Toggle High Contrast Toggle Large Font Size
Prev Next
Close

Washington, DC – Today, the Board released Effectuation of Disability Benefits.

When the Social Security Administration (SSA) determines that a person is eligible for disability benefits, the agency must take additional steps before actually paying those benefits. These steps, known as the effectuation process, occur after some awardees have experienced lengthy waits to obtain favorable decisions.

The Board’s report provides an overview of the effectuation process that highlights how it can differ depending on the benefits claimed, the stage of appeal at which the claim was awarded, and other factors. The report analyzes a non-SSA data set from a large national firm of claimants’ representatives which shows that:

Read the Report

The Board recommends changes SSA could make to its systems, policies, and operations to improve the speed and accuracy of effectuation. The Board also recommends that Congress direct SSA to pay interest on past-due benefits when there are delays in effectuation.

###

The Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-296) established a bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board composed of up to seven Board members appointed by Congress and the White House. Supported by a professional staff, the Board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.

The process of adjudicating an application for disability benefits is not complete once a favorable decision has been made. Many additional steps must occur between a favorable decision and the actual payment. These actions, from award to deposit of benefits, are called “effectuation.” Effectuation is little studied both in the Social Security context and in the broader subject of how government works.

This report provides an overview of effectuation that highlights how the process can differ depending on the benefits claimed, the stage of appeal at which the claim was awarded, and other factors. The report analyzes a data set from a large national firm of claimants’ representatives that shows that the time SSA takes to effectuate a disability award increased over the past decade.

The Board recommends changes SSA could make to its systems, policies, and operations to improve the speed and accuracy of effectuation. The Board also recommends that Congress direct SSA to pay interest on past-due benefits when there are delays in effectuation.

Washington, DC – Tomorrow, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing to consider three people nominated by President Biden to serve on the Social Security Advisory Board.

The nominees and their proposed terms are Andrew Biggs of Oregon (ending September 30, 2024, and renominated for a term ending September 30, 2030), Kathryn Lang of Maryland (ending September 30, 2026), and Sharon Lewis of Oregon (ending September 30, 2028).

The hearing will be held on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, at 10:15 am ET at the Dirksen Senate Office Building and will be streamed online.

The Board is an independent federal agency with a seven-member bipartisan board that advises the President, Congress, and Commissioner of Social Security on policies related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs.

###

The Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-296) established a bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board composed of seven Board members appointed by Congress and the White House. Supported by a professional staff, the Board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.

Washington, DC – Today, the Board released Retirement Trajectories and Social Security’s Retirement Earnings Test. The retirement earnings test (RET) temporarily withholds or reduces the Social Security retirement benefits of people who are below full retirement age (FRA) and whose earned income is above a certain threshold. Monthly benefits are later increased at FRA to account for the months when benefits were withheld or reduced under the RET.

Previous studies show that most people do not fully understand how the RET works. Given the varied retirement paths people take, it is important for older workers and their families to understand the implications of the RET for their work and retirement decisions.

Using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data on a cohort of baby boomers born from 1948 to 1953, the Board found:

Read the Report

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a webpage, brochure, and online RET calculator to educate the public. However, the Board found that not all the information is conveyed consistently or clearly. The Board recommended SSA use plain language, ensure information is consistent and accurate across resources, make tools such as the RET calculator easier to find and use, and consider reminding workers how the RET operates at various points during their careers.

###

The Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-296) established a bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board composed of seven Board members appointed by Congress and the White House. Supported by a professional staff, the Board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.

Social Security’s retirement earnings test (RET) temporarily withholds or reduces the Social Security benefits of people below full retirement age (FRA) who work and earn above a certain threshold while collecting retirement benefits. Those benefits are increased at FRA to account for the months when benefits were withheld or reduced under the RET. The legislative intent of the RET, which has been part of the law since Social Security’s creation in 1935, was to determine whether a worker had left the workforce, since Social Security is designed as an insurance program to partially replace insured workers’ wages that are lost due to old age, disability, or death (for surviving dependents). Studies show that most people do not fully understand how the RET works. While many know that benefits are reduced due to earnings before FRA, most do not understand that this reduction is temporary.

This paper examines the RET in the context of changing work and retirement patterns. We analyze retirement trajectories using micro-data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative survey of Americans ages 50 or older and their spouses conducted every two years. We find that over half of the early baby boomer cohort follows a nontraditional retirement path involving either partial retirement or a return to work before permanently leaving the labor force. Half of those who returned to work reported receiving Social Security retirement benefits before returning to work; of these people, 40 percent were below FRA when they returned to work. It is important for older workers and their families to understand the implications of the RET for their work and retirement decisions, given the varied paths people take when permanently leaving the workforce.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides several resources to educate the public about the RET. However, this paper demonstrates that not all these resources clearly explain the key features of the RET, and not all the information is conveyed consistently across resources. SSA could improve these materials to communicate the implications of work and retirement more clearly to workers and their families. We conclude by offering recommendations for how SSA can improve these public resources, such as using plain language, ensuring information is consistent and accurate across resources, and improving tools such as the RET calculator. Reminding workers how the RET operates at various points during their careers could help improve awareness of its potential applicability for those who follow nontraditional retirement paths.

DESCRIPTION: The following list contains remarks, testimony, and speeches by individual members of the Social Security Advisory Board. For these events, Board members were acting as representatives of the Board, but their remarks should be considered their own, and not an official statement by the entire Board.  The text available for download represents the remarks as prepared and is not an actual transcript of the presentation.

 

April 6, 2016

Remarks by Chair Henry J. Aaron to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget on the release of the report of the SSDI Solutions Initiative.
Download the text

November 19, 2009

Testimony by Acting Chairwoman Barbara B. Kennelly’s to the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Download the text

October 2009

Speech by Mark J. Warshawsky to the 2009 National AALJ Conference.
Download the text

April 28, 2009

Testimony by Chairman Sylvester J. Schieber’s to the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Download the text

September 16, 2008

Testimony by Chairman Sylvester J. Schieber to the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means
Download the text

September 2008

Speech by Sylvester J. Schieber to the 2008 NADE National Conference.
Download the text

August 2008

Speech by Sylvester J. Schieber to the 2008 National AALJ Conference.
Download the text

April 23, 2008

Testimony by Chairman Sylvester J. Schieber’s before the House Ways and Means Committee on Social Security.
Download the text

July 2007

Speech by Sylvester J. Schieber to the 2007 National AALJ Conference.
Download the text

September 30, 2004

Testimony by Chairman Hal Daub, Social Security Advisory Board, Before the Subcommittee on Social Security and Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Download the text

June 14, 2004

Statement on the Congressional Budget Office Social Security Projections.
Download the text

May 20, 2004

Testimony by Dr. David Podoff, Member Social Security Advisory Board, Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Download the text

Washington, DC – Today, Social Security Advisory Board Members wrote Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden and Ranking Member Mike Crapo to urge the Committee to swiftly consider Governor Martin O’Malley’s nomination as Commissioner of Social Security. The Board also recommended Congress amend the Social Security Act to state that the Commissioner of Social Security once again serves at the pleasure of the President.

[Read the Full Letter]

The Board stated that after nearly 30 years, the six-year term for the Commissioner has not been successful. Since March 31, 1995, SSA has had 12 different Commissioners. Only two served nearly the full six-year term. In the past decade, SSA has had an Acting Commissioner for eight years.

The Board concluded that SSA needs the leadership authority that a Senate-confirmed Commissioner provides.

###

The Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994 (Public Law No. 103-296) established a bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board composed of seven Board members appointed by Congress and the White House. Supported by a small professional staff, the Board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.

Social Security Advisory Board Members wrote Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden and Ranking Member Mike Crapo to urge the Committee to swiftly consider Governor Martin O’Malley’s nomination as Commissioner of Social Security. The Board also recommended Congress amend the Social Security Act to state that the Commissioner of Social Security once again serves at the pleasure of the President.

The Board stated that after nearly 30 years, the six-year term for the Commissioner has not been successful. Since March 31, 1995, SSA has had 12 different Commissioners. Only two served nearly the full six-year term. In the past decade, SSA has had an Acting Commissioner for eight years.

The Board held an event on “The Future of Mortality, Disability, and Work: Helping to Inform the Social Security Trust Fund Projections” on Friday, August 25, 2023.

Each year, the Board of Trustees reports to Congress on the current and projected financial and actuarial status of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) programs. The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Chief Actuary (OCACT), on behalf of the Trustees, projects future OASDI program cost and income based on assumptions about key demographic and economic variables affecting the number of people paying into and receiving benefits from these programs over time. This forum brought together OCACT in conversation with other experts to consider the implications of recent research and scientific findings on future expectations for a subset of those variables—mortality, disability, and work.

This page collects materials from the event, including a recording of the entire session. Each panel section has a brief description, a list of panelists, a video recording, and any presentation slides used. Videos are annotated by chapter.

Future of Mortality, Disability, and Work

Panel 1: Mortality

10 – 11:30 am ET

This panel discussed expectations for future mortality trends in light of issues such as COVID-19 and possible future pandemics, rising deaths from drugs, suicide, and chronic liver disease among the working-age population, and rising pediatric mortality. How long people will live to pay into and receive Social Security in the future is a key consideration for program projections.

Panelists

Panel 1: Future of Mortality

Panel 2: Disability

11:30 am – 1 pm ET

This panel explored factors impacting technological and medical advances and changing workplace flexibilities. OCACT projects the number of people expected to receive disability benefits in the future using three key disability assumptions: incidence, death, and recovery rates. Incidence rates—the proportion of insured workers who file for and are awarded benefits each year based on SSA’s definition of disability—have fallen steeply since 2010 to levels well below expected.

Panelists

*Personal capacity; affiliations for identification purposes only.

Panel 2: Future of Disability

Panel 3: Work

2 – 3:30 pm ET

This panel discussed expectations about the changing nature of work and why it is particularly uncertain. People qualify for OASI and DI by contributing to the Social Security Trust Funds through taxes on their earnings from covered jobs. What work will look like is critical to understanding program contributions and costs.

Panelists

Panel 3: Future of Work

Speakers

Robert Anderson, PhD, has served as Chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics since 2004. He oversees and is responsible for the production, analysis and dissemination of national mortality statistics and has worked on issues related to disease classification, improvements in data quality (especially with regard to cause of death reporting), and quantifying the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in the United States.

 

 

Portrait photo of David Cutler.

David M Cutler, PhD, is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. His expertise is in health and public economics and economic demography.

 

 

Portrait photo of Stephen Goss in front of a flag.Stephen C Goss, ASA, MAAA, has been Social Security’s Chief Actuary since 2001. He has worked in areas related to health and long-term care insurance and pension, disability, and survivor protection.

 

 

 

Portrait photo of Karen Glenn in front of a flag.Karen Glenn, FSA, EA, MAAA, is SSA’s Deputy Chief Actuary for Long-Range Actuarial Estimates. She is responsible for the demographic and economic assumptions that underlie the 75-year estimates of the cost of the Social Security program.

 

 

 

Portrait photo of Allen Heinemann.Allen W Heinemann, PhD, is Director of the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. His research interests focus on health services research, psychosocial aspects of rehabilitation including substance abuse, and measurement issues in rehabilitation. 

 

 

Portrait photo of Stipica Mudrazija.Stipica Mudrazija, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington and Nonresident Fellow at the Urban Institute. He studies issues related to population aging, intergenerational support, and the health and well-being of older adults in the United States and internationally.

 

 

Portrait photo of Christopher MurrayChristopher JL Murray, MD, DPhil, is Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Professor and Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington. He is a physician and health economist who leads the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors enterprise, which quantifies the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography over time.

 

 

Portrait photo of Steven PopperSteven W Popper, PhD, is Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He works on decision-making under deep uncertainty, science and technology policy, strategic decision-making foresight and future studies, and security planning.

 

 

 

Portrait photo of Chris Ruhm.Christopher J Ruhm, PhD, is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Virginia. His research has focused on excess deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drug poisoning deaths in the United States, the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health, the determinants of health and risky behaviors, and the causes and consequences of alcohol and illegal drug policies.

 

 

Portrait photo of David Shaywitz.David Shaywitz, MD, PhD, is participating in his personal capacity but holds the roles of VP-Distinguished R&D Fellow at Takeda, Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and Adjunct Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A physician-scientist by training, he has focused his career on biomedical innovation, particularly the opportunities and challenges associated with implementing emerging technologies.

 

 

Seal of the Social Security AdministrationMichael L Stephens, ASA, is the Acting Deputy Chief Actuary for Short-Range Actuarial Estimates in the Office of the Chief Actuary at the Social Security Administration. He leads the office’s work on developing 10-year projections of the numbers of beneficiaries, total benefits, and the actuarial status of the trust funds for the Social Security program, as well as 25-year projections of recipients and total payments for the Supplemental Security Income program. 

 

 

Portrait photo of Shelly Steward.Shelly Steward, PhD, serves as Director of the Future of Work Initiative, part of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program. A sociologist by training, she has studied the changing nature of work and is an expert on nonstandard work arrangements and the gig economy.

 

 

 

Portrait photo of Steven WoolfSteven Woolf, MD, MPH, is Director Emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he is Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health and holds the C. Kenneth and Diane Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity. Woolf is also a clinical epidemiologist trained in preventive medicine and public health; he is board certified in family medicine and in preventive medicine and public health.