Happy Easter

 

"The Stupidest Thing I Ever Heard"

     From The Hill:

Republicans are battling among themselves over whether to push reforms to reduce Social Security spending, with some conservatives rallying around the idea of raising the retirement age. ...

But others in the party warn that talking about delaying Social Security benefits in an election year is political malpractice and would give Democrats a golden opportunity to accuse GOP candidates of wanting to cut Social Security.

“Horrible idea. Totally opposed to this,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said of raising the retirement age, even for people who don’t plan to retire soon.

“What a terrible idea. If Republicans want to be in the minority party forever, then go ahead and endorse that,” he said. “Republicans are so stupid. If they want to go to working people and say, ‘Congratulations, you have paid into this your whole life — your payroll taxes — and now we’re going to take part of it away from you. We’re going to make you work even longer than we said beforehand,’ I just think that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

Republican calls to reform Social Security got fresh attention when the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 170 GOP lawmakers, released a budget plan this week calling for “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” ...

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who is running to become the next Senate GOP leader, said Thursday he’s sympathetic with conservatives who want to raise the retirement age, even though it could blow up in Republicans faces in this year’s election. ...

Fee Cap Going Up And Will Be Indexed

      The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) is reporting that there will soon be an increase in the cap on the amount that attorneys may charge under the fee agreement process and that henceforth the cap will be adjusted annually for inflation.

New SSI Regs Approved

      The final rules on the Nationwide Expansion of the Rental Subsidy Policy for SSI Recipients have been approved by OMB and should appear in the Federal Register soon.

Social Security Ready To Start Moving To The Use Of Generative AI

     From a Request for Information published by the Social Security Administration:

SSA is looking for a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) solution capable of: 

• assisting SSA developers in developing code more expeditiously, and/or
• transforming Legacy Code to modern languages for the purpose of refactoring Legacy Systems to leverage modern technologies and platforms. ...

Emergency Message On Change In Default Rate For Collecting Overpayments

     The Social Security Administration has issued Emergency Message EM-24011 SEN on the recent decision by the Commissioner to change the default rate of benefit withholding where there's been an alleged overpayment. It's labeled as "SEN" because they consider it sensitive. It's labeled at the top as "NOT TO BE SHARED WITH THE PUBLIC" but they are sharing it after redacting significant portions of the message. I don't get a feel for what's in the redacted part.

Severe Problems Remain After SSA Appropriation Determined

     From Federal News Network:

After a months-long hiring freeze, the Social Security Administration is once again facing even further declining staffing numbers.

But with agency spending now determined for the rest of fiscal 2024, and hiring now unfrozen, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is readying the agency’s plans to rebuild its workforce as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Currently, SSA is at its lowest staffing levels in 27 years, while serving more customers than ever before, O’Malley told lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee during a hearing last week. As a result, customer service has worsened — there are longer wait times on phone lines, and longer delays in receiving decisions on disability applications and appeals. ...

In the 2024 spending agreement Congress reached last week, SSA received $14.2 billion for its administrative expenses. It’s a slight increase over SSA’s enacted budget of $14.1 billion for 2023. ...

Although SSA’s latest hiring freeze has ended, there have already been net staffing losses as a result of a months-long string of continuing resolutions — landing the agency once again at the lower staffing levels it had a year ago. ...

Right now, SSA employees “are understaffed, and they are overwhelmed,” O’Malley said. “Not surprisingly, when somebody’s been on hold for an hour, they come off that call hot. We right now have an attrition rate of about 24% in our teleservice centers.”     ...

“We need to change our [hiring] strategy as an agency,” O’Malley told lawmakers. “I think we target too much on college graduates and not enough on high school and community college graduates. And with proper training, that could really be an investment that holds for a long time.” ...

Final Regs To Omit Food From In-Kind Support And Maintenance To Become Effective On September 30 But SSA Seems To Be Worried About Litigation

     Social Security will publish final regulations to omit food from in-kind support and maintenance calculations for purposes of Supplemental Security Income tomorrow. The change will not become effective under September 30, 2024. That's an awful long lead time.

    By the way, the notice contains the following language:

Severability

In the event of an invalidation of any part of this rule, our intent is to preserve the remaining portions of the rule to the fullest possible extent. In particular, we intend the clarification of consideration of others in the household in 20 CFR 416.1131 [on the 1/3 reduction rule] to be severable, as it better explains our current policy and functions independently of the other changes reflected in this final rule. We also intend the clarification of constructive receipt of income in 20 CFR 416.1102 [defining what is income] to be severable, as it better explains our current policy and functions independently of the other changes reflected in this final rule.

Definition Of Public Assistance Regulations Advances

      The Social Security Administration has asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve these final regulations:

We propose to expand the definition of a public assistance (PA) household for purposes of our programs, particularly the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, to include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as an additional means-tested public income maintenance (PIM) program. In addition, we seek public comment on expanding the definition to include households in which any other (as opposed to every other) member receives public assistance. We expect that the proposed rule would decrease the number of SSI applicants and recipients charged with in-kind support and maintenance (ISM). In addition, we expect that this proposal would decrease the amount of income we would deem to SSI applicants or recipients because we would no longer deem income from ineligible spouses and parents who receive SNAP benefits and live in the same household. These policy changes would reduce administrative burden for low-income households and SSA.

Rep Payee Fighting Overpayment

     From WMAR:

A Maryland senior is fighting an overpayment notice from the Social Security Administration. The additional money was supposedly paid out to her brother, but now the agency is withholding her monthly retirement benefits.

“They caught their mistake and tried to collect the money, but he had passed," said Everlon Moulton, whose brother died in 2006. Moulton said shortly before then, she had become his financial representative. ...

According to a letter sent to Moulton last November, Congress passed a law permitting the Social Security Administration to collect Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments from the individual's payee. The SSA identified payments to Moulton's brother, while he was still alive, that exceeded the amount he should've received. Moulton said she never used money designated for her brother and was informed that $233 will be deducted from her monthly retirement benefits until the nearly $6,900 overpayment to her brother is settled. ...

    If she only became the representative payee shortly before her brother died how did she become responsible for a debt that must have accrued before she became involved?

Believe Them When They Keep Telling You Where They Stand

     From Bloomberg:

... The Republican Study Committee, which comprises about 80% of House Republicans, called for the Social Security eligibility age to be tied to life expectancy in its fiscal 2025 budget proposal. It also suggests reducing benefits for top earners who aren’t near retirement, including a phase-out of auxiliary benefits for the highest earners. ...

Social Security's Inspector General Is A Disgrace

     From Lisa Rein at the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog office failed to properly notify some poor and disabled Americans before levying huge fines on them, an investigation by an independent watchdog agency found.    

The two-year probe into a little-known anti-fraud program discovered particularly stark due process violations starting in 2018, with investigators finding no evidence that the government ever sent written notice to some of those hit with massive penalties, which at times reached more than $100,000. Even when the inspector general’s office, which runs the program, did send notification letters in previous years, investigators found it often failed to properly serve people with notice of the proposed fines. ...

[The investigators] took the unusual step of urging the Social Security Administration to review every penalty the government has issued under the Civil Monetary Penalty program since 1995, to notify claimants who were fined and to take “corrective action.” ...

More Details On Plan To Reduce Overpayment Harshness

     From a press release:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley today announced he is taking four vital steps to immediately address overpayment issues customers and the agency have experienced. ...

1. Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
2. We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment.
3. For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources, and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months).
4. And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay. ...

    You may recall that on January 4 I posted on What Can Social Security Do About Overpayments If It Really Wants To? There's much similarity between what I posted then and what the Commissioner announced. I doubt that my post had anything to do with what Social Security decided to do. Both they and I were looking at statutes and regulations to see what could be done about the overpayment problems that were on the news and on the minds of members of Congress. We both came to much the same conclusion that there was plenty that could be done, especially with the "against equity and good conscience" provision in the statute. 

    By the way, I've read comments saying that Social Security is required by statutes and regulations to collect 100% of the benefits of an overpaid individual until they collect the overpayment, making the Commissioner's announcement illegal. Look at what I posted on January 4. There's ample wiggle room to default to a 10% repayment schedule as the Commissioner announced. It's pretty straight forward.

O'Malley Testimony To Senate Aging Committee -- And Note The Overpayment Changes

     Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley testified before the Senate Aging Committee today. Here's are some excerpts from his written testimony (emphasis added):

...Currently – due to the extended continuing resolution (CR) that we are under in FY 2024 – we have stopped all hiring, and our staffing levels have already fallen below where they were in April of last year. If we continue this path of no hiring, we will fall to a new all-time low of around 55,000 full-time permanent staff by the end of this fiscal year – nearly 11 percent lower than the roughly 62,000 full-time permanent staff we averaged from 2010 through 2019.

Similarly, the State disability determination services (DDS) were able to make some progress increasing their staffing levels in FY 2023, following years of record-high attrition and a historically low staffing level in FY 2022. But in FY 2024, the DDS have quickly dropped below last year’s staffing levels due to our pause in hiring given the funding level, which is leading to a severe setback in addressing a service delivery crisis. ...

Members may be surprised to learn that Social Security has now been reduced to operate on less than one percent of its annual benefit payments. This is extremely low – much lower than private insurance companies. For instance, Allstate operates on 19 percent of its annual benefit payments, and Liberty Mutual operates on nearly 24 percent of its annual benefit payments. ...

Under the current system, Social Security’s operating overhead, as a share of benefit outlays, has shrunk by 20 percent over the last ten years. ...

People who try to reach us by phone are now waiting on hold for 38 minutes or more on a dysfunctional 800 Number system. ...

Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the SSI program.

We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment. ...

Ways And Means Committee Schedules Hearing With Commissioner

     The House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee and Work and Welfare Subcommittee (which has jurisdiction over Supplemental Security Income) have scheduled a joint hearing at 2:00 on March 21 to hear from Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley.

    Whoever scheduled this can't be much of a sports fan. March Madness, y'all! Can't wait to get my brackets busted.

Some Help On SSI Payment Backlogs

    From Emergency Message EM-24009:

... Since May of 1992, a prepayment review is required for any SSI case (initial or post eligibility), if an underpayment (UP) of $5,000 or more is due through the month prior to the current computation month (CCM) as per SI 02101.025 - Basic Requirements of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Underpayment (UP) Review (ssa.gov). Effective 03/16/2024, the amount of an SSI underpayment that requires a prepayment review will increase from $5,000 to $15,000. ...

    This should help reduce the SSI workloads a bit. The SSI effectuation backlogs are a major problem.

    I wonder whether something like this is planned for the Title II payment centers. Certainly the larger payments are a source of major delay. If you've been a high wage earner you could be looking at many months of delay before you're paid your back benefits. Would they announce that sort of change? Emergency messages generally don't concern truly emergent matters. They concern matters the agency believes are important -- that they want the public to be aware of. The agency isn't all that consistent in what it announces via EMs.

A Theory

     I've been thinking about that post yesterday concerning a man who visited a Social Security field office to obtain a replacement Social Security card. He was given a sheet containing a telephone number he could call to get the card replaced. He called the number and found that it wasn't Social Security on the other end but a scammer. The number on the sheet was one digit different from the real number he should have called.

    My initial thought was that someone at the Social Security field office must have been in cahoots with the scammers but one fact kept drawing my attention -- the number the man was given to call was only one digit different from the real number. If you had someone on the inside who was funneling calls to you, why would you go to the trouble of obtaining a phone number so similar to the real one?

    Let me posit a theory for what happened. Nobody at Social Security was in cahoots with the scammers. The number on the sheet was a simple typo. What had happened was that scammers had obtained as many telephone numbers as they could that were one digit different from the real number. Probably they did this for many offices. They could then expect a steady stream of misdials from people who thought they were talking with a Social Security office. By chance, the sheet handed out by Social Security funneled more calls to them but it wasn't part of their scheme. Actually, the typo may end up exposing their scheme.

    That's my theory. Have you got a better one?

What Happened Here?

      From The Intercept:

“We need to let you know you have been selected for $100 in rewards.”

It was a cheery automated message, not what I expected when I called the number for the Social Security Administration’s primary office in Manhattan. The message went on: “Simply press 1 now to be connected to a live agent and claim your gift today.”

I double-checked the number, which a Social Security employee had just given me at the agency’s local office in Harlem in late February. I needed to replace a lost card, which was a service only offered at certain locations, the agent told me. He slid me a flyer and circled the contact information for the office in the Financial District in Manhattan.

“You can call this number to try making an appointment,” the agent told me.

Still sitting in the lobby of the Harlem building, I dialed the number a couple more times, and each time reached a different grifter: I was eligible for another $100 gift card to Walmart, then help getting “free insurance.” I just had to hand over my name and address, to “confirm you’re eligible,” one scammer said. …

Still sitting in the lobby of the Harlem building, I dialed the number a couple more times, and each time reached a different grifter: I was eligible for another $100 gift card to Walmart, then help getting “free insurance.” I just had to hand over my name and address, to “confirm you’re eligible,” one scammer said. … 

Reached for this story, Social Security employees at the Harlem office did not answer detailed questions about how this version of the flyer came into existence. “We were made aware” of the scam number on the flyer, one ticket agent said, “and that’s why we stopped giving those out. … 

On closer inspection, the scam phone number was off by a single digit from the real direct line to the Manhattan Social Security office, and the phone numbers for other offices were legitimate….

SSA Employee Charged With Embezzling $1.8 Million

     From a press release:

On March 6, 2024, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned a 17-count indictment charging Myrna Faria, a.k.a. Myrna Oliveras-Santiago, with theft of government funds ...

According to court documents, Faria was employed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) from approximately 1991 through 2019 as a “Social Insurance Specialist” and “Claims Specialist” working in the Workload Support Unit in San Juan, Puerto Rico. From March 2012 through March 2024, Faria embezzled and stole SSA funds, namely Retirement Insurance Benefits, Survivors Insurance Benefits and Auxiliary Benefit payments, to which she knew she was not entitled. In total, Faria stole approximately $1,812,455.10. ...

Faria utilized her position within SSA to submit false claims on behalf of others, using the identity of individuals she believed to be deceased. She then approved those false claims and submitted her own bank and address information to fraudulently receive the corresponding SSA beneficiary proceeds. Faria proceeded to withdraw, transfer, and spend the money from the accounts that fraudulently obtained the SSA funds. Over the span of twelve years, Faria submitted and approved 13 fraudulent claims. A total of 10 fraudulent claims were still active and receiving funds as of the date of the Indictment. ...

O'Malley Has Plans To Deal With SSA's Overpayment Problems

     From KFF Health News:

The Social Security Administration’s new chief is promising to overhaul the agency’s system of clawing back billions of dollars it claims was wrongly sent to beneficiaries, saying it “just doesn’t seem right or fair.”

 In an interview with KFF Health News, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley said that in the coming days he would propose changes to help people avoid crushing debts ...

He said he has concrete steps in mind, such as establishing a statute of limitations, shifting the burden of proof to the agency, and imposing a 10% cap on clawbacks for some beneficiaries. ...

O’Malley said the agency plans to cease efforts to claw back years-old overpayments and halt the practice of terminating benefits for disabled workers who don’t respond to overpayment notices because they did not receive them or couldn’t make sense of them. ...

“One would assume that in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” he said, “that the burden should fall more on the agency than on the unwitting beneficiary.”

SSAB Study On Effectuation Of Disability Benefits

     The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has done a study on Effectuation of Disability Benefits. It shows that there have been major increases in the time it takes to effectuate disability benefits, particularly SSI benefits. These delays are cruel. The claimant has already been found disabled. He or she is poor enough to qualify for SSI yet must wait many months to receive their benefits. That's wrong.

    Below are a couple of charts from the report showing what has happened. Note that the SSAB couldn't obtain good data from Social Security. They had to rely upon data from a large non-attorney representative group. That tells you that this hasn't been enough of a priority at Social Security to even collect good data on it. In addition to giving us an idea of the scope of the problem, the data also gives us an idea of the size of that non-attorney representative group.

Two Important Sets Of Final Regs

     The Social Security Administration has asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve two sets of proposed regulations.

     Here's a description of the first for which approval has been requested:

We propose to update our regulations to reflect that we may authorize direct payment of representative fees to an entity itself, not only to representatives working for an entity, as required by the decision of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Marasco & Nesselbush v. SSA. In accordance with the Marasco ruling, we propose a process for paying an entity directly, which involves requiring registration for all entities who wish to receive direct payment of assigned fees. We also propose several measures to standardize registration, appointment, and payment processes for all representatives who wish to be appointed on a claim, matter, or issue with us. These proposed changes will enable us to pay fees directly to entities in a timely and efficient manner. In addition to helping us implement the Marasco decision, these provisions will increase appointed representatives’ access to our electronic services, reduce delays, and thus improve program efficiencies for all representatives.

    Here's a description of the second set of proposed regulations for which approval has been requested:

We propose to develop intermediate improvements to reduce the burden in our current disability adjudication process as a step towards longer-term reforms to ensure our disability program remains current and supports equitable outcomes. Actions could include decreasing the years of past work we consider when making a disability determination, as well as other potential regulatory changes.

The development of this regulation was informed by a listening session conducted by our Office of Communications with advocacy groups representing claimants and beneficiaries.

Biden Proposes 9% Increase In Social Security Operating Funds

     From President Biden's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins on October 1, 2024:

... The Budget provides an increase of $1.3 billion, nine percent over the 2023 enacted level, to improve customer service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families. The Budget also improves access to SSA’s services by reducing wait times. ...

    Nothing like this can be passed until after the election and only then if Democrats control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives -- and Senate Democrats are willing to scrap the filibuster, at least in part.

    In the lengthy supplement to the budget, the detailed explanation shows that program integrity would not increase. One complaint about recent appropriations is that there has been lavish funding of program integrity while basic operations have suffered greatly.

    The Commissioner of Social Security gets to include his own proposed budget for the agency in the supplement to the budget. Commissioner O'Malley's proposal is for the agency to be funded at $16.45 billion, about three quarters of a billion dollars higher than the President's budget but O'Malley has issued a statement praising the President's budget.

    The proposals of the President and the Commissioner are nice but restoring acceptable service at the Social Security Administration will have to be a multi-year effort.

    By the way, the Biden budget also calls for extending SSI to U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico.

New Telework Wrinkle

     From Federal News Network:

... Under a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between SSA and the American Federation of Government Employees, signed March 1, employees can now request “episodic telework” — or extra work-from-home days — when unexpected personal circumstances arise.

The new flexibility, which took effect March 4, gives SSA employees the option to occasionally request taking an extra day of telework in extenuating circumstances. That’s instead of having to take time off or dip into annual leave. ...

Agency spending levels are the next challenge SSA will face. To try to improve services and morale at SSA, AFGE is proposing a supplemental funding package of $20 billion over the next 10 years.

The highly anticipated budget proposal from House and Senate appropriators, which has a deadline of March 22, is unlikely to yield the results AFGE is hoping for.

“We’re severely underfunded in our operating costs, and current budget talks aren’t signaling that we’re going to get much money this year,” LaPointe said. “So, we’re really getting creative.” ...

NY Times On Social Security Scams

     The New York Times is running a piece on the ongoing scandal of criminals, by hook or crook, obtaining enough information about a person receiving or eligible to receive Social Security benefits and then convincing the Social Security Administration to divert those benefits to the criminals. It happens thousands of times a year and involves tens of millions of dollars. It goes on and on with no apparent fix in sight.

Increase In Social Security Fraud

     From Newsweek:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has issued a warning for Americans regarding scams that are stealing benefits from thousands of recipients each year. ...

According to the SSA's Office of the Inspector General, there was a 61.7 percent increase of reported scams between Q3 of the financial year in 2022 and the same period in 2023. In the former, just over 13,000 scams were reported, rising to 21,080 in the latter. ...

[T]hose under 50 were most likely to fall for scams ...

Thanks, Commissioner O'Malley

     From a recent "Dear Colleague" letter from Social Security to attorneys who represent claimants before the agency:

... We offer flexible repayment plans, including payments as low as $10 per month. If they are unable to meet their necessary living expenses due to the current repayment amount, or are unable to repay the debt within 60 months*, they can request a change in the recovery rate by completing form SSA-634, Request for Change in Overpayment Recovery Rate. *This is a recent policy change. Previous policy required the completion of the SSA-634 if the overpayment could not be repaid within 36 months. ...

    You know, that policy change means that it's harder to get a current repayment rate reduced. More overpayments can be satisfied in 60 months than in 36 months. Squeeze those debtors as hard as you can.

Achieving Social Security Equity For Black And Hispanic Americans

     From How Can Changes to Social Security Improve Benefits for Black and Hispanic Beneficiaries? by Richard W. Johnson and Karen E. Smith:

• ... Racial and ethnic differences in annual and lifetime Social Security benefits are substantial. We project that average lifetime benefits received by adults born between 2001 and 2010 are 19 percent less for Black beneficiaries than white beneficiaries and 14 percent less for Hispanic beneficiaries than white beneficiaries. Black and Hispanic beneficiaries ages 62 and older in 2080 are projected to be about 10 percentage points more likely to receive limited incomes in 2080 than white beneficiaries. 
• Various benefit enhancements, including creating caregiver credits, making the benefit formula more progressive, and adding a new minimum benefit to Social Security, would disproportionately help Black and Hispanic beneficiaries. 
• However, these benefit enhancements would only modestly narrow racial and ethnic disparities in Social Security benefits. Adding a new minimum benefit tied to years of covered employment would have a particularly modest effect, because relatively few beneficiaries receiving limited benefits complete long careers. 

The policy implications of the findings are: 

• The effectiveness of benefit enhancements depends crucially on how those adjustments are structured. Policy details, including eligibility for the enhanced benefit and the presence of any benefit caps, shape how much low-income beneficiaries would receive and how well targeted the adjustments are.
• Achieving equity in Social Security benefits for Black and Hispanic adults would likely require substantial progress toward equality in labor market outcomes. ...
  

A $500,000 Underpayment?

    From Newsweek:

A Kentucky woman said she is owed more than $500,000 after the Social Security Administration began underpaying her in the 1990s.

Wyonia Butler, 65, worked as a nurse in the 1990s, but at the young age of 32, she was injured on the job and wound up unable to work. ...

While Butler said she initially received workers' compensation, the payments ceased after just seven months. ...

In June of 1997, Butler received a letter saying she would get only 80 percent of her earnings due to the workers' compensation, despite the payments having stopped. That totaled $1,620 taken out of her benefits, which has easily surpassed $500,000 in lost money today.

While Butler immediately went to correct the error, confirming that she did not receive any workers' compensation anymore, the past 27 years have left her without answers and a heavy hit to her financial situation. ...

She initially received a letter saying they needed to secure more information and she needed to complete a few forms. She mailed them out and followed up but was told the forms were in backlog. The SSA representatives she spoke to said they weren't sure why her account still said she receives workers' compensation. ...

"I did as I was asked," Butler said. "However, to this date, it's never been done or addressed. They are still withholding $1,625 out of my check every month. I called, of course, and was told each time to be patient, it's being worked up."

After five years of failing to get answers, Butler said she stopped. It was affecting her health, but 27 years later, she still is unsure where a half-million dollars is and why it's been withheld from her. ...

In the meantime, Butler said she has been deprived of at least $500,000 in payments and lost her farm. ...

"I should have continued every day until I got an answer," Butler said. "I should have called more. Due to health reasons, I had to stop. I did call last year and this year. The line just rings and rings."

She received a denial of reconsideration after five months despite having immediately corrected the Social Security error. ...

    What happened here? I think the most likely explanation is that Ms. Butler was receiving her full, unreduced benefits. She thought her payment was reduced by the workers compensation offset but she was just confused about how much she was owed each month. She was certainly confused about what that 80% that she heard something about meant. It's complicated but while 80% is part of the workers compensation offset, it doesn't mean that there's an 80% reduction. The actual reduction could be more or less than that. Even though Ms. Butler seems confused -- as well she should be since this is all so complicated -- there is the real possibility that she has been underpaid all these years. Social Security has a hard time administering the complex workers compensation offset. I don't think that Social Security would deny that they make a lot of workers compensation offset mistakes but 27 years of mistakes is at the extreme end of what would be imaginable.

    If I were representing her, I'd like to see that reconsideration determination she received and I'd like to know what she did after receiving it. I'd like to see any other paperwork she has. Was there a settlement of her workers compensation case with a lump sum benefit payment? Was this paid by an annuity? Did her benefit payments change when she turned 62? If it did, that would suggest that the agency was still applying the workers compensation offset until then. I'm not going to explain why age 62 matters other than to say that I'm talking about the RIB-DIB election. If you don't know what the RIB-DIB election is, you don't know enough to be commenting on any of this.

No Attorney Fee Numbers Released In A Year

     I used to post newly released numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants. Something like a year ago I posted that the agency hadn't released any new numbers in months. In an apparent response, Social Security finally updated the numbers on their website. However, Social Security hasn't updated its numbers since then. No new numbers on fee payments have been posted since February 2023.

    There really is interest in these numbers. I'm sure the agency hasn't stopped collecting the data. It may well be posted on Social Security's intranet. Please release the data to the public.

Monthly OHO Report

 

Click on image to view full size

Why Does Social Security Keep Relying Upon Ancient Occupational Data?

    Andrew Van Dam at the Washington Post has written a "Department of Data" piece on the Social Security Administration's continuing reliance upon incredibly old data in the adjudication of disability claims. He asks whether the Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics could be the answer. Van Dam gives examples from the ORS but concentrates only upon the heaviest and lightest jobs in the economy and the ones that require the most and least training. That's fine but Social Security needs to concentrate upon those jobs that have both low physical AND mental demands. That's where the action is at Social Security.

The Effects Of Incarceration On Disability Benefits

     From The Impact of Past Incarceration on Later-Life DI and SSI Receipt by Gary V. Engelhardt:

• Past incarceration reduces the career years of employment, in general, and the likelihood of meeting the DI [Disability Insurance] duration test, in particular, reducing eligibility for DI. 
• Given the likely reduction in eligibility, however, past incarceration leads to a 30-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of applying for DI or SSI benefits, with an 18-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of benefit receipt. 
• Past incarceration raises by about 20 percentage points the likelihood the individual is in poverty as measured by the federal poverty threshold. 

 The policy implications of the findings are:

• At the aggregate level, DI rolls are about 300,000 higher for 50-61-year-old men because of past incarceration; SSI rolls are about 50,000 higher. 
• Incarceration has resulted in about 375,000 additional men between 50 and 61 years of age being under the federal poverty threshold in the 2010-2016 period.  ...

    What I've seen over the years is that imprisonment is bad for your health. Unhealthy food, incredibly stressful living conditions and poor medical treatment are a big part of it but probably not all. Certainly, many convicted felons arrive in prison already suffering from significant health problems, both physical and mental.