The POMS - Program Operations Manual System - are Social Security’s regulations by which the agency operates its many programs. Before they were called the Program Operations Manual System (POMS),SSA's internal operating instructions were called the Claims Manual. The first version of the Claims manual appeared in
January 1937

These are the POMS on PASS.  The PASS provision ispart of the original legislation that created the SSI program,which was signed into law by President Nixon in 1972.

Statutes are usually broad and brief.  The regulations are then written by the programs and entities affected by the statute, and it is the regulations that spell out exactly how the program will implement the statute.  Regulations are lengthy and detailed, and the devil is in the details.

There have been at least 4 versions of the POMS on PASS, all technically consistent with the statute. The original regulations, in force for 20+ years, set limits on the length of a PASS.  These limits were challenged in court (Heckler v. Panzerino), resulting in an act of Congress that eliminated the time limits in 1995. Since its inception, PASS’s were reviewed by local SSA offices. In early 1997, in a knee-jerk reaction to a negative GAO (General Accountability Office) report to Congress about PASS, new Draconian POMS were hastily (in 2 months) written, forbidding using instalment loans to purchase vehicles, and narrowly defining business start-up costs. All PASS’s went to a central group of PASS reviewers in Baltimore fr review. Advocates protested, resulting in a policy statement by then Asst. Commissioner Colvin rescinding these strict regulations, and review of PASS’s was established in the ten federal regions.  Due to the problems with the earlier versions of the POMS on PASS, SSA conducted a long, open process to write them, and published the current POMS in Sept. 2001.

The POMS are not intended to inform beneficiaries.  They are directions to Social Security personnel telling them what to do in implementing the PASS provision.  Whether the POMS are cut in stone or “just guidelines” can depend on the employee interpreting them - and also on whether the POMS supports your side of an argument or theirs.  But usually, if you can back up what you want done with your PASS by referencing the POMS, you will prevail.  

It is useful to be familiar with the POMS.  Local offices are often poorly informed about PASS, and insist that their incorrect ionformation is correct, for example, stating that a PASS can’t be used to buy a car, or that an SSDI check can’t go into a PASS.  But they can’t argue if you show them the citation in the POMS that backs you up.  

It is the POMS, more than common sense or
human decency, that makes the argument with SSA.