From a press release:
Today, U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bob Casey (D-PA) sent a letter to President Biden urging him to create a “Beneficiary Advocate” position within the Social Security Administration (SSA). This position would be modeled off of the Taxpayer Advocate position at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and ensure that the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Social Security, often after a lifetime of work and paying into the system, have a dedicated voice in SSA’s day-to-day operations. ...
It would have to be truly independent to be effective. My guess is that Social Security management would strongly oppose this since an independent taxpayer advocate would almost immediately start offering harsh criticism of service at Social Security. There's a lot to criticize and they know it. The problem is the low operating budget and that's the fault of Congress but Social Security management acts as if it's their fault and tries to cover it up.
10 comments:
More help is usually a good thing. Rep payees work well in key cases. The SSA is starting to figure stuff out maybe but probably not.
Interesting proposition. It would require a unique set of skills. They would have to know both disability and retirement, along with other programs programs and procedures of SSA. Combined with an advocacy background having identified and solved these problems before. Very small pool of candidates that would meet that need.
Why not leave it up to the state DDS? During a CDR, I had a specific person to call if I had any questions. Seems like they had it worked out? (This may only apply to my state?).
Folks should read up on just who is and what is the office of the Taxpayer Advocate in order to comment :) In the IRS, that office exists independently from the IRS and the OIG. Pretty sure IRS management groans about it but it does good stuff there. It could be difficult to keep it from being another avenue dissatisfied with SSA actions would use to try and get redress.
It's a great idea. SSA is poorly run. This could be a step in improving how SSA is run. I am sure there are many qualified folks who are familiar with hearing offices or field offices or both who would love to do the job as an advocate.
2:04, as usual SSI being ignored.
SB, They would have to know disability, SSI and retirement.
There, fixed it.
Another stupid idea from Congress.
Most SSA staff works extremely hard to do everything they can for the people they serve, given that they have limited time, training and resources. So, we are going to hire these advocates to go through the same training and do what, not take claims? Will their sole function be to handhold people and not do work? How is that a solution? SSA needs more people to get stuff done.
How about they find out how much staff is needed and hire that much, removing all the stupid restrictions on hiring? Hiring like was done in the 70s, 80s and 90s yielded dedicated, knowledgeable technicians that did great work for the public.
Rose colored glasses aside, service has sucked at SSA my entire life through all those decades mentioned. When I was with the agency we were actually told Not to help people just do what they came in for and if they dont like it they have the right to appeal. Yeah, thats great service right there.
10:40 obviously missed disability and other programs, but thats to be expected from government workers and lawyers.
This is a very good idea for CDR's.
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