The Social Security Administration has the authority to
waive certain rules for demo projects exploring ways to
encourage people to return to work and lessen their
dependence on disability insurance, but has used it in
limited ways, the Government Accountability Office has
said.
While Congress is trying to determine if it should make
permanent SSA’s authority to waive certain disability
insurance and Medicare program rules and use Social
Security trust funds, GAO reported that the agency has
focused “on a relatively narrow set of policy issues —
those dealing with the provision of vocational
rehabilitation and employment services,” according to
GAO-05-19.
The report said that even though recent projects have
experimented with measures such as reducing benefits
based on earnings rather than terminating them, the
agency still lacks systematic ways of ensuring it is
fully leveraging its authority.
GAO reported that the agency “has not developed a formal
demonstration research agenda explicitly identifying its
broad vision for using its DI demonstration authority and
explaining how ongoing or proposed demonstration projects
support achievement of the agency’s goals and objectives.”
It said the projects have little impact on DI policy
issues, partly due to “methodological limitations that
have prevented SSA from producing project results that
are useful for reliably assessing DI policy alternatives.”
Further, SSA lacks a “formal process” to ensure project
results inform policy considerations, said GAO, noting that
the agency does not keep complete records of demonstration
results to make policy decisions and plan for further research.
SSA stands to miss the opportunity to make its special
authority permanent, but GAO stopped short of making
that recommendation, saying instead that due to the way
SSA manages the projects, Congress is not fully apprised
of the project results or their policy implications.
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