Social Security Drops Planned Changes to Disability Rules

Study warned of impact on people 50-plus

The SSA currently considers a bevy of factors in reviewing disability claims, including the availability of jobs that a particular applicant might be able to perform and how well that person might be able to adapt to other jobs based on age, education and other considerations.

If the SSA gave less weight to age, people 50 and older would be less likely to qualify for disability payments, according to a recent analysis by Jack Smalligan, a senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank.

A similar draft rule was under consideration during the first Trump administration, news outlets reported at the time. Smalligan’s report, published in September, found that if changes along the lines of the previous proposal were implemented, eligibility for SSDI among new applicants could decrease by as much as 20 percent overall and up to 30 percent for workers age 50-plus. (His analysis said the impact on eligibility for SSI, which also has financial criteria, was unclear.)

Reducing SSDI eligibility by just 10 percent would result in about 750,000 fewer people receiving benefits for all or part of the next decade, including about 80,000 widowed spouses and children receiving benefits based on the work record of a late partner or parent, the Urban study found.

“The administration’s efforts could have caused serious harm to hundreds of thousands of workers with disabilities,” Smalligan says. Reversing course “is very important, especially for older workers, and shows an openness to criticism and willingness to change direction.”

‘The right choice’

Jennifer Burdick, a supervising attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, says the news is great for older workers with disabilities.

“It is already very challenging for Americans with disabilities to meet the exacting standards for being approved for disability benefits, and the proposed changes would have made the system much worse,” she says. “Commissioner Bisignano made the right choice to abandon this proposal, and we are looking forward to working with him and SSA to continue to strengthen the disability program.”

Turkish says rumors about the impending changes had been rippling through the disability community for weeks. “I have never seen more anxiety and fear in this community,” he says.

He says new barriers to accessing disability benefits could have prompted a surge in older adults claiming Social Security retirement benefits at the minimum age of 62 rather than waiting until their full retirement age, significantly reducing their monthly payments and putting further stress on Social Security’s finances.

Social Security relies on the surplus in its two trust funds, one for retirement and survivor benefits and the other for disability benefits, to meet its annual payment obligations. SSA actuaries project that the retirement and survivor fund could run short as soon as late 2032, resulting in a nearly 20 percent benefit reduction, unless Congress acts to shore up the program’s financial structure.

In addition to addressing age, the SSA draft rule was expected to replace a decades-old directory of jobs used in decisions about who qualifies for disability with occupational data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The current list is widely viewed by advocates and policy analysts as outdated, and replacing it has “bipartisan support,” the Urban Institute report notes.

Turkish says the SSA’s decision to drop the rule will allow advocates and the agency to “refocus” on changes that could improve the disability determinations process, including steps to reduce the backlog of pending claims. As of October, there were about 867,000 disability claims awaiting initial decisions, according to SSA data, and the average processing time was 204 days.