From the Washington Post:
NASHVILLE — The first cars bearing the needy pulled into the parking lot as the lights went on in the squat brick Social Security office, three miles north of the luxury condos and boutique hotels rising in booming Music City. It was 9 a.m., and a flier taped to the glass double doors announced business hours until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. An American flag fluttered at the curb. But the office did not open for business, except for a lucky few who gained special entry, for what was then the 605th day since it had been sealed shut to protect its employees and customers from the coronavirus. …
Even as courthouses, motor vehicle and veterans’ benefits offices, and most other parts of the government that directly serve the public have reopened 21 months into the covid crisis, the Social Security Administration remains mostly closed to in-person service, its workers at home, denying vital assistance to most of the disabled, poor and elderly who have long relied on their local office to navigate one of the government’s most complex benefits systems. The unintended consequence: The federal government’s lengthy effort to protect the health of its workers and the public has instead wounded many of those in greatest need of its services. …
With 1,230 field offices normally visited by 43 million people a year largely shut, applying for disability or getting a Social Security card to secure a new job or other services requires finding a way to get online, waiting on hold on the phone for lengthy periods or relying on spotty mail service. Often, statistics show, Americans in need are simply giving up. Applications and benefit awards under the antipoverty disability program called Supplemental Security Income have plummeted to the lowest level in 22 years, down 29 percent from July 2020 to April 2021 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to internal agency data and outside research. Another group — disabled people who at one point were able to work but who now have turned to the federal disability system — saw a 17 percent drop in awards, according to an analysis of agency data by David Weaver, a former associate commissioner in the agency’s Office of Research, Demonstration and Employment Support.
The number applying for SSI benefits for disabled children, disabled adults and the elderly plummeted 51 percent, 32 percent, and 55 percent, respectively, just one month after field offices closed, internal agency data shows, a decline that continued through August 2020, the most recent month for which numbers were available. The drop-off was most pronounced for those with limited English and the elderly….
[T]he Social Security inspector general reported this month that just 51 percent of calls from the public were answered in fiscal 2020.
After months of criticism from disability advocates and Republicans in Congress who contend that the Biden administration is kowtowing to its unions in allowing the closures — and delaying reopenings across the government — the agency released tentative plans last month to begin returning its staff of 60,000 to their offices in January. But employees in some offices will be given wide berth to continue working from home permanently up to five days a week, with two days allowed for the field office staff. …
“Social Security is disappearing from public view,” Weaver said, pointing to the number of people who receive benefits: “It’s going to eventually reach a point where, do you want a problem with the unions or do you want a problem with 70 million people?” …
By the way, I’ve decided to stop allowing comments that say that employee productivity has increased while Social Security employees have been working from home. I have seen no proof of that. As a general matter, it appears to be misleading if not a complete fabrication. Decreased staffing is a big problem for Social Security but it’s not the only one. Working from home is also causing big problems.
18 comments:
The article is misleading because it highlights a few people in Nashville who tried to get into a closed SSA office, and used this to play on people's emotions. It also puts SSA employees in a bad light.
It's a shame that the Post would run such a one sided article. The rest of the Post's front page is headlines about how bad COVID19 will be in the next few weeks, even for those who are vaccinated. The effects of Omicron are worse than expected.
It is rather absurd that the article advocating reopening of SSA offices would be run at this time. Reopening now would be dangerous for both the general public and for SSA employees.
Offices should have reopened months ago soon after vaccines were generally available to everyone who wanted the vaccines. Just about every other thing is opened, if with some restriction on numbers, masking, etc.
The article is a bit misleading when it says employees are home, "denying vital assistance" in that employees have no say in whether the offices are open or not. That decision is made at a much higher level than the field office employees.
Offices should have had ways for the public to safely drop off mandated documents or forms or requests (avoiding the Post Office) since day one. For the 3rd time this year, mail sent certified (as to have time stamped proof of meeting deadlines) to the local office bounced around for days as no one was there to sign for it. It got held at the PO and signed like 10 days later. A drop box would have made everyone's life easier. There's 10 days of other stuff that won't be worked on delaying when my stuff gets worked had I been able to drop it off. My auto repair shop can handle key drop offs, it's not a hard thing to do. One hour a day is simply management malfeasance.
The idea that office reopenings is a binary situation (office open full tilt or closed "for safety" is also malfeasance, but on AFGE more than management. Take appointments, let people drop off materials from 8 until 5 PM, set up a couple of PC stations in the waiting room for zoom meetings with SRs and CRs. Recognize that a business model that insists on face to face contact sets up a responsibility to those who need that service. Changing the rules in a way that cuts off access to such service, esp after so many months and staff being required to be vaccinated, is wrong.
"Even as courthouses, motor vehicle and veterans’ benefits offices, and most other parts of the government that directly serve the public have reopened 21 months into the covid crisis, the Social Security Administration remains mostly closed to in-person service, its workers at home, denying vital assistance to most of the disabled, poor and elderly who have long relied on their local office to navigate one of the government’s most complex benefits systems."
The subject of the sentence is SSA, the workers at home being used to illustrate how SSA is denying vital assistance to the citizenry. Not that the workers are the ones doing that. Sheesh.
But the paragraph sums up nicely that SSA's closure is standing out among other agencies where people have reopened.
@922PM
At least some offices do have drop off boxes. I thought it was all but do not know that for a fact. The office I work in has the drop off box monitored by the guard, advising people to put their documents/etc in an envelope with their name, SSN and return address so documents can be returned.
There was an emergency message issued in March 2020 that claims can be processed without necessary proofs during the pandemic. However, original documents are still necessary for new/replacement Social Security cards.
Offices have been open for many months for appointments to request new or replacement SSNs, drop off necessary, documents, etc.
Offices should be open for more than they are now but they are open for some of the things you mentioned.
I agree that SSA offices should be open but many of the examples in the article show a cause of the problem in that the SSA office did not need to be involved at all. A problem with the IRS, several DDS issues, a person who is 71 wanting a paper showing he is disabled when at that age disability would not have been an issue. Wanting copies of correspondence that has been sent to them multiple times already. As far as the drop box goes, SSA had a problem forwarding DDS records from them even before the pandemic.
So SSA Employees are "...denying vital assistance to most of the disabled, poor and elderly". The Post should post a retraction and an an apology to SSA workers for that. And the Post writer should be reprimanded.
As for increased productivity for working at home, I have seen no proof either way. An AFGE survey found a large majority of SSA workers said they were more productive at home, but this could be seen as self serving and therefore not believable.
Likewise, studies citing increasing backlogs or other problems since telework started, , have not been able to eliminate the confounding variables such as large cuts in SSA overtime since early 2020. In other words, If cuts in OT caused the backlogs , similar problems would exist whether employees are working at home or in the office.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, and because people want to be stupid and talk about their freedom and resist masks and vaccines, it seems as if we are going to stay in the middle. Whatever safety measures have to be taken, I'm not going to argue with it.
SSA has bad a lot confounding decisions during the pandemic. If public facing field offices are closed, and only 50% of calls are being answered, they should have at least made it easier to sign up for a online "My Social Security Account." But they also made this harder in the last year. There are additional security provisions. It is by far the most difficult online account to set up compared to any other website or service--including other government accounts. It is not just double factor authentication--the initial sign up is more like 6 factor authentication. Is this burdensome sign-up process really required by federal privacy regulations? Is SSA run my a bunch of risk adverse tech no-nothings, or is management at SSA intentionally trying to make any form of interaction with the agency more difficult?
It is difficult to comprehend how an essential federal agency could be managed this poorly, without there being some kind deliberate sabotage within the agency itself.
I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to create a MySSA Account. Took about 10 minutes for me. Why don’t people just order a copy of their credit report if they don’t know the answers? Maybe some of the advocacy groups for the elderly and disabled can help the ones having so much trouble?
24 hour lock out for 1 missed question is really stupid. That by itself probably deters 10-20% of people from trying again. When have you ever encountered such a policy for any other online account set-up? And it is not just the multiple choice credit history portion of the account set-up. I have had clients that cannot even get past the first identify verification step of confirming current home address and SSA #. Sometimes there is mystery lock out that no one at SSA can even explain. And why should people have order a credit report, which requires another account sign up with a credit agency/service? How many people do think are wiling to spend hours/multiple days trying to sign up for an account?
Why does SSA elevate privacy/identity theft interests over every other interest --including access to SSA services and benefits? SSA has designed the most onerous account sign-up that I have ever encountered online. When you combine this with their non-existent field office presence and inability to handle call volumes, it almost seems like a deliberate effort to cut claimant's off from their SSA benefits and acceptable government service.
My father is a scientist who worked for DOE (Department of Energy) for over 20 years in Washington, D.C.
He, even retired, defends the U.S. Federal Government at every turn. He cannot grasp how the SSA could not be servicing their clientele effectively. I tell him it is simply a symptom of underfunding or not hiring enough personnel. It is an easy fix logically. But maybe it is a hard fix financially. Just need to hire maybe 10-20,000 more SSA employees.
Why can't they do that?
This blog: “The Washington Post wrote a story using a handful of anecdotes that shows office closures are devastating the public! This story shows they must reopen!”
Also this blog: “The Washington Post has run a series of anecdotal stories of people pursuing disability due to life circumstances rather than conditions, and this reporting is dangerous and irresponsible. No one should take these stories seriously!”
@2:32 It is not just an under-funding issue. Some of these problems could be solved with more rational rules/regs. SSA cannot just rely on more $$ and poorly trained personnel to solve service issues. The agency needs quality leadership and an IT overhaul. OHO's adoption of TEAMS video hearings sets a good example. This was an IT upgrade that was implemented quickly and relatively painlessly.I understand that overhauling back-end IT infrastructure is a far more difficult problem to solve, but in 2021 it is inexcusable for SSA to be relying on legacy systems from 30+ years ago.
@748
"Why does SSA elevate privacy/identity theft interests over every other interest --including access to SSA services and benefits?"
A few years ago there were fraudulent claims filed online and paid to fraudsters.
There was a change this year that made it easier for people to sign up for accounts successfully. The number of unauthenticated claims (claims filed by people without mySSA accounts) dropped dramatically.
Department of Labor stats showing less than 11% of workers are wfh.
It's impossible for FO employees to be more productive from home precisely because our IT is so ridiculously outdated and ill-suited to the task.
Let's say I have a work review on a disability recipient. I have several notices that print out after I make my decision. Do I hit a button that says "print and send to electronic record"? No. If I was in office, I had to print them up from eWork and manually print up a fax cover sheet and fax them in. Mildly unproductive.
Now with work from home? We're directed to preview the document, COPY AND PASTE THEM INTO A NEW WORD DOCUMENT YOU CREATE, manually add headers to indicate what form it is you're copying, then electronically send that Word document to the record. Oh yeah, and print it.
Extremely unproductive.
And that is just one of multiple work processes that have become cumbersome with the offices closed. Social Security cards is by far the worst, but others also take extra steps or double handling that was unnecessary in the office.
Considering 9:24's comments, isn't it interesting that Saul made updating the IT systems a top priority while continuing telework seems to be the current acting commissioner's priority. Yet, Saul was the devil?
The technology needs to improve. There are not many mandatory in person interviews. Everything can be conducted by phone or chat. Why does anyone really need a paper ssn card? It just shows your name and a #. Just write it down on a blank piece of paper or email yourself or whatever. The card itself serves zero purpose other than those 2 items. Why is ssn replacement cards such a big workload? You already know those 2 facts that is printed on the card. It'll be like asking the government to print your name and DOB on a paper...uhh why.
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