Hearing Wait Time Decreases, but Overall Processing Time Continues to Rise at the Social Security Administration
As is often the case with Social Security, good news usually is followed by bad news. First, the good news: the number of cases awaiting Social Security hearings continues to drop. The bad news: the average time it takes for a claimant to receive a decision on a disability application continues to grow. As of March, the backlog of claims awaiting a hearing dropped below 1 million. The last time there were fewer than a million claims pending was November 2014.
The backlog decrease is largely due to declining numbers of hearing requests. So far in Fiscal Year 2018, there have been an average of 2,343 Social Security hearing requests each business day. That’s 141 fewer requests per day than 2017. The total number of hearing requests so far this year is 9.6% lower than at the same time last year.
The productivity of administrative law judges also has increased slightly, from 1.92 decisions per ALJ per work day in Fiscal Year 2017 to 1.97 decisions so far this year. In addition, Social Security has added 42 additional judges since the beginning of the year. Each judge receives 1.59 hearing requests per day and renders 1.97 decisions per day, resulting in a net reduction in the number of people waiting for a Social Security decision. However, as of February 2018, the average claim-processing time, from initial application to final decision, remains high at 607 days.
The increased processing time is primarily caused by a continued staffing deficit in decision-writing positions at Social Security. Social Security has tried pulling workers from other roles into decision writing, but that has caused slowdowns in other areas. The Social Security Administration continues to pay staff overtime in an effort to bring down the backlog, but overtime hours for the first five months of 2018 were down approximately 27.3% compared to last year. The $100 million in funds that Congress recently designated for backlog reduction may allow for increased overtime hours, but Social Security has not yet finalized its plan for spending the money.
Now more than ever, it is crucial that you have an attorney on your side when applying for disability. A hardworking, experienced attorney can help you avoid costly delays and even expedite your application if you meet certain criteria. If you are hurt, injured, or otherwise impaired, and you find yourself unable to work, contact Bailey & Galyen for a free case evaluation.
A leaked draft executive order dramatically changes policies and practices long held by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State relating to admission of immigrants into the United States, grants of lawful permanent resident status to foreign nationals, and removal of out-of-status immigrants and persons in the country unlawfully. The draft order permits officers to scrutinize more closely any taxpayer-funded public benefits received by an intending immigrant—as well as those received by the immigrant’s U.S.-citizen children—when determining eligibility for immigration benefits or deciding whether to initiate removal proceedings.
Like everyone else, I have to be careful with my money, and, whenever possible, I try to do a job myself rather than hire a professional. There are plenty of outlets to help you do it yourself in order to save a buck, including TurboTax, Home Depot, and various YouTube channels. This now applies even to legal matters. Plenty of people download forms from Intuit and other sites in order to make a will or lease property.
Property rights are important under the law. Often, clients fail to consider the important question, “Who owns the property?” Ownership is not the same thing as possession. You can occupy a seat at a ballgame or concert as a licensee for the period of that event, but you don’t own the seat. You might rent a room or a house or 1,000 acres, but that does not mean that you own it.
When you’ve been injured in an accident at work in Texas, you have the right to seek benefits under the state’s workers’ compensation program. But that may not be your only recourse. Here’s how it works.
If you have filed bankruptcy in the past and you find yourself in a position where you need to file again, you need expert legal advice to make sure you get it right. Job loss, divorce, medical emergencies, business closing, or other unexpected situations can all come together in a perfect storm to necessitate a new bankruptcy filing. Are you able to file bankruptcy again? The answer is usually “Yes” but you have to be careful to get the timing of your case right if your goal is to receive a new discharge on your outstanding debt. Below is a brief outline of the filing time periods between cases filed to receive a discharge in the subsequent bankruptcy filing:
We all make mistakes—unfortunately, for some of us, those mistakes can have legal consequences. While the aftermath of a criminal arrest can be traumatic, the existence of a number of first offender programs in Texas can give you the opportunity for a second chance.
Spring is here…the colors are splashed all across the state of Texas. With the warm temperatures, though, come the warm spring rains, necessary to give all the budding life a good start. But those showers can also wreak havoc for motorists, in many ways. Whether it’s a deluge that brings your visibility down to next to nothing, or water on the road, or the fog that often accompanies a change in weather, conditions can be tricky…estimates are that the risk of being in a motor vehicle accident can double or triple when roadways become wet.
In 2017, Equifax, Inc., a credit-reporting firm, suffered a cyber-attack that resulted in a data breach that affected millions of customers. After the company disclosed that the identities of roughly 148 million individuals were compromised, the company continuously struggles to regain the trust of customers. In early 2018, after completing a forensic examination of the breach, Equifax disclosed that an additional 2.4 million people were impacted by the 2017 cyber-attack. The company explained that these additional individuals were not identified in the first investigation because the search only focused on individuals who had their Social Security numbers compromised. The additional names were revealed after cross referencing partial drivers’ license numbers that were stolen with internal and external sources. The newly impacted individuals will receive the same credit-monitoring and identity theft protection services paid for by Equifax, as those initially identified.
Clients often ask about the path to citizenship. Most are eligible for the long and time consuming path to citizenship through visas, petitions, and Adjustment of Status. However, some are eligible for direct citizenship by blood via the N-600 application. Note that no actual blood is shed for this application.
If you’ve been convicted of a crime or have pleaded guilty, there’s a good chance that a part of your sentence will involve a period of probation, where you’ll have some restrictions set on your activities and where you’ll have to report to a probation officer on a regular basis. Probation can become a real burden after a while, and if you’ve honored all your commitments and learned your lesson, you may want to see if the court will allow you to terminate the probation before the designated date. It can be done, but there’s a specific process you must follow.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study of hearings-level award rates for disability claims revealed that “claimants who had representation at their hearings, were allowed benefits at a rate nearly 3 times higher than those without representatives.” The report also quotes SSA officials stating “that a representative can help the claimant by ensuring that the medical evidence and other records are fully developed and help the claimant present their case at a hearing.” At Bailey & Galyen we have always believed in the value of personal quality representation, but it is useful to have validation from an official source. The report, entitled “Additional Measures and Evaluation Needed to Enhance Accuracy and Consistency of Hearings Decisions,” was released in January 2018. It studied Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) decisions made on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims between Fiscal Years 2007 and 2015, a period where requests for hearings increased, peaked, and then declined. During this period, 77% of claimants at ALJ hearings had attorney representatives and 12% had non-attorney representatives.
Perhaps you have seen “HANDLE WITH CARE” stenciled on the outside of a container or crate. If you’re like me you may have tried to child-proof a room or dealt with the consequences of placing an item in harms’ way. As we get older we accumulate more stuff and take on more responsibility for securing things of value. Let me suggest three basic questions to ask when safeguarding what you value:
For as long as anyone can remember, alimony has been tax deductible. In Texas, we do not call it alimony instead, it is referred to as Post Divorce Maintenance (Chapter 8 Texas Family Code). Post Divorce Maintenance meets the requirements of Alimony under the Tax Code for IRS purposes. Alimony is the more common term, so I will use it here.