The full Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for 10:00 AM on April 29 on Social Security During COVID: How the Pandemic Hampered Access to Benefits and Strategies for Improving Service Delivery. Here's the witness list:
- Grace Kim, Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Social Security Administration
- Kascadare Causeya, Program Manager, Central City Concern, Portland , OR
- Peggy Murphy, Immediate Past President, National Council of Social Security Management Associations, Great Falls , MT
- Tara Dawson McGuinness, Founder, Senior Advisor, New Practice Lab, New America, Washington, DC
This hearing is a big sign that there will be considerable pressure on Social Security to reopen its field offices to the public in the next few months. To my friends who work at Social Security, get vaccinated and expect to return to the office before the end of the summer. This weird interval in our lives is drawing to a close, whether we like it or not. Once you're fully vaccinated, you're at virtually no risk from Covid-19. There's no reason to keep public services closed just to protect people who refuse to be vaccinated.
21 comments:
where is the Commissioner? Has he provided testimony to Congress since he has been appointed?
I look forward to seeing the comments on how dangerous the field offices are.
I think the agency would be foolish to eliminate telework when we go back to the offices. One of the reasons Saul cancelled it was because there wasnt enough proof that teleworkers were effective. Thirteen plus months into this, i think they have all the metrics they need to show that some form of telework should be continued.
Some combination of telework and in office service should be worked out. However, we can't go back to business as usual. The constant traffic od people needing benefit verifications and/or their 5th social security card in 3 years needs to come to an end.
What makes you believe the hearing will determine that SSA service delivery has been poor during the pandemic? I think service has been very good, all things considered.
SSA employees have adopted well to working at home. We now have the systems infrastructure set up to accomplish everything at home that we used to do in the office.
SSA employees have worked hard and well at home, and we should not have that taken away from us. I fear that there will be a retirement wave if telework is terminated or curtailed. Then, those of us who have to return to the office will be swamped with work due to the loss of experienced employees.
Millions of people across this country have been working in offices, retail stores, fast food restaurants, factories, warehouses, etc. for months now. Yet, for some reason, SSA offices are far too dangerous. Give me a break. If you guys could only hear yourselves, you'd be ashamed.
2:51 What you say is true. But it is also true that there has been a huge recent surge in COVID19 cases, partially due to the reopenings and people going back to work too soon.
Over 570,000 people have died in the USA due to coronavirus.
I think SSA should wait until the COVID19 rate is way down, before reopening.
For the safety of the general public as well as SSA employees. This is a vulnerable population that is served in SSA FO.
@3:14 I agree wholeheartedly. It would be absolutely stupid to reopen anytime soon as there is clear evidence that early reopening has led to increased COVID cases. And we are nowhere close to herd immunity. Frankly, the offices probably should not open until 2022.
Would you say, right now, that an Emergency Room in any mid-sized or major city,is a safe place? Yes, I assume that the health staff are all vaccinated. But that does not answer the question of whether an Emergency Room becomes a safe place if everyone who works there is vaccinated? But why am I asking about an Emergency Room? They serve, among the accident victims and others are the poor, the uninsured, the homeless. Sounds like a Field Office or Hearing Office. Just askin'
@ 2:51 You miss the point.
Those businesses you mentioned HAVE to be in-person to survive. The SSA and many businesses do not. Thank goodness we live in a world with the Internet. If not, then a majority of people would have been out of work with the pandemic.
"You should be ashamed." Of what? Caring about people getting sick. As stated, about 570,000 people have already died in the U.S. This is unacceptable in a country with this much resources and wealth. It is because business and political leaders opened up too soon.
After a year, SSA has perfected teleworking to provide public service. Most employees prefer working at home, are happier, safer, and more productive there.
Why throw all this away and force employees back to the offices? The 1980s are long gone and so are the days of everyone working from crowded offices ,after long commutes.
Instead of the continuing hostility by the SSA brass and the political donor class toward social security attorneys and the continuing efforts to destroy our livings consideration should be given to returning to the relative normalcy of the 1990's when I started representing social security clients. We should be recognized again as valuable partners in a healthy process. We can help file cases for all of the folks out there who have reading problems or are not computer literate or even own computers. We can also tell people when they are wasting their time trying to obtain disability and should consider other options. If this is truly headed toward a no human contact system representation will become more important than ever to a healthy process if that is truly the goal as opposed to just outright complexity and claim suppression. All I've seen since about 2010 is an ongoing effort to make this system more and more hostile to claimants whether pro se or represented. Maybe it's time we truly work toward a coalition of interests here in order to restore the system and make it clear to the privatizers and destroyers of the program that we have all had enough.
I see that Grace Kim will be testifying for SSA at the hearing. She is an attorney who sent out an Email to thousands of SSA Operations employees in 2019, stating that she was terminating telework.
While Saul undoubtedly was the driving force behind this decision,. Grace Kim had a large part in effectuating it. She showed she didn't give much of a damn about SSA employees feelings or morale.
While it is possible that she has had a change of heart, I don't trust her to be objective about SSA employees working at home.
I wish there were an AFGE speaker at the meeting who will represent employees. Our safety is at risk..
I read yesterday about several people being infected with COVID19 from the same person. One of the newly infected persons had been fully vaccinated, yet still died. Being fully vaccinated is no guarantee.
@9:54 Interesting you mention crowded offices since SSA seems to be trending toward making most offices cubicle farms. I guess SSA never heard of COVID19.
Which is the bigger threat, Covid or Climate Change. Climate Change will kill billions, potentially wipe us out. Buildings with cubicles take much less energy to heat and cool than do a bunch of small offices.
@5:29 pm. Offices constructed as cubicle farms are neither conducive to maximizing productivity nor do they optimize employee safety in the midst of a pandemic.
@5:29 pm Both are huge threats to the health and welfare of many. Both need to be dealt with properly.
Do away with the offices and you keep employees and the public safe from COVID plus aid the climate by not polluting through unnecessary commuting.
The virus is still dangerous and will be for the foreseeable future. Even though vaccinated I would not feel comfortable sitting across from someone who has COVID19 and that will inevitably happen to many employees if SSA reopens.
The vaccine is not 100% effective especially against all the new variants of COVID19.
It would be different if it were impossible to provide SSA services remotely. But since telework is feasible and is working well at SSA, it should continue at least for another year.
Reopening prematurely could cause illness and deaths, both for SSA employees and for the public.
Not sure how the hearing is going to be useful since the list of witnesses to testify does not include anyone familiar with how things work and are supposed to work at SSA.
I didn't see anyone listed from a claimant's advocacy organization either. Nevertheless, the phone operation is working better than I thought it would. Since many functions can be done by phone and computer, I'm for Social Security Offices taking their time about re-opening fully to the public.
The witness list is very weak. Also witnesses listed would not seem to be advocates either for employees or for the claimants.
If you endanger your front line employees, who will serve the public? Automation and e-services are the future. The pandemic was/is terribly unfortunate for many! However, SSA has managed to convert all customer services online and by phone. Why would the agency want to forfeit the achievements made this past year. Not to mention, putting the public, it holds, so dear, at risk and the SSA employees that administer the program's. SSA can provide ALL services by phone and online! This eliminates unnecessary hardships for the older population including transportation to and from the local offices. The decline in cases is simply from walk in traffic. FO's take a lot of claims from customers that just lost their job. They visit the FO to file for benefits because they think SSA provides temporary disability benefits immediately. We do not. Hopefully, a decision will be made to continue teleworking! Not only for the public but for the many SSA employees that work hard every day to deliver exceptional customer service! Online services/telework is the FUTURE and SSA has already coverted. It wouldn't make sense to throw away all our hard work, encouraging claimants to use online/phone services or helping them adjust to the changes! The public has adjusted and is happy with the services they are receiving!
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