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. ...
5 comments:
10% seems low for people who are at fault (unreported work for retirement benefits) that can afford to repay in under 5 years, especially if the overpayment is the second or third for the same reason.
Interesting testimony from O'Malley on a lot of longstanding SSA problem areas. One thing confuses me--how does O'Malley square his plan to move away from a 100% withholding rate for title II beneficiaries with the current regulations, especially sections 404.502(a) and (c)? Am I reading the regulation correctly? Doesn't it require a 100% withholding rate, unless the exception that allows for partial withholding applies? And how would SSA apply that exception correctly if the person hasn't responded to the overpayment notice?
8:21, I don't get the sense that O'Malley is a detail-oriented guy. His managerial approach has been to leap first, look later. Regulations don't matter if no one is interested in enforcing them.
c1 says: Where it is determined that withholding the full amount each month would defeat the purpose of title II, i.e. , deprive the person of income required for ordinary and necessary living expenses.
I’m assuming the Commissioner will be relying heavily on the “will be determined” bit.
As Commissioner he could release a blanket statement to the agency that he has determined that there is a presumption that someone receiving payment deprives the person of ordinary/necessary living expenses UNLESS the agency has evidence to the contrary.
This take would also fit with him saying the burden of proof shifts to the agency.
Hopefully O’Malley will really play hardball with Congress. Don’t want to fund us adequately? Guess how many scheduled RZ’s and CDRs we’re doing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Guess how much effort we are putting into collecting overpayments. Bupkis. Then they can owe the hit to the trust fund.
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