From a long piece by Lisa Rein in today's Washington Post:
Six months after
reopening its field offices to the public, the Social Security
Administration is struggling to restore basic customer services and is
assisting millions fewer of the poor, elderly and disabled people who
sought its help before the coronavirus pandemic, federal data shows.
Even
as prolonged office closures caused applications for disability
benefits to plunge, the sluggish response now of the agency meant to
assist the country’s most at-risk citizens has led to delays in
processing claims for those who manage to file them, and
exhausting waits outside government offices around the country for those
trying to. Nearly 20 percent of field offices have had 40 or more
customers in line on multiple days when the doors opened, according to data Social Security recently provided to Congress. ...
During the first week in September, 21 percent of disabled claimants waited 29 to 45 days for a phone appointment and another 24
percent more than 45 days, according to internal data obtained by The
Washington Post. Phone service, after hitting bottom earlier this year
when the agency rolled out a new system to modernize its aging communications, is still troubled by extensive waits on hold that often end up in dropped calls. From
April to July, wait times for all claimants to speak with an agent, the
only statistic available, averaged 33 minutes, up from 20 minutes in
fiscal year 2019, the data shows. And field office staff members
answered just 66 percent of calls from the start of the fiscal year
through August, down from 76 percent in fiscal 2019. ...
Lack of staff and competitive salaries to hire new staff. Terrible senior executives who are incompetent and have corroded the ssa. Fund the agency properly and tell the ancient managers to finally retire.
ReplyDeleteCAREER SSA RETIREE HERE: You are SPOT-ON!
DeleteWhat is wrong with you people? Don't you know that technology, the internet and My SSA are going to fix everything? Not! Here's what is missing at SSA: the human factor. Stop wasting money on technology that is not ready for prime time. Tey beta testing first.
ReplyDeleteReopening was never going to be a panacea. And, that is obviously never more apparent than it is now (except to upper management, who continues to be unable to catch a clue).
ReplyDeleteThe agency is more understaffed than it has been in 30 years, and an increasingly large percentage of the staff it does have has no clue as to how to do their jobs (even with a supervisor breathing over their shoulders who doesn't know how to do it either). Then, on top of all that, we are having to try to deal with literal avalanches of all the crap that was messed up or simply wasn't done in the last two years (for the love of god, how could they have so badly messed up so many multiple entitlement cases - paying wrong rates, wrong records, and even worse paying people ON BOTH RECORDS at the same time?), systems "improvements" that cause us to have to spend twice as long doing things as we used to (if we can even get it to work). And don't get me started on the overpayment letters.
On top of this, we have members of senior management (who all have to be either insane or just closet alcoholics stoned out of what passes as their minds) singing kumbaya over how simply stupendous things are going now.
Worst part is, you think it is bad now? Wait and see what it looks like 6 months from now. I predict now will be like heaven compared to then....
Hopefully this is the impetus to nominate a competent executive to be COSS, which should be accompanied by big changes in management.
ReplyDeleteNot only do the current wastrels have no plan to fix the agency, they don't even have a plan to have a plan. They will just whine about the budget ad nauseam.
Hard to coordinate coverage when the agency desperately wants to support maximum telework.
ReplyDeleteTelework isn’t the issue. The staffing situation is the issue.
ReplyDeleteThese FO's in Houston and the other big cities were just as busy pre-pandemic. It's just they were waiting in the lobby. Like come on. Let everyone in the lobby and let COVID sort them out.
ReplyDeleteWhat do these journalists think is going to happen when a wave of COVID his the FO employees once they are crushed with people again?
Telework isn't the problem. Staffing levels are the problem. It's been 2 years and I still can't remotely mail certain forms, that is a disgrace.
We had morale meetings that saw 80% of TSC people begging for better training and tools to work their jobs, the odds of that happening? None.
Social distancing in lobbies ended a month ago. Everyone is allowed in now.
DeleteVirtual training isn't working. Bring people in the office and provide hands on trainings with mentors available.
ReplyDeleteWe have a good manager, but SS administrative funding isn't keeping up with the need. I think the DDS makes unnecessary work for themselves, and they could focus more on processing the claims they have and get rather than focusing on CDR's.
ReplyDeleteIf the staff didn't spend 1/2 their day processing SSN applications for people who seem to lose them every year, and BEVE on a walk-in basis they may have a chance to get some work done.
ReplyDeleteOh, and if we had someone in the CoSS positions who wasn't pushing her LGBTQIA+BCDEDF agenda and focusing on pronoun training and developing policies that will force managers to be directly involved with an employees gender transition issues (including holding staff meetings to inform colleagues), then maybe SSA could be function.
Yes. I’m sure the maybe ten employees within the massive agency undergoing gender transitions are really the core problem. Go crawl in a hole with your homophobia and transphobia, neanderthal.
DeleteWorking at Social Security sucks too!!!!
ReplyDeletelack of funding, incredible job dissatisfaction, lack of any incentive to retain or promote/reward good employees, glass ceilings for excepted service employees in OHO, no chance of WIGIs, no OT, and staffing numbers continuing to drop...I wonder why the agency is under water.
ReplyDeleteReturning to a comment above, from the OHO level, I can assure you that we are dealing with a mountain of crap created by the FOs and PCs during the COVID period. This is entirely on point:
"Then, on top of all that, we are having to try to deal with literal avalanches of all the crap that was messed up or simply wasn't done in the last two years (for the love of god, how could they have so badly messed up so many multiple entitlement cases - paying wrong rates, wrong records, and even worse paying people ON BOTH RECORDS at the same time?), systems "improvements" that cause us to have to spend twice as long doing things as we used to (if we can even get it to work). And don't get me started on the overpayment letters."
The issue isn't (yet) at OHO or the AC. The field level bolloxed everything during COVID, and now they're trying to figure out how to get out from under. E.g, detailing OHO excepted service attorneys to ODD/state DDS to assist with the backlog of CDR/age 18 redets at the ini level, and detailing another group of the same to serve as DHOs.
For all of Terri Gruber's many faults, her disdain for attorneys is looking pretty rich, considering we are now being asked to help out the field, which can't find its head from its ass, apparently. We get the "privilege" of helping even though there's no chance of a WIGI, or even a promotional opportunity.
Not to mention, there are mass exoduses from the hearings-level because people are burnt out and hate the lack of sufficient support or opportunities.
Finally, if you think telework is the issue, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
ReplyDeleteThe article falsely implies that telework is to blame for the problems at SSA.
Well the Post was running articles blaming telework for problems, back when the SSA offices were closed. Cutting back telework and reopening the office has not helped much.
To cut telework further would cause even more recruitment and retention problems at SSA. Employees like telework and it been proven to be effective.
The main problem is funding: not enough employees and , not enough overtime.
ReplyDeleteI'm an SSA employee and I can attest that I am more productive on my telework days.
On my office days there are more distractions and I'm more tired and stressed from commuting to the office.
Plus I have the monitors and phone set up exactly the way I like them, at home.
You may be (what metrics do you have to prove this) but I can assure you that not everyone is. Dogs, children (yes many employees watch their kids while “working”), CNN, Amazon delivery, 13th trip to the fridge, etc., etc.
DeleteTelework does NOT work and puts the burden of many workloads onto the staff in the office, which is exactly where public facing employees should be.
I haven't seen any help at the field level from OHO. I think we're already pretty good at making people wait for bad service and to be told no, but it'd be nice to learn from the champs.
ReplyDeleteI guess we just have to wait two years to see you like the public does.
Bad Computer Software that fails to automate most tasks.
ReplyDeleteTelephone Systems that don't work. (Seriously, they claim that they answer 76% of calls and think that's good)
Understaffing going back decades though all administrations
Top Management that has no experience in managing large organization (Looking at you Grace Kim)
ACOSS more interested in equity issues than service.
ALJ's unwilling to talk to reps due to Conn fears so no meritorious case can be expedited
Professional grade starting salaries at $31,000 (Good luck finding anyone at that figure)
And we wonder why the operation of the system is failing
Yet the DCO gets a Presidential Rank Award. Status quo in SSA still getting rewarded.
ReplyDeleteThe recon level needs to go. That removes six months and another poorly written DDS RFC from the hearing process. The hearing level five day rule needs to be tightened up and given teeth. No more cases spending months in POST while the reps use the hearing itself to find out if their clients have ever seen a doctor, ever. Give ALJs dismissal authority back. And let operations sort out their own process and stop trying to take over the hearing offices. Their interference helps neither operations nor hearings.
ReplyDelete