Attorney Vogeltanz will be exclusively representing Social Security disability and SSI claimants in administrative proceedings and on an appeal in federal district court. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.A. 2007) and the University of Minnesota Law School (J.D. cum laude, 2010). She is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin. Attorney Vogeltanz began her legal career as an investigator for the Office of Lawyer Regulation and looks forward to helping clients with legal needs on a daily basis. She recently joined the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives and will be attending the organization’s spring conference in Philadelphia.

The phone number for the Green Bay office is still (920) 544-9114. The fax number is (920) 544-0892.

Directions to the Green Bay office can be found here: Directions to Green Bay office.

I strongly support this crackdown because one of the often overlooked consequences of this is that these misclassified employees  – particularly low wage earners — are often uniformed and do not pay payroll taxes on their own.  When they don’t, they do not contribute to the Social Security trust fund and do not earn quarters of coverage.  If they have worked for a significant period of time as an independent contractor, they often lose (or never acquire) coverage under the Social Security disability program.  A person who may have considered themselves an employee for years may become disabled and discover that they are not eligible to draw from the benefit pool from which other properly-classified workers receive benefits.  Even if they still do qualify because of quarters of coverage earned at other jobs, their benefit amount is likely to be significantly reduced because of the lack of contributions during the period of employment as an independent contractor.  These misclassified employees are thus left to rely on the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program which has strict income and asset limitations and usually much smaller payments.

Fireworks by Anna Cervova

The Wisconsin State Journal also ran an article about the staffing situation at the Wisconsin Disability Determination Bureau indicating that employees at that state agency – which makes disability determinations at the initial and reconsideration levels – will be subject to mandatory furloughs due to the state budget shortfall. 

Don’t think the backlog problem or the bad press for SSA is limited to Wisconsin.  In the same week, The Detroit News ran this story about the situation in Michigan.

We started FY 2009 with 3,322 Wisconsin cases that will be 850 days old or more by the end of the fiscal year. Through March, we cleared 57.80% of these cases.

The report has some interesting graphs showing the average waiting time over time.  It also shows how the current recession has resulted in an increase in the number of hearings requested.  The SSA hopes to have the backlog of cases eliminated by 2013.