May 4, 2007

Social Security Advisory Board Report On Hiring ALJs

The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has issued a report on "Recruiting SSA Administrative Law Judges: Need for review of OPM role and performance."

SSAB blames the OPM for Social Security's failure to hire enough ALJs. The report recommends that the responsibility for the ALJ selection process be passed from OPM to Social Security.

The curious thing about this report is that Michael Astrue made reference to it during his testimony before the House Social Security Subcommittee on Tuesday. He mentioned that it talked about some Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) having low productivity. The report says nothing about this subject. Astrue must have been conflating this report with some other report that crossed his desk recently. That other report was probably an internal report that was critical of ALJs. That unreleased report that may have had something to do with Astrue's recently stated desire to have a large pool of ALJs located close by Social Security's central offices -- where they could be closely monitored.

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