House Ways and Means member presses for updates to Social Security return-to-work policies

A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, filling in for Chairman LaHood, told a subcommittee hearing that lawmakers need to update Social Security Administration (SSA) policies that affect beneficiaries’ ability to return to work.

“The vast majority of SSI and DI recipients simply cannot work,” the Representative (filling in for Chairman LaHood), a member of both House Ways and Means subcommittees, said. He added that some beneficiaries “do work part time or want to return to work as their medical conditions may have changed or their technology advances to provide better accommodations and accessibility in the workplace.”

The representative said the hearing would focus on the two SSA disability programs—Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—and noted it was the first time the subcommittees had reviewed SSA’s return-to-work policy since February 2015. He cited an SSA survey showing beneficiaries are largely “work oriented,” and said roughly “nearly 18 percent” of respondents saw themselves working enough to leave disability benefits within five years.

The representative also highlighted low awareness of existing supports. “Only 1 out of 3 beneficiaries have ever heard of the ticket to work,” he said, referring to the Ticket to Work program established in 1999. He expressed concern that fear of overpayment discourages beneficiaries from attempting to return to work and said he introduced bipartisan legislation last Congress, the Protecting Americans for Social Security clawback act, to address overpayments made through no fault of the beneficiary.

As an example of state practice, he said Ohio’s Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities Agency worked with nearly 37,000 Ohioans with disabilities last year on employment and independent-living goals. He urged policymakers to make sure “government policies are working in their favor and not discouraging or putting up walls that make it harder to connect to work.”

He told colleagues he hoped for bipartisan cooperation to improve outcomes for people with disabilities and said he was “committed to continuing to focus on ways to decrease the overpayment rates at SSA.” The representative concluded by saying he looked forward to the testimony of the witnesses and yielded back.

No formal votes or actions were reported during this opening statement; witnesses were introduced but not named in this segment.