Exonerees Working for Work's Benefits: Prison Work for Social Security and Medicare

Exonerated individuals are released from prison, but they cannot recover the time they were incarcerated. The time is gone, as is its potential to qualify for the nation’s social safety net. Most people earn a right to the safety net and for retirement through their employment; however, even when prisoners work, they are denied employment-related benefits that would be enjoyed by those not incarcerated. Inmate labor does not earn toward Social Security, Medicare, and Social Security Disability Insurance, and the exclusion applies even if the inmate is later exonerated of the crime for which they were imprisoned.

Therefore, exonerees’ mandatory work assignments, prison industry jobs, and even most private employment performed while incarcerated do not count toward qualifying for future benefits. This Article examines this exclusion and its impact on exonerees and their families, and it proposes solutions that operate to include exonerees’ years of employment while incarcerated for purposes of calculating eligibility for, and amount of, benefits.