Use of Electronic Payroll Data To Improve Program Administration

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION <CFR>20 CFR Parts 404, 416, and 422</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. SSA-2016-0039]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0960-AH88</RIN> <SUBJECT>Use of Electronic Payroll Data To Improve Program Administration</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Social Security Administration. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Section 824 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA) authorizes the Commissioner of Social Security to enter into information exchanges with payroll data providers to obtain wage and employment information. We use wage and employment information to administer the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs under titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (Act). We are proposing these rules pursuant to section 824 of the BBA, which requires us to prescribe, by regulation, procedures for implementing the access to and use of the information held by payroll data providers. We expect these proposed rules will support proper use of information exchanges with payroll data providers that will help us administer our programs more efficiently and prevent improper payments under titles II and XVI of the Act, which can otherwise occur when we do not receive timely and accurate wage and employment information. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> To ensure that your comments are considered, we must receive them no later than April 15, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by any one of three methods—internet, fax, or mail. Do not submit the same comments multiple times or by more than one method. Regardless of which method you choose, please state that your comments refer to Docket No. SSA-2016-0039 so that we may associate your comments with the correct rule. <E T="03">Caution:</E> You should be careful to include in your comments only information that you wish to make publicly available. We strongly urge you not to include in your comments any personal information, such as Social Security numbers or medical information. 1. <E T="03">Internet:</E> We strongly recommend that you submit your comments via the internet. Please visit the Federal eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Use the Search function to find docket number SSA-2016-0039. The system will issue a tracking number to confirm your submission. You will not be able to view your comment immediately because we must post each comment manually. It may take up to a week for your comment to be viewable. 2. <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to 1-833-410-1631. 3. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Mail your comments to the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs, Regulations and Reports Clearance Staff, Social Security Administration, Mail Stop 3253 Altmeyer, 6401 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21235-6401. Comments are available for public viewing on the Federal eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or in person, during regular business hours, by arranging with the contact person identified below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nicole Dunham, Policy Analyst, Office of Supplemental Security Income and Program Integrity Policy, Social Security Administration, 6401 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21235-6401, (410) 966-9078. For information on eligibility or filing for benefits, call our national toll-free number, 1-800-772-1213, or TTY 1-800-325-0778, or visit our internet site, Social Security Online, at <E T="03">https://www.socialsecurity.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> We administer the OASDI disability and SSI programs under titles II and XVI of the Act, respectively. The OASDI program pays benefits to individuals who meet certain requirements, including those who are disabled and insured for disability. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> OASDI also pays benefits to certain members of disabled individuals' families. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> We refer to meeting the requirements for OASDI disability benefits as OASDI disability “entitlement.” The SSI program provides financial support to: (1) adults and children with a disability or blindness; and (2) adults aged 65 and older. These individuals must meet all program eligibility requirements, including having resources and income below specified amounts. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> We refer to meeting the factors of eligibility for SSI payments as SSI “eligibility.” <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 20 CFR 404.315 for a full list of the OASDI disability eligibility requirements. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  This can include, for example, a child of the disabled individual, a child of the disabled individual entitled to an adult child disability benefit, a spouse caring for a minor or disabled child of the disabled individual, or retirement benefits for a spouse age 62 or older of the disabled individual. <E T="03">See</E> 20 CFR 404.330, 404.350, 404.351. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 20 CFR 416.202 for a full list of the SSI eligibility requirements. </FTNT> We take seriously our responsibilities to ensure eligible individuals receive the benefits to which they are entitled and to safeguard the integrity of benefit programs to better serve our customers. Our commitment includes working to ensure we have accurate wage data as quickly as practicable to avoid overpayments before they occur or correct them quickly. We use wage and employment information to decide who can receive OASDI disability benefits and SSI payments. We also use it to determine SSI payment amounts. Receiving complete, accurate, and timely wage and employment information allows us to administer our programs efficiently and to avoid improper payments that can occur when we do not have such information. Reviews of post-entitlement cases show that substantial gainful activity (SGA)  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> continues to be the leading cause of overpayments in the OASDI disability program. In fact, SGA-related overpayments in the OASDI program averaged approximately $500 million annually as of fiscal year 2022. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Further, wage discrepancies, which reached an annual average of approximately $1.4 billion in improper payments as of fiscal year 2022, have been a leading cause of improper payments in the SSI program for more than a decade. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  A requirement for disability for both OASDI disability and SSI is that you cannot be engaged in SGA, which is defined as work that involves significant and productive physical or mental duties, and is done, or intended to be done, for pay or profit. 20 CFR 404.1510, 404.1520(b), 416.910, 416.920(b). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  FY2023 Agency Financial Report, page 180, available at <E T="03">https://www.ssa.gov/finance/2023/Full%20FY%202023%20AFR.pdf.</E> Beneficiaries' failure to report earnings in a timely manner accounted for 82 percent of SGA-related improper payments and our failure to take the proper actions to process work reports accounted for the remainder. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at 184 and 185. Wage discrepancies occur when the recipient or their deemor has actual wages that differ from the wage amount we used to calculate the SSI payment, either because the recipient failed to report a change, or we failed to make changes to payments in a timely manner. </FTNT> Currently, we rely on individuals to report certain wage and employment information to us. Individuals who are entitled to OASDI disability must report to us when their condition improves, when they return to work, when they increase the amount they work, and when their earnings increase. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Individuals who are eligible for SSI based on disability or blindness must make similar reports. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> All SSI recipients and deemors  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> must also report to us any change in income  <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> as soon as a reportable event happens. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> For OASDI disability and SSI, they can report these changes by phone, fax, mail, in person, <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> or by using <E T="03">my</E> SocialSecurity. In many cases, SSI recipients may also report wages through the SSA Mobile Wage Reporting (SSAMWR) application and the SSI Telephone Wage Reporting (SSITWR) system. We may also request this information from the employer(s) or payroll data providers when the information we receive is incomplete or we are unable to obtain it from the individual. Because many individuals work in jobs where earnings may vary from week to week, some individuals report these changes to us each month or more frequently. In FY 2022, we received 1.1 million wage reports  <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> for individuals who received OASDI disability or OASDI disability and SSI concurrently, and who were in current pay status (this does not include SSI only wage reports). Though we strive to make reporting as easy as possible, individuals must keep track of their reportable events, report them as soon as they happen, and spend time making the reports, which can be burdensome. <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> We estimate that there are about 1,100,000 OASDI disability beneficiaries, between 200,000 and 300,000 SSI recipients, and another 500,000 to 600,000 deemors of SSI recipients who work in a given year. Despite the many reporting options, we do not always receive complete or timely reports. Even when we receive complete reports, we may still need to verify them with independent or collateral sources when we do not have proper wage evidence to verify the report, such as a paystub. Currently, to verify wage reports, w ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 120k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━