Disability Advocacy Program

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced a cost-of-living (COLA) increase earlier this month that will affect over seventy million Americans, albeit two weeks delayed this year due to the government shutdown.   Recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), totaling around 7.5 million, will see a 2.8% increase in benefits beginning in January 2025. For an […]

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has recently issued two important Emergency Messages (EM)—EM-25046 and EM-25048. Together, these directives affect how SSA verifies financial resources for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients and how it documents emergency or immediate payments for individuals facing financial hardship. EM-25046, released August 1, 2025, expands the SSA’s use of the Access […]

On October 17, 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed 2025 N.Y. Assembly Bill A.1817 (Rosenthal); 2025 N.Y. Senate Bill S.7741 (May), which would have allowed New Yorkers to receive retroactive State Supplement Program (SSP) benefits for periods when they were eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) even if they were only eligible for a closed period […]

A formal whistleblower disclosure filed on August 26, 2025 by Charles Borges, former Chief Data Officer at the Social Security Administration (SSA), has exposed alarming lapses in the security and governance of SSA’s most sensitive data. Borges alleges that officials affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uploaded a live copy of the Numident […]

A class action lawsuit filed on September 30, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenges the Trump administration’s consolidation of sensitive personal data across multiple agencies – including against the Social Security Administration (SSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) — […]

In the latest of many unusual structural changes made at the Social Security Administration (SSA) and across the federal government this year, the Commissioner of Social Security, Frank Bisignano, was recently appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier this month. The dual appointment – unprecedented in SSA’s 90-year history – has […]

In early July 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) began involuntarily reassigning approximately 2,000 employees from its local field offices (FOs) to its teleservice centers (TSCs) to answer calls to its 1-800 number, a move that significantly reduces the agency’s in-person service capacity. The transfer, part of SSA’s broader shift toward centralized and remote service […]

As a general rule, able-bodied adults who apply for public assistance are required to comply with work rules as a condition of receiving those benefits. However, when a social services district requires a Safety Net Assistance (SNA) recipient to apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) as a condition of eligibility, those persons are considered exempt […]

In Rella v. Commissioner of Social Security, No. 21-CV-4170 (JS), 2025 WL 1070231 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 9, 2025), District Judge Joanna Seybert agreed with the plaintiff that a residual functional capacity (RFC) limitation to occasional interaction with others can be disabling, and ordered the calculation of benefits.  The plaintiff relied on Social Security Ruling (SSR) 85-15 […]

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. __ (2024), which overturned Chevron deference, federal agencies face a radically altered legal landscape. As discussed in the July 2025 issue of this newsletter, Loper Bright was widely viewed as a move to curtail expansive agency regulation. However, […]

In Flinton v. Commissioner of Social Security, No. 23-7715-cv (2d Cir. July 2, 2025), the Second Circuit issued a precedential decision reinforcing the constitutional remedy required when Social Security disability hearings are held before improperly appointed administrative law judges (ALJs). The case arose from Mollie Marie Flinton’s 2015 application for Social Security Disability Insurance […]