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March 11, 2025
Justice in Aging
Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 2:00 to 2:45 p.m.
The webinar, Campos et al. v. Kijakazi Settlement Agreement: What SSI Advocates Need to Know, will discuss this case against the Social Security Administration (SSA) and provide advocates with information about the relief that their clients who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) may see this spring.
For context, in March 2020, the SSA closed its field offices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency had no remote work plan, so it halted its manual processes for reducing or discontinuing benefits for SSI recipients. As a result, many recipients struggled to report changes to their finances that could impact the benefits they received, and others had bigger overpayments accrue due to this delay in processing. Despite remote work and resumed processing of these workloads beginning in September 2020, the SSA offices remaining closed made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for SSI recipients to resolve problems with these notices or request that their overpayments be waived.
Due to the national emergency, SSA issued an interim final rule in August 2020 that was intended to create an easier process to waive certain overpayments during the early months of the pandemic. However, the agency didn't inform overpaid people that this no-fault "streamlined" waiver even existed, and many SSI recipients with overpayments were unable to take advantage of this process.
In September 2021, the New York Legal Assistance Group, Justice in Aging, and the law firm Arnold & Porter filed a nation-wide class action lawsuit, Campos et al. v. Kijakazi, on behalf of five SSI recipients challenging SSA's interim final rule. The court approved a settlement agreement between the parties in November 2023, with much of the relief to be provided to millions of class members in spring 2025.
Presenters will discuss:
- The nation-wide class action lawsuit filed on behalf of SSI recipients with overpayments from March 2020 to April 2023,
- The terms of the settlement agreement reached with SSA in 2023, and
- The notices and refunds that many SSI recipients will be receiving from SSA in 2025.
Who Should Participate: Anyone who serves SSI recipients.
Presenters:
- Tracey Gronniger, Managing Director, Economic Security and Housing, Justice in Aging
- Kate Lang, Director, Federal Income Security, Justice in Aging
- Michelle Spadafore, Senior Supervising Attorney, New York Legal Assistance Group
