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Category: SSA

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June 14, 2012

Court agrees with SSA, denies benefits to widow after in vitro

A case made headlines recently because many of the circumstances were perhaps unprecedented. A woman in another state used in vitro fertilization to conceive twins after her husband passed away. The Social Security Administration denied benefits for the twins, and now the Supreme Court has backed up that decision. Shortly after the couple was married in 1999, the husband was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The wife gave birth to a son in 2001, and then the husband died in 2002....

May 24, 2012

SSA to judges: No more Internet when deciding disability cases

Social Security judges have been in the news a lot lately. Last week, we told you about how a judge was recently placed on leave. Now comes word that there some changes afoot regarding what judges are allowed to look at as evidence. Some Social Security disability claims judges say that they use the Internet as a tool to reveal fraud by claimants. But the Social Security Administration is putting the kibosh on judges using the Internet for that purpose....

May 17, 2012

Second disability judge in a year placed on leave

There are about 1,500 Social Security disability law judges in the country who consider appeals and decide which applicants should be granted benefits. Now, the second one in the span of a year has been placed on leave. Both judges have something in common: They have very high approval rates. The first judge to go on leave had an approval rate of 100 percent. Of the first 729 cases examined in the first half of fiscal 2011, none of them...

February 17, 2012

Social Security Administration Asking Congress for Increased Budget

In 2013, the Social Security Administration plans to provide 11 million Americans with $143 billion in Social Security disability benefits, and officials are asking Congress to provide them with enough funding to process the thousands of claims. The SSA has asked Congress for $11.9 billion in 2013, an increase from the 2012 budget of $11.6 billion. Although SSDI benefits come from a trust fund, the SSA needs the money to run the program. In 2011, the SSA had close to...

February 9, 2012

Man Admits to Stealing Thousands in Disability Benefits

Millions of Americans receive financial support through Social Security disability benefits. The monthly payments often provide people living in Illinois with basic necessities. However, Social Security disability benefits don't always go to the most deserving recipients. Recently, a 46-year-old man pleaded guilty to theft and fraud for stealing close to $42,000 in disability benefits. Federal prosecutors say that the man claimed that an injury in 2002 prevented him from working. He continued to receive disability benefits through September 2010 even...

November 30, 2011

Sisters to be Issued Social Security Cards After Over Twenty Years

Many Illinois residents depend on Social Security Disability Insurance and other benefits to survive, but imagine not having a Social Security number with which to claim any applicable benefits under the Social Security Act. This was the situation for two sisters from rural Kentucky. The two women lived for more than 20 years without Social Security numbers and will finally get government recognition after suing the government. Under the agreement, the State Department will issue passport cards to the two...

November 15, 2011

Proposed Social Security Act Budget Cuts Could Threaten Service

The Social Security employees at the Freeport, Illinois office are making their voices heard. Two at a time, they picketed on the corner outside their local Social Security Administration office, handing out information to people passing by to gain support against cuts proposed by Congress to the Social Security Act budget for 2012. The hope is that people will contact members of Congress and make them aware of the importance of the agency and the work it does. Their small...

October 28, 2011

Illinois AARP Director: Don’t Change Social Security Act

Illinois residents struggling to receive their Social Security benefits will have a tougher time of it if Congress follows through on a proposed laundry list of government budget cuts. Bob Gallo, the Illinois State Director for the AARP recently wrote an Op-Ed piece in which he advised Congress to leave cuts to the Social Security program out of its plans to reduce the federal deficit. He notes that changes to the Social Security Act would negatively impact millions of Americans...

October 17, 2011

Thousands of People Wrongfully Deemed Dead by SSA

As mentioned in the previous blog, the Social Security Administration was found to be paying benefits to deceased people. Now, a new investigation shows those same officials in charge of Social Security Disability and other government benefit programs under SSA falsely report each year more than 14,000 people who are very much alive. And if that is not enough, it appears that more than one-third of the errors involve citizens of Illinois. An investigation has revealed the reason for the...