10/01/2025
Government Shutdown and Social Security
*Please contact Brooke directly in regards to how your Social Security Case is impacted ([email protected] or (843) 488-1415).
While several federal services will be temporarily halted, much of Social Security's disability process will continue to function, uninterrupted. We want to highlight the following key points from Social Security's Contingency Plan:
Individuals who are already receiving Social Security and Supplemental Income benefits will continue to receive benefits.
New and pending applications for disability will continue to be processed by SSA at all administrative levels (initial, reconsideration, hearings, and the Appeals Council).
Of note, while SSA has encouraged DDS to continue its normal processing of their portion of disability claims (with the promise that SSA will reimburse DDS once funding is authorized), because DDS employees are state employees, SSA cannot guarantee whether or not DDS will furlough the employees who are needed to process disability determinations; however, in prior shutdowns, application processing did continue uninterrupted.
Administrative Law Judges, decision writers, and support staff “necessary to conduct hearings” will all continue to work, allowing hearings and the subsequent decision writing to continue without disruption.
SSA will continue to take post-entitlement actions including processing changes of address, SSI living arrangement changes, direct deposit updates, death inputs, and the processing of remittances for overpayments and administrative fees.
Some activities will be halted during the shutdown including:
Processing overpayments
Correcting earnings records
Enrolling appointed representatives for e-folder access
Processing bias complaints from claimants and representatives
Conducting quality assurance reviews other than those related to allowances
Processing FOIA requests
Responding to requests from third parties for queries
Regarding federal court cases, prior shutdowns have yielded uneven results, with courts handling processing of their cases differently.
The Department of Justice has instructed its civil litigators to “request that active cases, except for those in which a delay would compromise to a significant degree the safety of human life or the protection of property, be postponed until funding is available,” but ultimately, the decision will be up to the courts. We encourage our members with active federal court caseloads to monitor filings in each federal court case, check courts’ web sites for information, and call court clerks as needed.