, Earned Income, Advanced Earned Income, and Child Tax Credits were all excluded as countable income for SSI and Medicaid purposes, but if the income was retained, it had to be spent within nine months of receipt. Now, the 12-month rule applies to all of these tax credits and, furthermore, First-Time Home buyer Tax Credits that were previously countable as income and as a resource are now exempt and subject to the same countability rules as the other tax credits.

In one more piece of good news, the law applies to any refunds or credits received after December 31, 2009, which means that, in limited cases, applicants who were initially denied SSI or Medicaid benefits due to receipt of a tax refund or credit may actually be retroactively eligible for benefits. The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services have also indicated that seniors and other people seeking Medicaid coverage for long-term care will not be subject to transfer-of-asset penalties if they give away their tax refunds or credits during the 12-month grace period.

On March 16, 2011, Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, will hold the seventh Compassionate Allowances Outreach Hearing in Baltimore, MD. The subject of the hearing is autoimmune disease. Compassionate Allowances are a way of providing benefits quickly to people whose medical conditions are so serious that their conditions obviously meet SSA’s disability standards.

For over seventy-five years, Social Security has provided hundreds of millions of Americans with an economic safety net. As the baby boomers retire and reach their disability-prone years, Social Security’s workloads continue to grow. In addition, the economic downturn has greatly increased the demand for our services. Despite this dramatic growth in our work, through increased employee productivity, new initiatives, and improved funding we have reversed a trend of declining service and an increasing backlog in our disability workloads.

The President’s budget request of $12.522 billion for Social Security’s administrative expenses will allow us to maintain staffing in our front-line components, fund ongoing activities, and cover our inflationary increases. It will allow us to reduce our hearings and initial disability claims backlogs, and to continue to reverse the decline in our program integrity work. Program integrity work not only pays for itself, but also produces considerable savings to the taxpayers.

Full funding by Congress of the President’s budget request is critical. This budget request is the minimum the agency needs to continue to reduce key backlogs and to increase deficit-reducing program integrity work. It will allow us to build on the considerable progress we have achieved, progress that is vital to the millions of people who depend on our services and to the American taxpayer.

For more information about the President’s 2012 budget request for Social Security, visit www.socialsecurity.gov/budget.

The Social Security Administration has just announced the amounts they will use to calculate various programs and eligibility, and the amount paid to SSI beneficiaries.

As you can see below, there have been no changes from the 2010 amounts except for an increase in the Medicare Part B premiums.

The Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) amount for individuals with disabilities, other than blindness, is $1,000 for 2011. The amount is unchanged from 2010.

The SGA amount for individuals who are blind is $1,640 for 2011. The amount is unchanged from 2010.

The monthly earnings amount that we use to determine if a month counts for the Trial Work Period (TWP) is $720 for 2011. The amount is unchanged from 2010.

For 2011, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Federal Benefit Rates (FBR) are $674 for an eligible individual and $1,011 for an eligible couple. The amounts are unchanged from 2010.

For 2011, the monthly Medicare Part B premium increases to $114.50.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is changing the way Social Security Numbers (SSNs) are issued. This change is referred to as “randomization.” The SSA is developing this new method to help protect the integrity of the SSN. SSN Randomization will also extend the longevity of the nine-digit SSN nationwide.

The SSA began assigning the nine-digit SSN in 1936 for the purpose of tracking workers’ earnings over the course of their lifetimes to pay benefits. Since its inception, the SSN has always been comprised of the three-digit area number, followed by the two-digit group number, and ending with the four-digit serial number. Since 1972, the SSA has issued Social Security cards centrally and the area number reflects the state, as determined by the ZIP code in the mailing address of the application.

There are currently 435 million numbers available for assignment. However, the current SSN assignment process limits the number of SSNs that are available for issuance to individuals by each state. Changing the assignment methodology will extend the longevity of the nine digit SSN in all states.

SSN randomization will affect the SSN assignment process in the following ways:

* It will eliminate the geographical significance of the first three digits of the SSN, currently referred to as the area number, by no longer allocating the area numbers for assignment to individuals in specific states.

* It will eliminate the significance of the highest group number and, as a result, the High Group List will be frozen in time and can be used for validation of SSNs issued prior to the randomization implementation date.

* Previously unassigned area numbers will be introduced for assignment excluding area numbers 000, 666 and 900-999.

Millions of Americans will no longer be able to get their Social Security and other federal benefit checks by mail, under a new timetable announced Tuesday.

Those already on Social Security will have until March 1, 2013, to make the switch to direct deposit or a debit card. New recipients of those benefits will have to accept paperless payment sooner — as of May 1, 2011.

More than 58 million retirees, disabled people and surviving family members get Social Security or Supplemental Security benefits. Eight out of 10 people getting federal benefits already receive those payments electronically, officials say.

The Social Security Administration just announced that Retirees will no longer be able to pay back benefits already received in exchange for higher Social Security payments going forward.

A little-known provision of Social Security law previously allowed individuals to begin payments at age 62, pay back all the benefits received at age 70 without interest, and then reclaim at a higher rate due to delayed claiming.

Under the new rules, Social Security beneficiaries may withdraw an application for retirement benefits only within 12 months of their first Social Security payment and are limited to one withdrawal per lifetime.

Another way Social Security beneficiaries were previously allowed to boost their checks was by suspending benefits already received retroactively, repaying the amount received, and then getting higher checks going forward. The new rules allow retirees to voluntarily suspend benefits only for months in which they did not receive payments. Beneficiaries may also suspend future payments beginning the month after the request is made.

These changes will be applied only to old-age benefit recipients, not survivor and disability beneficiaries.

On November 9, 2010 Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, hosted at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the agency’s sixth public hearing on Compassionate Allowances. Commissioner Astrue joined Susan B. Shurin, Acting Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, and other Social Security officials in listening to testimony from some of the leading experts on cardiovascular disease and multiple organ transplants regarding possible methods of identifying and implementing Compassionate Allowances for both adults and children.

“Compassionate Allowances and the Quick Disability Determination process are making a real difference for disabled Americans by ensuring those with devastating disabilities receive their benefit decisions quickly and accurately,” Commissioner Astrue said. “This fiscal year, about 150,000 people will benefit from these fast-track disability processes. With this hearing, we continue to look at broader categories of conditions to determine if a subset or certain diagnosis might clearly meet our disability standards and qualify as a Compassionate Allowance.”

Social Security implemented Compassionate Allowances in October 2008 to expedite the processing of disability claims for applicants with medical conditions so severe that their conditions by definition meet Social Security’s standards. There currently are 88 specific diseases and conditions that qualify as a Compassionate Allowance. To learn more and to view a web cast of the November 9th hearing, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances.

New Rules Will Further Speed Benefits to Tens of Thousands of Americans with Disabilities

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, just announced that the agency has published final rules that will further reduce the time it takes to decide applications for disability benefits from those persons with the most severe disabilities—a process that currently takes less than two weeks on average. The new rules allow disability examiners to make fully favorable determinations for adult cases under the agency’s Quick Disability Determination (QDD) and Compassionate Allowance (CAL) processes without medical or psychological consultant approval. It also will help the agency process cases more efficiently as it will give medical and psychological consultants more time to work on complex cases where their expertise is most needed.

“The new rules . . . will help us get disability benefits to the most severely disabled Americans even faster,” Commissioner Astrue said. “This year, more than 100,000 people benefited from our fast-track disability processes and received decisions in a matter of days rather than the months and years it can sometimes take. I am pleased that our fast-track processes will now be even faster and help speed much needed benefits to our most vulnerable citizens.”

Under Social Security’s QDD process, a predictive computer model analyzes specific data within the electronic disability file to identify cases where there is a high likelihood that the claimant is disabled and can quickly obtain medical evidence. The CAL process currently identifies 88 specific diseases and conditions that clearly qualify for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability benefits and can be fast-tracked.

The final rules, 20 CFR Parts 404 and 416, can be accessed through the Federal Register online at www.regulations.gov. They will be effective on November 12, 2010.

Additional information about Social Security’s Compassionate Allowances process is available at www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances.

The federal government announced on October 15, 2010 that Social Security Disability and Social Security Retirement recipients will not receive a cost-of-living adjustment in 2011. This will be the second year in a row that there has not been a cost-of-living increase.

The absence of a cost-of-living adjustment, calculated under a formula set by law, will be a shock to older Americans and the disabled already hit by plummeting home values, investment losses and rising health costs. More than 50 million people receive some form of Social Security benefits.

Before 2010 Social Security recipients had received automatic cost-of-living adjustments every year since 1975. The increase in 2009 was 5.8 percent. By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down.

The cost-of-living adjustment is intended to preserve the purchasing power of Social Security, by increasing benefits to keep pace with consumer prices. In the last year, overall inflation has been low, largely because of the economic downturn.

The Congressional Budget Office, has predicted that inflation would remain low for several years, so it is possible that Social Security might not pay a cost-of-living increase for several years.

Social Security Webinar: Applying Online for Social Security Disability Benefits

October 6, 2010, 2:00 p.m. EST

A number of enhancements have been made to Social Security’s online disability application, making it easier and more convenient to complete online.

During this webinar, Social Security will highlight the new aspects of this online application and tell you about other Social Security disability initiatives currently underway.

To RSVP for this webinar please click here

SSA Webinar on September 21: Tips for People Who Receive Social Security

SSA is holding webinars on its website, www.socialsecurity.gov, on a variety of topics. Coming up on Tuesday, September 21, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. ET, is the following webinar:

Using socialsecurity.gov: Tips for People Who Receive Social Security:

There are many Social Security services available online. You can replace a Medicare card, request a proof of income letter, change your address or phone number, start or change direct deposit, get or change a password or receive updates by email. Social Security will give you some tips on how to make the most of using those services.

You can sign up for the webinar on Social Security’s home page, www.socialsecurity.gov. Scroll down to the bottom of the center column to “Watch Our Webinars.” Double click on “Learn More.” You will be directed to a description and link to RSVP for the webinar.

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced that benefit checks are being delivered to some Atlantic coast residents on Thursday, September 2nd, before the arrival of Hurricane Earl and ahead of the regular September 3rd payment date. About 737,000 beneficiaries in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. are affected by this early check delivery.

“Delivering checks early to these residents eliminates one concern beneficiaries might have as they prepare for the storm,” Commissioner Astrue said. “As beneficiaries take steps to ensure their own safety, this is one step we can take to help them. They should also be aware that Direct Deposit is a more secure and convenient way to receive payments, particularly when natural disasters strike.”

Social Security worked closely with the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of the Treasury to make the early delivery of checks possible.