Larry, I was awarded full disability benefits in a hearing in September of 2019. The judge backdated my benefits to the last day I worked, December 15, 2015. I got a request from SSA for the paperwork surrounding my Workman's Comp resolution and agreement, which I submitted immediately because I knew that could delay my benefits. I received my award letter in November detailing my SSDI benefits going forward, along with the calculation of my back pay, less my WC award. It has been 9 months now, still no back pay. Every time I call the local SSA office, I get a different story, a different reason, a different timeline. I've requested file reviews that go to the Payment Center - a Payment Center I can't communicate with.....I've requested a Manager to Manager Resolution Request.....I keep getting bounced around with no one who can tell me when to expect my back pay. For a person who has been ill and out of work for over 4 years, every dime is critical, every month that goes by is critical. I'm getting farther and farther in the hole as I exhausted all of my finances to cover the 4 years of illness. So, who do I talk to?? How do I get any kind of help?? Please help me....

Hi,

It's really terrible that you haven't received your back pay yet. I wish I had a good answer for you, but unfortunately I don't. The only thing that I can suggest is that you contact the office of either your congressional representative or one of your U.S. senators to ask if they could make an inquiry with Social Security on your behalf. Cases with congressional interest get the attention of management, which in turn can sometimes speed up the process.

I hope you mean that you're only waiting for your back pay and that you aren't still waiting for your monthly payments to start. If not, though, Social Security may be able to start issuing temporary monthly payments using their critical payment system. If you haven't yet started getting your monthly payments, you could ask Social Security if you qualify for critical payments.

Best, Jerry