Social Security Disability Hearings in Pennsylvania

Under pressure from congressional republicans, the Social Security Administration has launched a major new effort to find examples of fraud in the disability programs.  This is intended to justify changes in the law to cut disability benefits and to turn the American public against Social Security Disability and SSI.  The Social Security Judges are already under pressure to deny more claims and the Appeals Council has been holding up awards and sending back approved cases for new hearings, questioning favorable decisions. Approvals have been steadily declining for a few years at the Wilkes-Barre ODAR and elsewhere.   The political climate for the disabled has not been this bad since the reviews and terminations of a half million disabled claimants in the early 1980s led to the Disability Reform Act of 1984.