Liberalized Eligibility Provisions and Old-Age Benefits, January–June 1951

In December 1939, as benefit claims were beginning to be filed, the Social Security Board adopted a set of basic provisions to underlie a system for the hearing and review of claims involving adjudications that had been unfavorable to claimants. To implement this system the Board established an Office of Appeals Council, wholly independent of the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance. The personnel of the Office consisted principally of one referee in and for each of the 12 regions set up by the Board, to hold hearings and render decisions on claimants’ requests, and a council of three members, sitting in Washington, to review referee’s decisions either upon petitions of claimants or upon its own motion. When the Social Security Board was abolished by Executive order in July 1946 and its powers were transferred to the Federal Security Administrator, the Administrator delegated to the Office of Appeals Council his authority to render final decisions on claims arising under the old-age and survivors insurance program. Although the number of referees and administrative personnel has increased slightly in the past few years, the structure and functions of the Appeals Council have remained substantially as originally instituted. The statutory right of claimants to hearings was created by section 205 of the Social Security Act as amended in 1939. More than 3 years before enactment of this requirement, however, the Board had begun work on procedures intended to guarantee a fair hearing to every person whose claim was disallowed, and nearly a year earlier a special staff within the Bureau, directed by a consultant in administrative law, had conducted a comparative study of appeals procedures of other Federal and State agencies and of certain foreign insurance systems to furnish suggestive data to guide the drafting of the Board’s final plan. In stressing the right to a hearing, as well as the administrative impor-