The Social Security Administration is drafting regulations to achieve its goal of "unification" of the disability adjudication process. Decisionmakers at the initial and first appeal stages of the application process are state agency personnel who deny applications for disability at a rate more than double that of SSA's own Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). Social Security has acknowledged that although there is a single legal standard governing the determination of disability, state agency adjudicators apply a different standard than do the ALJs. "Process unification" is an effort to ensure that adjudicators at all levels apply the same standard. Unfortunately, the regulations being developed by SSA to achieve unification will, in the opinion of most disability advocates, make it more difficult for the claimant to prove disability thus increasing the denial rate of ALJs rather than lowering the denial rate of state adjudicators.
This is but one of many examples of the continuing trend of restricting
or eliminating entitlement to Social Security disability benefits. Sadly,
Social Security disability program "reform" is alive and well. And, the
recent reprieve for some immigrants notwithstanding, disability "reform"
will most likely make even basic subsistence impossible for many children
and adults with disabilities.