An official website of the United States government
June 26, 2024 •By Jeffrey Buckner, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Communications
Reading Time: 2 MinutesLast Updated:June 26, 2024
When people become disabled under the statutory definition the Social Security Administration must follow, the agency helps them meet their basic needs and sustain a higher quality of life. Social Security administers disability benefits through two programs: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Under both programs, the agency follows a five-step process to determine if an adult has a qualifying disability.
In response to President Biden’s Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, the agency is proud to announce changes that will reduce administrative burdens for applicants and help more people with disabilities receive government benefits and services if they are eligible. On April 18, 2024, Social Security published a final rule, “Intermediate Improvement to the Disability Adjudication Process, Including How We Consider Past Work.”
The final rule announces updates that will improve the application process for disability benefits and reduce the time applicants wait for a decision.
The new rule simplifies step four of the process, which assesses whether a person applying for disability benefits can perform any of their “past relevant work.”
“This new rule will lessen the burden and time our applicants face when filling out information about their work history and will make it easier for them to focus on the most current and relevant details about their past work,” said Martin O’Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. “It also improves the quality of the information our frontline workers receive to make decisions, improving customer service, and reducing case processing time and overall wait times.”
Under the final rule, beginning June 22, 2024, when determining past relevant work, the agency will review only five years of past work. The previous policy required people to provide detailed information about 15 years of work history, which was difficult for individuals to remember and often led to incomplete or inaccurate reporting. Also, the agency will no longer consider past work that started and stopped in fewer than 30 calendar days.The new rule makes it easier for people applying for benefits by focusing on their most recent relevant work activity while still providing enough information to continue making accurate determinations.
This final rule is one of several regulation updates Social Security is publishing to improve its disability program. The agency recently announced it will reduce barriers to access the SSI program by updating the definition of a public assistance household. The agency also announced it will exclude the value of food from SSI benefit calculations.Additionally, the agency announced it will expand its rental subsidy exception, currently only in place for SSI applicants and recipients residing in seven States, as a nationwide policy.
The agency continuously examines programmatic policy and makes regulatory and sub-regulatory changes as appropriate. For more information on the SSDI and SSI programs – including who is eligible, how to apply, and how Social Security makes a disability determination – visit Disability and SSI.
To read the final rule, visit theFederal Register: Intermediate Improvement to the Disability Adjudication Process, Including How We Consider Past Work.
Did you find this Information helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
Tags: Disability, Social Security benefits, social security disability benefits, SSI, supplemental security income
See Comments
About the Author
Jeffrey Buckner, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Communications
Related Articles
Disability SSI
Things to Think About Before Applying for Disability Benefits
Disability
Helpful Facts About Social Security Disability Benefits
Disability Online Services
Understanding Social Security Disability Benefits
Disability
Disagree with Your Disability Decision? We Will Take Another Look
Comments
Please review our Comment Policy beforeleaving a comment.
-
Monica W.
It seems paying attention and reading the whole policy means little to the complaining posts made, since they’re only skiming and seeing the big scary words like “relevant history to use in determining if past “relevant work can be done” and it also states that it’s not going to include anything that was under 30 days in time worked. Those are better steps than previous ones, especially the use of “relevant ” sometimes people have done so much irrelevant jobs they think they’re being asked to be a nothing worker when they’re actually trying to keep you in the same if not better options so as not to demean the worker themselves. Since there are training options to get people back in the workforce by helping set them up to succeed with newer skills than previously equipped with which in turn benefit the worker and society as a whole. Nobody (minus a few) wants to feel useless for the rest of their life because they are broken, put on a fixed income that barely covers cereal, definitely doesn’t cover rent or any amenities, and get tossed aside like garbage. Most would graciously accept training to be independent again.
Reply-
JERRY M.
ReplyMonica W. That is why we must have a much more honest government, much more honesty from U.S. citizens, and complete honesty from all applicants for SS, SSI, welfare benefits, jobs, any type of government assistance paid for by the 50% of U.S. citizens who are actually paying some Federal income taxes! The people who have paid Social Security taxes for many years, are those who are still paying SS taxes, including many retired person, should not have crooked politicians, government agency leaders, government employees, or other U.S. citizens allowing deceit and corruption in the process of distribution of Social Security funds, or taxpayer public funds! Encouraging people to apply of any type of Social Security disability funds, SSI, SSI-DI free Medicaid, welfare benefits, any type of government assistance is opening doors to all those who are more than willing to lie, cheat and steal to get their living and existence from Social Security money, government money, which only comes from a few U.S. citizens who are actually paying significant taxes so everyone on illicit welfare type programs can live free in a working U.S. population!
What the U.S. must do is get all our factories, plants, money, investments, investors, non-union jobs, jobs, workers, retirement funds, small businesses, companies, and honest people back into the United States of America. That will GREATLY GROW the middle class where we can have completely full employment, allow U.S. citizens to go into all the small businesses, take good paying jobs, raise the STANDARD OF LIVING to MIDDLE CLASS and allow them to get out of the lower class and the service jobs where there is little hope for real prosperity for most people!
By bringing all these things back to America we can, easily, develop real good jobs, and we certainly can develop many, many very specialized jobs, with the needed special accomadtions, for the handicapped, the disabled who are disabled physically and/or mentally! We must do this to improve our USA, or otherwise we are at a full-blown stalemate, where people will continue to choose lying, cheating and stealing welfare benefits, SSI, etc. as a means to remain in the lower class of citizens, along with the dirty illegal aliens, immigrants we have allowed into what once was a clean and honest USA! We must eliminate all types of welfare programs, all SSI, all welfare and SSI recipients and replace their subsistence with the very highly specialized jobs, vocations, and their sources of living with meaningful, honest means of supporting themselves! Smart working people can do all these things, but the welfare benefits believing class must stop being dishonest and realize money does not go on trees, nor is there an endless supply of money from the 50% of U.S. citizens paying the taxes! Right now, the U.S. government and many of our citizens are in a corrupt state of mind! We can overcome that as we did in World War II, or we can deteriorate further and end-up, soon, in a very bad World War III, and a very bad recession at the same time, which the USA would never recover from!
-
-
Tammy j.
I want to know if they are going to refigure mine and others to focus only on our past 5 years. They went 15 for mine and the last it would have been Register Nurse pay!
Reply -
Kerin58
This is totally wrong! Those of us who had to work years for the full credits to collect SSDI, deserve more money monthly then! Why should you only make someone work for half of the time that I had to, and be entitled to those same benefits? Plus, the SSA will run out of funds even sooner then we are previously being told, at which point nobody will receive benefits, or they’ll be cut drastically. Get people that can work working their full years! Totally illogical decision that makes absolutely no sense!
Reply-
Retired
This has nothing to do with quarters of coverage. Full credits are still required. It has to do with denying a claim because a person can still perform a job they did 14 years ago, even if they can’t perform their most recent job. Now that job will not be relevant. More applicants will likely be granted SSD.
Reply -
JERRY M.
Thank you for your logical approach and your honesty! You are very right! This 5 year plan with, essentially, no real restrictions to getting approved for SS-DI, SSI-DI, SSI is nothing but a Social Security Fund stealing move to entice gulible people into making even more false and bogus claims for benefits! The USA has become corrupt in some of our actions! We will stop the corruption! Thank you for being such a great U.S. citizen! We certainly do not need any illega aliens or immigrants getting any of our SS, SSI, SSI-DI or welfare benefits either, but every one of them illegally stepping across our boreders are applying to get every government benefits available in our United States of America! We must close borders, stop all immigration and deport every illegal alien and foreigner out of USA. We can see all the very negative results of our open borders policy! All we have is an open borders policy; do not believe anything anybody says indicating we are controlling illegal immigration! We are allowing dirty people to enter the USA, who are ignorant, uneducated and who cannot support themselves. They will over run our public facilities and schools for years, costing all our governments, at all levels, for many years, just because segments of USA want to change America from a free independent country to a full-blown Marxist-Communist country where confiscation of our incomes, assets, homes, businesses, etc is allowed so they can be re-distributed to the illicit segments of U.S. who are on welfare programs, or want to be living off U.S. tax paying citizens, rather than working for their own subsistence!
Reply
-
-
Kathy S.
Looks good on paper, but is more prohibitive than it first appears. Most people filing for SSDI have been out of work for a while. Either trying to get better, or believing they must wait to be completely broke before applying. By limiting the work history to five years, there will be, on average, 2-3 years prior to application where the applicant has been unable to work, so there is not much work history, and a drastically reduced SSDI Allotment. Nicely done, O’Malley, you silver tongued devil, you!
Reply -
Lisa
My husband retired at 65 on work and ss benefits. He is 94 now. He had a stroke 5 years ago and was still recovering but now he can barely walk without help. Our daughter has cerebral palsy and I am the only caregiver with several health limitations. It’s painful to clean house, cook, laundry, etc. we have to pay for yard work for a large property. Is my husband eligible for SSDI and help with our household duties. Would he receive more than regular ss? We both worked for state government and they deduct WEP from our ss checks, which is unfair and Congress has not changed that law for years
Reply
Leave a Comment
Please review our Comment Policy beforeleaving a comment. For your safety, please do not postPersonally Identifiable Information (such as your Social Security Number, address, phone number,email address, bank account number, or birthdate) on our blog.
