You may have heard or read about the Donald Trump and conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation’s, plans for a second Trump presidency. If you haven’t, do a google search. There is some scary stuff in there, for sure. Some of it directly affects Social Security benefits. One of the major proposals involves gradually…
For as long as Attorney Crawforth has been practicing Social Security’s evaluation process has included Past Relevant Work for jobs going back 15 years. That will now change. For decisions dated June 22, 2024 or later the relevant time period is 5 years meaning only jobs in that time frame are evaluated.
Summer 2021 Newsletter STILL STANDING…AND PRACTICING I published the first issue of Social Security & You in Spring of 1993. Some years I’ve published more issues than others. The most recent issue was dated Spring 2019: over 2 years ago. The world was a much different place then. Especially for me. Read the full newsletter…
Spring 2019 Newsletter An Opioid Story I’ve changed his name. Let’s call him Gerald. He was a laborer. And by that I don’t mean that he just did physical work. He was a card-carrying member the Labor’s Union local. And that meant a lot to him. I represented him for Social Security disability and Michigan…
As the congress is mired in a problem of its own making, the looming debt ceiling limit isn’t likely to get addressed because there isn’t a speaker of the house of representatives.
This problem isn’t likely to be resolved soon and that means the funding for the social security administration isn’t likely to be fixed either.
The lack of funding has caused service by the ssa to take a turn for the worse. The average wait for a caller to the ssa main number (800- 772-1213) is 39 minutes. That’s 4 times as long as 2 years ago and 10 times as long as in 2011.
The average wait for an initial decision on a new disability application is 220 days; over 7 months. from 2008 to 2018 there was a 385 increase in the number of people dying while waiting for a decision from SSA.