[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 56 (Monday, April 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S2010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




STRENGTHENING PROTECTIONS FOR SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFICIARIES ACT OF 2018

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 4547, the 
Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 
2018, a bipartisan bill developed by House Ways and Means Social 
Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson and Ranking Member  John 
Larson. This bill updates the representative payee program by 
strengthening oversight and beneficiary protections, while improving 
payee selection and quality. As a true testament to Chairman Johnson 
and Ranking Member Larson's bipartisan work, the bill passed both the 
House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously just before 
Congress adjourned in March.
  Social Security's Representative Payment program provides financial 
management for the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, 
SSI, payments of beneficiaries who are incapable of managing their 
Social Security or SSI payment. Today almost 6 million representative 
payees manage benefits on behalf of about 8 million Social Security 
beneficiaries and SSI recipients. Most often, the representative payee 
is a family member, like a spouse or a parent. When friends or family 
are not available to serve as payees, Social Security can use qualified 
organizations to be representative payees.
  Most payees perform their duties responsibly and with care. Some do 
not, and stakeholders in this process have raised concerns. The Social 
Security Advisory Board, the National Academy of Sciences, the 
Government Accountability Office, and Social Security's inspector 
general have uncovered problems with current policy and ideas for 
improvement. It has been almost 15 years since the last significant 
change to the law in this area, and this bill makes several needed 
policy changes and common sense improvements.
  The bill strengthens oversight of representative payees by requiring 
additional types of reviews of payee performance and draws on the 
expertise of the protection and advocacy system of each state to 
conduct the reviews. The bill reduces the burden on families by 
eliminating the requirement to file the annual accounting form for 
representative payees who are parents or spouses and are living with 
the beneficiary. The bill requires data exchanges between SSA and State 
foster care agencies to identify when there is a change in status of a 
beneficiary in foster care and reassess whether the payee is 
appropriate. The bill allows new beneficiaries to make an advance payee 
designation. Finally, the bill codifies current policy that bars felons 
from serving as a payee and requires SSA to recheck all existing 
payees.
  In 2016, my office was contacted by Lexie Gruber, a former foster 
youth from Connecticut. Lexie's story brought a human face to this 
issue and showed where the system had gone wrong. This young woman had 
recently aged out of foster care, graduated college at the top of her 
class, and moved to Washington, DC, for a new job, a success story that 
is unfortunately all too rare for children who have grown up in foster 
care. Lexie was working hard, but still struggled to afford living 
expenses in an expensive city while trying to work hard to save for law 
school. That was before the IRS notified her that the value of 
outstanding SSI overpayments were going to be withheld from her tax 
returns. This was outstanding debt she didn't know she had for benefits 
she never even got. To me, this is the definition of unjust. She had to 
contact Congress for help and since then has worked tirelessly to help 
ensure that other former foster youth aren't forced through her 
experience. This bill fixes this flaw in the system to ensure that 
youth aging out of care, struggling to make it on their own, aren't 
held liable for the mistakes of or misinformation from foster care 
agencies.
  I thank Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Larson, and their staff for 
putting together this bipartisan bill. It is another example of what 
can be accomplished when working together.

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