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These amendments also changed section 223(b) of the Social Security Act to add a "floating application" clause. An application filed before a claimant is entitled to benefits is deemed to be filed at the time the claimant becomes eligible if he becomes entitled before the Secretary makes a final decision on his application. Thus, the onset date for a disability may be established after the date of application. Previous law allowed a claim to remain valid if the applicant could establish entitlement within 9 months of filing date only.

This law also included a provision for setting attorney's fees in social security cases before a Federal court. A judge who handed down a judgement favorable to the claimant in a disability case was authorized to determine a reasonable fee for such services before the court, not to exceed 25 percent of the claimant's past-due benefits. This provision originated as an administration proposal to protect the claimant against contingency agreements that allowed the lawyer to collect an unreasonably high percent of the claimant's benefit.

Social Security Amendments of 1967 (Public Law 90-248)

In 1967 the Congress, in the context' of major actuarial deficiencies in the disability insurance program, took up the problem of court interpretation of the disability definition. The Committee on Ways and Means' report noted that over the prior 4 years the number of disability allowances had been greater than estimated. Although the Social Security Administration had maintained that this was in large part due to greater knowledge of the availability of benefits and the better development of evidence of disability and its evaluation, the committee was particularly concerned with the "growing body of court inter-pretation of the statute which, if followed in the administration of the dis-ability provisions, could result in substantial further increases in costs in the future." -30- The statutory definition of disability was expanded from its bare-bones statement of "inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment" to the following :

-30- H. Rept. 544, 90th Cong., p. 28

An individual * * * shall be determined to be under a dis-ability only if his physical or mental impairment or impairments are of such severity that he is not only unable to do his previous work but cannot, considering his age, education, and work experience, engage in any kind of substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy, regardless of whether such work exists in the immediate area, in which he lives, or whether a specific job vacancy exists for him, or whether he would be hired if he applied for work.-31-

-31- Social Security Act, sec. 223(d)(2)(A).

The definition, as enacted into law, was almost identical to HEW policy as it appeared in the regulation or in the then confidential Disability Insurance State Manual. The Senate,, by floor amendment, struck the Ways and Means provision, but the House provision was retained by the Conference Committee with the following elaboration of what is meant by the "work which exists in the national economy." The Conference report added the language that this term "means work which exists in significant numbers either in the region where such individual lives or in several regions of the country." The Statement of managers in the report said, "The purpose of so defining the phrase is to preclude from the disability determination consideration of a type or types of jobs that exist only in very limited numbers or in relatively few geographic locations, in order to assure that an individual is not denied benefits on the basis of the presence in the economy of isolated jobs he could do." -32-

-32- H. Rept. 1030, 90th Cong., p. 52.

The committee reports said they were presenting guidelines "to reemphasize the predominant importance of medical factors in the disability deter-mination." The law was changed to read:

For purposes of this subsection, a "physical or mental impair-ment" is an impairment that results from anatomical, physiological or psychological abnormalities which are demonstrable by medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques.-33- And both committee reports declared:

Statements of the applicant or conclusions of others with respect to the nature and extent of impairment or disability do not. establish the existence of disability . . . unless they are supported by clinical or laboratory findings or other medically acceptable evidence con-firming such statements or conclusions".-34-

-33- Social Security Act, sec. 223(d) (3).

-34- H. Rept. No. 544, 90th Cong., p. 30.

Finally, the legislation gave the Secretary specific regulatory authority to prescribe the criteria for determining when earnings derived from work demon-strate an individual's ability to engage in substantial gainful activity.

To provide younger workers who would normally not be expected to have enough quarters to qualify for benefits with protection, Congress extended the requirements for quarters of coverage for the blind under 31 to all workers of that age. A worker under 31 must have coverage for one half of the quarters between age 21 and the time he becomes disabled, with a minimum of six quarters.