Social Security

NSCLC believes that protecting Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits is a priority. Throughout our history, we have fought to preserve these safety net programs through working with the Social Security Administration, challenging unfair practices in the courts, and, in collaboration with others, defended the programs from harmful change.

Several proposals have been offered by policymakers in 2010-11 to change Social Security as we know it. The arguments for change have tied the problems with future solvency to the current federal budget deficit even though the program has nothing to do with it.

NSCLC is a member of Social Security Works, a coalition that
seeks to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. We also work closely with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a national membership organization, and the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, a coalition of 66 aging organizations, on related advocacy issues.

• Social Security Modernization: Options to Address Solvency and Benefit Adequacy
  On May 18, 2010, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging released a new committee report. Click here to access the report.  



• Social Security Administration Retreats from “Unknowing Flight” Doctrine and Will Pay Hundreds of Millions in Back Benefits
  This article in the Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy has details of the Martinez settlement.  



• Government Stops Unlawful Social Security Suspensions; Agrees To Repay More Than Half A Billion in Back Benefits
  August 11, 2009                                     Government Stops Unlawful Social Security Suspensions; Agrees To Repay More Than Half A Billion in Back Benefits   More than 200,000 people eligible again throu...



• Social Security Settlement Could Benefit 100,000+ People and Restore Hundreds of Millions in Benefits
  A proposed settlement has been reached in Martinez v. Astrue, No. 08-CV-4735 CW (N.D. Cal.). The settlement will obligate the Social Security Administration to halt procedures which in recent years have caused the unjustified denial or suspension of be...



• Court Upholds Rehab Act Claim for Blind Participants in SSA Programs
  The decision is an important victory for the estimated 3,000,000 participants in Social Security programs who are blind or have low vision, the overwhelming majority of whom are over the age of 80. A district court in California has denied jurisdict...



• NSCLC Challenges SSA Policy on Alleged Probation Violation
  A lawsuit has been filed by NSCLC on behalf of a nationwide class of thousands of individuals, who have lost their Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, challenging the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) policy of suspen...



• SSA Announces New Rules for Service of Process
  The Social Security Administration (SSA) published Final Rules changing the rules for service of process in lawsuits involving judicial review of SSA final decisions on individual claims for benefits. 70 Fed. Reg. 73135 (Dec. 9, 2005). The rules were p...



• GAO Issues Report on Social Security Indexing Options
  The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) new report, "Social Security Reform: Implications of Different Indexing Choices" GAO-06-804 (Sept. 14, 2006), which was issued on GAO’s own initiative, is a good useful introduction to the use of indexing ...



• Supreme Court: Student Loan Debt May Be Offset from Social Security, Even for Debts Older than 10 Yrs
  The federal Debt Collection Act of 1982 authorized the use of administrative offset to recover government debts but prohibited its use on all claims that were outstanding for more than ten years. In 1991 Congress passed the Higher Education Assistance ...



• SSA Issues New Disability Ruling
  The Social Security Administration (SSA) has issued a new ruling dealing with two separate issues that frequently arise in disability determinations: 1) the consideration of evidence from other than "acceptable medical sources" and 2) the consideration...