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2. Elimination of the 6-month waiting period for a disability which recurs after an apparent recovery, as an incentive to encourage disabled workers to return to work. The time elapsed between periods of disability may not exceed 60 months. Thus, a disabled worker may return to the job market if his con-dition improves knowing that if his condition worsens he will receive im-mediate help without the waiting period.

Public Law 88-650 (1964)

In 1964 the restriction on retroactivity of disability applications was eliminated. Before this amendment the beginning of a period of disability could not be established earlier than 18 months before an application was filed.

Social Security Amendments of 1965 (Public Law 89-97)

In these amendments the qualifying duration of a disability was liberalized so that a worker would become entitled to benefits if his disability could be expected to last for a continuous period of 12 months or longer instead of the previous requirement of "long-continued and indefinite duration." The Senate Committee on Finance's report stated that:

The effect of the provision the committee is recommending is to provide disability benefits for a totally disabled worker even though his condition may be expected to improve after a year. As experience under the disability program has demonstrated, in the great majority of cases in which total disability continues for at least a year the disability is essentially permanent * * *.

It is estimated that if benefits were payable for disabilities that are total and last more than 12 calendar months but are not necessarily expected to last indefinitely, about 60,000 additional people-workers and their dependents-would become immediately eligible for benefits. -28-

-28- S. Rept. No. 404, part I, 89th Cong., p. 99.

This provision brought the program more in line with commercial dis-ability insurance policies.

A provision was also included in the legislation which permitted young workers who were blind to qualify even though they had not worked for a substantial period of time. The amendment provided that a blind worker under 31 need have insurance coverage for only one-half of the quarters between age 21 and the time he became qualified for disability benefits. He must, however, have a minimum of six quarters of coverage. (Prior law provided that all workers including the blind, must have worked 5 years out of the last 10 preced-ing their disability.) The amendments also modified the definition of disability for a person 55 or older who became blind from one requiring inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity to one requiring skills and abilities comparable to those used in his previous work experience. Previously, the substantial gainful activity criteria were applied to blind persons of all ages.

The House Committee on Ways and Means requested in its report on the 1965 amendments that a study be done to determine if workers receiving both State workmen's compensation benefits and disability benefits are receiving excessive payments. The Senate Committee on Finance, however, felt that it was desirable to add an offset provision for workmen's compensation without waiting for the study. This amendment, as it was included in the law, allowed an individual who was entitled to receive State workmen's compensation and federal disability benefits to receive both in full if they do not together exceed the higher of:

80 percenturn of his "average current earnings", or the total of such individual's disability insurance benefits * * *. For purposes of -this- clause, an individual's average current earnings means the larger of (A) the average monthly wage for purposes of computing his benefits under section 223, or (B) one-sixtieth of the total of his wages and self-employment income for the five consecutive calendar years after 1950 for which such wages and self-employment income was highest. -29-

-29- Social Security Act, sec. 224(a).

An individual is permitted to receive any increase in social security benefits that Congress may authorize after the individual's offset was first applicable. This system for calculating the amount of reduction for disability benefits was designed to eliminate the problems caused by the dollar-for-dollar reduction included in the 1956 amendments, which caused its repeal in 1958.

In another area Congress tried to solve the dilemma of a worker who had to choose between either receiving an actuarially reduced old-age, insurance benefit and, therefore, providing his wife, age 65 or over, with hospital insurance cover-age or protecting his eligibility for disability payments. Under the provision a worker under 65 who becomes entitled to reduced retirement benefits retains his eligibility for disability insurance benefits.

When Congress established the disability program it stated that one of its objectives was to promote the rehabilitation of disabled insurance beneficiaries. To this end, applicants for disability insurance benefits were referred to the State vocational rehabilitation agencies. The Senate Committee on Finance's report stated that only about 3,000 disability beneficiaries were rehabilitated annually due in large part to the States' inability to match the Federal funds available for vocational rehabilitation. The 1965 amendment authorized social security trust funds to be made available to reimburse State vocational rehabili-tation agencies for the cost of vocational rehabilitation services furnished to disability insurance beneficiaries. The total funds available could not, in any year, exceed 1 percent of the social security disability benefits in the previous year. It was felt that this expense would actually result in a savings for the trust fund since benefits for rehabilitated workers would be terminated and these workers would resume contributing to the trust fund through covered employment .