Social Security has released updated stats on payments of fees to attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants. See below. They shows a stunning decline in payments made since the beginning of the fiscal year, October 1.
I am well aware that the Social Security Administration does not exist to provide me and other attorneys with a means of making a living. However, when you are looking at these fee payments you are looking at a near perfect analogue of payments to disability claimants. The attorneys get paid at the same time as the claimants. If payments are delayed to the attorneys, it is only because payments are delayed to the claimants. Can I make it any clearer? This is not just an attorney problem. It is a sign of a major problem brewing.
I am well aware that the Social Security Administration does not exist to provide me and other attorneys with a means of making a living. However, when you are looking at these fee payments you are looking at a near perfect analogue of payments to disability claimants. The attorneys get paid at the same time as the claimants. If payments are delayed to the attorneys, it is only because payments are delayed to the claimants. Can I make it any clearer? This is not just an attorney problem. It is a sign of a major problem brewing.
Not only are October and November the lowest months for this calendar year; they are the two lowest months since December 2009! October and November are down 15% from the average for the preceding. fiscal year. Continue this over the entire fiscal year and it will be taking 1.8 months longer to get a claimant paid after a favorable decision or almost three months total.
There is some reason to believe that things are not as bad as they seem. The October payments were affected by Social Security's bizarre decision to tell many of its employees that it would essentially ignore any work they did in the last month of September. There were fewer favorable decisions issued in late September to be implemented in October. That was a bureaucratic foul up that will not be repeated.
Unfortunately, there are other reasons to be pessimistic about coming months. There is virtually no overtime at Social Security now and there is virtually no hiring. With no hiring, Social Security's workforce is slowly shrinking, which means that the payment delays will slowly accelerate as the workforce slowly declines. But, it gets worse still. Social Security has an annual workload crunch in January of each year. This is caused by the number of people who retire at the end of each calendar year, as well as the mailing of forms asking retirees under full retirement age to predict their earnings for the coming year and the mailing of SSA-1099s. These two mailings come at the very end of December or in January. They generate a spike in calls to Social Security's 800 number in January of each year. Social Security has traditionally responded to the increased telephone calls in January by "spiking" the employees whose normal job is putting claimants on benefits, that is calling them off their regular duties to answer the phone (something they do poorly but that's another story). In the past, Social Security has tried to make up for the "spiking" with overtime. With no overtime, there's going to be two problems in January. The phones won't get answered and claimants who have been approved won't get put on benefits. Unless Social Security has a little money for overtime, not only will the payment numbers for January be brutal; the telephone situation is going to be awful as well.
This is all a predictable consequence of Republican budget cutting. An indefinite continuation of this results in the Social Security Administration falling apart. Giving Social Security a slightly higher budget but directing that a huge proportion of the total budget get spent on program integrity, which seems to be the plan favored in Congress at the moment, does not help. It may make things worse.
There is some reason to believe that things are not as bad as they seem. The October payments were affected by Social Security's bizarre decision to tell many of its employees that it would essentially ignore any work they did in the last month of September. There were fewer favorable decisions issued in late September to be implemented in October. That was a bureaucratic foul up that will not be repeated.
Unfortunately, there are other reasons to be pessimistic about coming months. There is virtually no overtime at Social Security now and there is virtually no hiring. With no hiring, Social Security's workforce is slowly shrinking, which means that the payment delays will slowly accelerate as the workforce slowly declines. But, it gets worse still. Social Security has an annual workload crunch in January of each year. This is caused by the number of people who retire at the end of each calendar year, as well as the mailing of forms asking retirees under full retirement age to predict their earnings for the coming year and the mailing of SSA-1099s. These two mailings come at the very end of December or in January. They generate a spike in calls to Social Security's 800 number in January of each year. Social Security has traditionally responded to the increased telephone calls in January by "spiking" the employees whose normal job is putting claimants on benefits, that is calling them off their regular duties to answer the phone (something they do poorly but that's another story). In the past, Social Security has tried to make up for the "spiking" with overtime. With no overtime, there's going to be two problems in January. The phones won't get answered and claimants who have been approved won't get put on benefits. Unless Social Security has a little money for overtime, not only will the payment numbers for January be brutal; the telephone situation is going to be awful as well.
This is all a predictable consequence of Republican budget cutting. An indefinite continuation of this results in the Social Security Administration falling apart. Giving Social Security a slightly higher budget but directing that a huge proportion of the total budget get spent on program integrity, which seems to be the plan favored in Congress at the moment, does not help. It may make things worse.
Fee Payments | ||
|---|---|---|
| Month/Year | Volume | Amount |
Jan-11 | 34,467 | $113,459,847.04 |
Feb-11 | 33,305 | $107,796,771.38 |
Mar-11 | 34,885 | $112,463,768.46 |
Apr-11 | 48,033 | $153,893,755.37 |
May-11 | 36,479 | $115,159012.77 |
June-11 | 33,568 | $104,782,743.07 |
July-11 | 40,451 | $123,981,011.36 |
Aug-11 | 35,575 | $109,778,785.74 |
Sept-11 | 36,159 | $109,990,042.36 |
Oct-11 | 27,269 | $79,526,149.33 |
Nov-11 | 32,677 | $100,272,851.46 |
Don't forget the amount of holiday and "use-or-lose" leave that is used in December. Along with retirements and lack of overtime, this affects performance in December (and January, when the resultant backlogs have to be worked).
ReplyDeleteDon't forget about all the time wasted selling hotdogs for CFC in October.
ReplyDelete"I am well aware that the Social Security Administration does not exist to provide me and other attorneys with a means of making a living."
ReplyDeleteMicky D's and Burger King are hiring.
I work in SSA PC7 as a claims authorizer. Until October I worked overtime on Saturdays, input ALJ allowance awards on disability claims on Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteSince October, there is no OT. The processing of ALJ awards and attorney fee payments has slowed down mainly because OT was cut back,then stopped.
SSA must have overtime at least in the short term. It is impossible to keep up with workloads without it. PC7 has had OT for decades, and there is a reason for that.
Congress may not like paying OT but they have no other choice.
It may be cheaper and more effective to pay experienced employees OT rather than hire and train new employees
and have all the payroll expenses involved with new workers.
This blogger should be given credit for putting this information out on the internet.
ReplyDeleteHowever I wish that these facts were put in a major newspaper such as USA Today so the public could be made aware.
SSA beneficiaries should not be made pawns in political games involving the budget. SSA should get overtime and new hires to process these cases.
As for CFC hotdogs in October, I don't think that contributed much to the slowdown, since only HQ really does CFC, and HQ does pretty much nothing useful in terms of these backlogs (or in terms of much else).
ReplyDeleteMany of the employees at our local office were moved from effectuation to CDRs right about the same time as this happened. I wonder if this is happening all over the country.
ReplyDeleteThe Cfc activities were scaled back this year at central office.. cfc has nothing to do with the problem. It is lack of adequate staffing
ReplyDeleteAssuming that the representative received the maximum fee on every case (which of course does not happen)and the claimant began receiving payments in the same month the representative was paid, then in November 2011, 16,712 represented claimants began receiving payments. Assuming around a third of successful claimants have no representative, that adds around 8000 claimants starting to receive benefits. That would mean around 25,000 claimants began receiving benefits in November 2011.
ReplyDeleteAssuming an average fee award of $3000, then 33,424 represented claimants began receiving payments. Adding in successful claimants not represented (and assuming the total is a third), then the total number of claimants who began receiving benefits was around 50,000. That would be quite a few people starting to receive disability benefits in a month.
A part of the slow down may be related to an 'old' process that has recently been 'discovered' in at least some jurisdictions: A requirement that when multiple Auth Reps are involved, that the total fee, once determined, must then be manually split between the 2 or 3 (or more Reps -- when none of them have been revoked or have withdrawn). This process requires additional research into the details of the case, requires additional manual inputs, and requires additional manual notices. This process is particularly burdensome when Windfall Offset is involved. The presence of multiple reps on the SSI end of Windfall Offset goes a long way to defeat the automation processes that were put into place several years ago. . . . :-(
ReplyDeleteor maybe judges are paying fewer cases in light of the West Virginia debacle and the ongoing scruntiny by Congress of unwarrented favorables.
ReplyDeletea 70% on average pay rate is pretty riduculous
While I do not agree with the previous remark about a 70% pay rate (the national average is closer to 60% anyway), the lower fees could be partially the result of fewer allowances, couldn't they? We won't know for sure until we see updated allowance/denial stats from the SSA.
ReplyDelete