NADE Newsletter

      The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), a professional organization of the personnel who make initial and reconsideration determinations on disability claims for the Social Security Administration, has posted its most recent newsletter, which includes summaries of presentations by agency brass at a conference.

Mody Nomination Advances

      The Senate Finance Committee has advanced the nomination of Arjun Mody to become Deputy Commissioner of Social Security but only by a vote of 14-13. The nomination now goes to the Senate floor.

Frank Bisignano Exhibiting The Candor And Integrity For Which He’s Known

From a letter to Congress from Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano:

… After just my first six months on the job, I am pleased to report we are delivering a dramatically better customer experience at SSA. … 

     In other news concerning the Commissioner, the Ranking Member of the House Social Security Subcommittee has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Bisignano’s conduct at his former employer, Fiserv. The SEC shouldn’t need a referral from Congressmen to investigate this one but in the Trump Administration no Trump appointee need fear any sort of federal investigation.

Trump Administration Drops Plan To Alter Grid Regs

      From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration has abandoned plans to block thousands of older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits after an uproar that reached senior officials in the Trump White House, according to people familiar with the decision.


The agency is also halting a plan to use modern labor market data to help judge whether disability claimants can work, a project that has cost the federal government more than $350 million so far. The new data would have replaced a long-outdated jobs database that until recently included obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks. …

Jason Turkish — an attorney representing disabled people and co-founder of the advocacy group Alliance for America’s Promise — said SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and other administration officials assured him in meetings over the past week that the proposal would not move forward. A former Social Security executive familiar with the disability program confirmed that Bisignano has scrapped the proposed rule. …

Working After Claiming Retirement Benefits

      From Who Works After Claiming Social Security?, a report by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

The brief’s key findings are: ...

Our results show that about 40 percent of individuals work at some point after claiming, typically for several years and for non-trivial earnings.

Most of them are lower lifetime earners who claim around 62 and then work part time, so they may struggle to delay Social Security claiming.

The rest are higher earners who often work full time after claiming near the full retirement age, suggesting they may be able to further delay claiming. ...

 

Increasing Medicare Costs Eat Much Of Social Security COLA

     From USA Today:

It’s official. Medicare costs will eat up much of older Americans' Social Security cost-of-living increase next year.

The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient care, doctors' services, durable medical equipment and preventive service, will be $202.90 in 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Nov. 14. That's up $17.90, or nearly 9.7%, from $185.00 in 2025. ...

Seniors were the only ones who saw an increase in poverty in 2024. All other age groups saw a decrease or stayed the same. ... 

Social Security Increases Minimum Repayment Of Overpayments From $10 A Month To $50

      Per an issuance in Social Security’s manual made on October 1 but just now posted online.

45%? Are You Kidding Me? That's Insanely High!

     From David Weaver, a former Social Security executive writing for ICT (emphasis added):

Just-released data indicate that about 25 percent of children in Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, have lost a parent or sibling to death. 

The childhood bereavement picture is very different in Union County, South Dakota, where about 2 percent of children have lost a parent or sibling to death. Ninety-three percent of individuals in Oglala Lakota County are American Indian (alone) and 94 percent of individuals in Union County are White.

South Dakota is not an isolated example. In western states, childhood bereavement is far more likely in tribal areas.  ...

Parents who work and pay Social Security taxes earn benefits for their children in the event of death. The benefit amounts are substantial, averaging $1,100 per month per child or $13,200 annually. 

Unfortunately, a lack of awareness about these benefits and administrative errors by the Social Security Administration have left many bereaved children behind. Nationally, about 45 percent of bereaved children are missing out on Social Security survivor benefits.

Many families are simply unaware that bereaved children may be eligible for Social Security benefits. This, in turn, is because the Social Security Administration has scaled back its communication efforts. 

For example, the agency no longer mails the Social Security statement to households each year. The statement provided detailed information on all types of Social Security benefits, including child benefits. ...

     It's almost as if they need attorneys to help them file claims or something. They certainly need for someone to tell them to file.

Back Pay For SSA Employees Coming Monday

      Social Security employees may already know this but they can expect their back pay on Monday.

SSAB Still In Business

      From American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries:

Amy Shuart is the new Chair of the Social Security Advisory Board, having been appointed by President Trump to that position on Nov. 12. She is the youngest Chair in the history of the SSAB. …

Shuart is not new to the SSAB, however. She had been appointed by the Speaker of the House effective Oct. 9, 2022 to a six-year term as a member of that body. She filled the vacancy created by the expiration of Hildred’s appointment to the SSAB, which ended in October 2022.

ad space

Shuart also is no stranger to policy. Her nearly 20-year career in policy roles includes those of Staff Director of the Social Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means, and Vice President of Technology & Innovation at Business Roundtable. Before that, she served as a Presidential Management Fellow at the Social Security Administration in the Office of Retirement Policy. She earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Virginia Tech and a Master of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. …

Threats Bring Charges In Cleveland

     From Cleveland.com:

A Cleveland man faces federal charges after authorities say he threatened to kill Social Security employees after he didn’t get his emergency disability check.

Aharon Meir Michoel Schur, 39, went to a Social Security Administration office twice and called the administration’s hotline several times to get his October check delivered to a new bank account, according to court records. 

When that didn’t happen, he made several threats— including threats to kill that he made on the phone and while he was at the Social Security Administration’s office on Waterloo Road in Cleveland, according to court records. …

On Sept. 30, Schur went to the Waterloo Road office to update his direct deposit information to a new bank account, according to court records. 

He hadn’t received his check by Oct. 6 and called the administration. The call was recorded, and an employee in Arizona told Schur that he needed to go in person to an office and take steps to obtain a “dire need” payment. 

Schur became upset during the call, saying that the delay put him and his son in dire need of money and that he may not be able to pay his rent, court records say. …

He said on the call several times that he was going to attack workers at the Waterloo building and burn the building down, court records say. 

“Play with my m-------------g family, I will kill everybody over my family and their well being, ma’am,” he said, according to court records. “I don’t give a f—k if this is a recorded line.” 

Schur made the threats while driving to the office, according to court records. 

He told the employee on the phone that he arrived at the office, that he was going to kill everyone inside and wanted her to stay on the phone so she could listen to it, court records say. 

Employees at the Waterloo Road office didn’t know of the threats until after Schur left, according to court records. A security guard stopped Schur after noticing he was yelling on the phone, court records say. 

An employee ultimately reissued the payment to Schur’s new bank account. …

Veterans Day

 

A Poll

 

online polls

Senators Want Answers

      From Government Executive:

… In a letter to [current Fiserv CEO Mike] Lyons, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrats on the Senate Finance and Banking committees, respectively, demanded information about the circumstances that led to Fiserv’s issuance of overly rosy revenue projections and the subsequent decision to reevaluate those goals.

“At a minimum, Mr. Bisignano appears to have failed to manage Fiserv effectively, and may have misled investors and the public about the company’s financial status, raising concerns about his ability to serve as a key Social Security and IRS official in the Trump administration,” they wrote. “Because of Mr. Bisignano’s mismanagement, many Fiserv investors, including retirees and members of the public, lost money—a fate Mr. Bisignano avoided. Bisignano’s required divestment of company stock helped him avoid about 300 million in losses cause by the stock’s price decline by over 50%.” …

Social Security's Music On Hold Makes Some People Want To Dance

     From Parade.com: 

’80s star Eric Roberts knows how to make the best out of a boring situation.

The actor, who is best known for roles in films like King of the Gypsies, Star 80, and Runaway Train, competed on Dancing with the Stars during season 33 with his partner, Britt Stewart. While the pair reached 10th place on the beloved competition series, it’s safe to say that Roberts, whose sister is beloved film legend Julia Roberts, is number one in his dancing role at home. The actor joined his wife, Eliza Roberts, to take a few spins around the room as they waited out the hold music while calling the Social Security Administration. Sitting on hold? Maybe stars ARE just like us. ...

“It’s a two-hour wait,” said Eliza, who admitted she wanted to do some dancing that night. However, we don’t think that’s what she had in mind.  ...

Shutdown Not Sustainable

      From Wired:

As the U.S. government shutdown stretches into its second month, agency leaders at the Social Security Administration (SSA) are becoming increasingly worried about how the key government department, which provides benefits to roughly 70 million Americans, will continue to operate.

WIRED obtained meeting notes from a Thursday SSA call for the administration’s field offices, where over a thousand managers from around the country spoke with field operations chief Andy Sriubas about the acute and damaging effects of the government shutdown. During the call, managers spoke candidly about staffers who can no longer afford to drive to work and a crisis of confidence in the agency.

“People are coming to me saying they cannot put gas in their car and they cannot afford to come to work anymore, and they'll need to get other jobs,” said one employee on the call. “Pretty soon they won't be able to afford to work at the agency.” ...

Another employee tells WIRED that some field offices have set up food pantries to help colleagues who are on the brink. “People are angry and … betrayed,” they added.  ...

Employees are also struggling with a daunting workload and a backlog of cases. On the call, Sriubas said that he had spoken with SSA’s general counsel, who said that just because SSA’s workload was “excepted” didn’t mean the agency had to do it. “So we can decide not to do it,” said Sriubas. “So if [the shutdown] does go into next week, I ask folks to start thinking about what are the workloads … to say, look, we're just not doing that going forward until the shutdown ends.” ...

“I’ve Lost My Free Will, And Now You’re Trying To Give Me A Lollipop”

      From the Washington Post:

Brace yourself before you call the Social Security Administration, as several million people do each month.
The average wait time is 68.9 minutes.
On the line, your experience will consist of a repeated 5-minute segment of announcements and better-than-usual hold music.

Go ahead, listen. Don’t worry, you can take yourself off hold at any time. …

Because the internet can still be a place that connects you to your curiosity, some people go in search of the full song and its lyrics that float over the melody.  …

Imagine that — a piece of music that breaks free in small ways from our DOGE-enhanced existence. So we went to East Harlem to meet the musician behind it and played him the Social Security hold loop, on speaker.

“That’s horrible!” David D’Alessio howled. He sat with his face in his hands, at his kitchen table.
It was the first time he heard his song — his life’s credo — used as off-the-shelf hold music.
 He felt trapped, imagining himself as a caller. “I feel like I’m being punished,” D’Alessio said. “I’ve lost my free will, and now you’re trying to give me a lollipop.”

D’Alessio, 54, is an independent musician who put out three albums during a career of over 30 years.  …

He was 35 and had just had a bad breakup. “I was pretty dark about what I was doing, where I was going, who I was,” D’Alessio said, “You know ... the whole nine.” He was stuck.
That’s when “Throw Yourself In Front of It” emerged. First came the melody — the same one piped through millions of phones now. … 

By 2014, he figured it was time to make money from “Throw Yourself in Front of It.” D’Alessio recorded an instrumental version with drums, bass and layers of vocals. That was posted online in a music catalogue for purchase, as the company writes, by “visionary music supervisors in TV, film and advertising.”  As copyright lawyers would put it: the use of D’Alessio’s instrumental version was offered online, non-exclusively, in perpetuity, to anyone who would pay an up-front licensing fee. …

Slowing Down In Woodlawn

      From WBAL in Baltimore:

With the government shutdown in its 36th day on Wednesday, businesses around government facilities are feeling the effects. Businesses near Woodlawn's Social Security Administration are seeing a decline in customers since the shutdown as some federal employees are either furloughed or working without pay.

Pioneer Pit Beef usually sees a line out the door. Not during the shutdown, though. 

"This is why you see today we have no line here," said Jesus Cruz, the restaurant's owner. "Normally this time, lunchtime, we have a lot of people waiting in line. We have about 15 to 20 people waiting in the line before we even open.”

Cruz said his business has decreased by as much as 40% due to the absence of its main customers: federal workers at the Social Security Administration.”Only a few of them come here," Cruz said. "Maybe one or two a week, and they let us know that the rest of the people are off from the department." ...

     By the way, let me say how much I appreciate the sacrifices of those working without pay as well as those furloughed. You deserve better. The nation deserves better. 

How Close Are We?

     Social Security employees are about to miss another payday due to the government shutdown. Commercial aviation is being affected by air traffic controllers and TSA employees calling in sick. The Trump Administration is threatening to not pay furloughed federal employees for the time during the shutdown.j

     There are reports of localized problems at Social Security but nothing extensive. Everybody has their breaking point. The perfunctory email shown here won’t help much, if any. How close are we to major problems at Social Security?     

  

How SSA’s Databases Will Be Misused — Even Leland Dudek Says So

      From Pro Publica: 

This year, when states began using an expanded Department of Homeland Security system to check their voter rolls for noncitizens, it was supposed to validate the Trump administration’s push to harness data from across federal agencies to expose illicit voting and stiffen immigration enforcement. 

DHS had recently incorporated confidential data from the Social Security Administration on hundreds of millions of additional people into the tool, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. The added information allowed the system to perform bulk searches using Social Security numbers for the first time. ...

Experts say adding Social Security data to SAVE could help election officials verify, en masse, if voters are U.S. citizens, but it shouldn’t be used to make final determinations that people aren’t citizens.  

That’s because multiple audits and analyses have shown that SSA’s citizenship information is often outdated or incomplete, especially for people who became naturalized citizens. With the 2026 midterms about a year away, Caren Short, director of legal and research for the League of Women Voters of the United States, said she fears the expanded use of SAVE will lead to errors. ...

Still, Leland Dudek, acting SSA commissioner until early May, told ProPublica he doesn’t trust that DHS will accurately flag noncitizens as officials try to cross-match data and files from multiple systems. 

“They are probably going to make some massive mistakes,” he said. ...

That's Nice

      From the Coosa Valley News:

As the effects of the ongoing government shutdown continue to ripple through local communities, one Rome [Georgia] restaurant stepped up this week to show appreciation for federal workers feeling the pinch. Marco’s Pizza, operated by local franchise owner Claude Corbin, provided lunch to employees at the Social Security Office in Rome as a gesture of support and solidarity. ...

Happy Dia De Los Muertos

 

Image created by Chat GPT

User Fee To $123

      Social Security is publishing the full list of cost of living adjustments in the Federal Register on Monday. You can read the list today. One that is of particular interest to some readers of this blog is the maximum user fee charged to attorneys representing Social Security claimants. Beginning in December it will be $123.

Après Moi Le Déluge

      From Government Executive:

…  Shares in Fiserv, a financial technology company that processes credit and debit card payments on behalf of businesses and financial institutions, fell more than 40%, or $30 billion in market value, on Wednesday, after CEO Mike Lyons withdrew earnings forecasts originally issued by his predecessor, Bisignano. The stock price fell another 7.1% Thursday.

According to trade publication PaymentsDive, Lyons said that Bisignano’s earnings targets “would have been objectively difficult to achieve, even with the right investment and strong execution.” But instead, Fiserv had in recent years deferred needed investments and cut costs in pursuit of shoring up short-term profit margins. …

Happy Halloween

 

Image created by Chat GPT

Disability Determination Slowing Down Due To Government Shutdown

     I'm hearing from North Carolina Disability Determination Services (DDS) that they have no more funds to pay for consultative medical examinations and are having some trouble paying for those which have already been held. They also lack funds to obtain existing medical records on clients. These problems will progressively slow disability determinations in this state. I imagine that the circumstances are much the same in other states.

The Commissioner Has A Serious Problem Related To The Company He Used To Run

      From Financial Advisor:

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s move into government couldn’t have been better timed, helping the former Fiserv Inc. chief avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from the company’s plunging stock price. 

After the former Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive was tapped by President Donald Trump this year to lead the SSA, he agreed to resign from Fiserv and divest his stake, including common stock, options, restricted stock units and performance equity grants. Bisignano, 66, was also named CEO of the Internal Revenue Service earlier this month. 

Following his resignation, the restricted stock and a portion of the performance grants vested, giving him more than 3.2 million Fiserv shares worth roughly $594 million when he was confirmed to his role in May.  

Bisignano sold Fiserv stock between May 16 and July 1, according to ethics filings. Based on the average share price during the period, the shares would have fetched roughly $530 million. He later confirmed in a filing that he had completed the divestment.  

The same shares today are worth just $229 million—meaning that selling earlier in the year avoided losses of about $300 million. 

Accepting the government role gave Bisignano another valuable perk. In May, he was granted a certificate of divestiture, deferring capital gains tax on the Fiserv sales provided he invested the proceeds in approved assets such as Treasury bills or broadly-based mutual funds. 

Bisignano didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. 

More than half of Bisignano’s potential losses would have come Wednesday, when the payment company’s shares suffered a record plunge of more than 40% after it slashed its full-year earnings outlook and delivered third-quarter results well short of analysts’ estimates. 

     Did the serious problems at Fiserv only begin AFTER Bisignano left? That seems unlikely on the face of it. Was Bisignano aware of the problems BEFORE he left? That seems likely. If he knew of major problems, why hadn’t he told investors?  If he knew, why was he selling stock based upon inside information? 

     The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would ordinarily investigate this sort of thing but this is the Trump Administration. Nobody in the Trump Administration gets investigated. However, they can’t stop shareholder litigation and I would expect that soon. Bisignano will have to answer questions under oath. 

     By the way, Bisignano needs two lawyers, one for the possible securities litigation and the other for possible criminal charges. Trump won’t be in office forever. Unless he gets a pardon, Bisignano could face criminal charges later. 

     This seems like it could be  a serious distraction to a man with two jobs.

      Update: The litigation has already begun.

     Further Update: Here’s an explanation of what is being alleged:

… Fiserv faces a federal securities class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York that accuses the company of inflating growth figures for its Clover payments platform. The complaint alleges Fiserv forced merchants on its older and more affordable Payeezy system to move to Clover while claiming that growth came from new customers. Those migrations allegedly artificially boosted short-term revenue and transaction volumes forecasts which in turn hid slowing organic expansion. When many merchants decided to switch to lower-cost rivals such as Square and Toast, Clover’s performance faltered. According to the lawsuit, former CEO Frank Bisignano told investors in 2023 that 90% of Clover’s revenue growth would come from new merchants and just 10% from existing clients, even as the company moved roughly 200,000 Payeezy merchants to Clover through mid-2024. That shift helped lift Clover’s 2024 revenue to $2.7 billion on $310 billion in gross payment volume, but by early 2025, gross payment volume growth slowed to 8%, down from 14%-17% the year before. …

Read About The Wonderful Work Bisignano Is Doing

       There’s a Bisignano puff piece in the Washington Examiner, I suppose that it will please the paid shills commenting here. Does anyone, even on the right, take the Washington Examiner seriously. It’s self consciously a propaganda outlet. No, it’s not a right wing equivalent of the Post. It’s almost a caricature.

     By the way, I don’t mean to demean Bisignano too much. In his own way, he’s probably trying to be a good guy. It’s just that he’s working in a horrifyingly incompetent and dishonest Administration that barely hides its contempt for Social Security. He’s far more devoted to puffing up Trump than running a competent agency. I don’t understand why anyone thinks Trump is deserving of blind loyalty but Bisignano is not alone.

Terrible Service

From the Washington Post: 

Hours-long wait times. Endless looping music. Useless robot messages. 

Millions of seniors and disabled people call Social Security’s 1-800 number every month. What they experience is often maddening. … 

The Trump administration has said it is improving Social Security customer service and dramatically cutting wait times to build on a phone experience that callers have complained about even before Trump. But the agency’s public reporting doesn’t count the time people wait for callbacks from humans, and nearly three dozen callers who spoke with The Washington Post or let a reporter join their calls said their experiences have not matched the agency’s claims. … 

 In response to this story’s findings, SSA spokesman Barton Mackey said that “there have been significant advancements in customer service” over the past five months. “Cherry-picked instances may meet the goal of a preconceived, negative narrative, but they do not accurately reflect the experiences a vast majority of Americans have when interacting with SSA,” he said in a statement. … 

Once callers get their estimated wait time, they might get offered a callback. The agency says 19.3 million calls were handled by callbacks this year, up from 6.8 million the previous year when the option was first introduced.## One Social Security worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the feature appeared helpful at first but has since deteriorated because of understaffing. Many of those she has called back don’t answer the phone because it has been hours or even weeks since their initial call, she said. ...

     The article gives many concrete examples of the difficulties that callers face. 

How Well Does AI Answer The Phone?

      From Grada3:

… When Social Security beneficiaries call the SSA’s helpline, they’re greeted by a friendly virtual voice that says, “How can I help you today?”. So now, instead of waiting on the telephone line for a human assistant, the bot tries to understand what you are asking and will direct you to assistance.

This “digital-first” strategy appears to be a significant advancement on paper as it uses artificial intelligence to answer basic enquiries, free up human personnel, and provide assistance more quickly. However, the experience has not been easy for a lot of callers.  …

Even though this was meant to improve the system, there are many Americans who are struggling to adapt to the new system.

1. Sometimes, the AI might misunderstand you

There are many callers who reported that the bot sometimes doesn’t understand the basic questions or even sends them to the wrong department for help.

2. Fewer Humans Are Available to Help

The SSA has been reducing the number of staff in local field offices and sometimes if the bot can’t help, it might take a fairly long time to reach an actual person.

3. Complex Problems Still Need Real People

The SSA deals with personal and complex issues and sometimes this requires human assistance instead of help from a bot. …

Attack On Field Office In Virginia

     From WSET:

The Social Security office in Lynchburg [VA] was the target of a threat of violence on Friday. …

According to law enforcement at the scene, a message was left at the site, threatening to "come back and shoot you all up."

The office facade was also visibly egged, and something on the sidewalk outside the building had been set on fire. We haven't been able to confirm what exactly was lit on fire, but the wall has what appears to be smoke damage running up the side. …

New Staff Assignments

Sent: Friday, 24 October, 2025 13:00

Subject: Disability Adjudication Personnel Announcement

To: All DA Employees

It is my privilege to announce that Jim Parikh, currently the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication, is now the Head of Disability Support for Disability Adjudication. Within Disability Support, the following leadership changes will take effect, along with the establishment of the units that will comprise our newly formed organization:

Jennifer Thompson, currently the Regional Management Officer for Southeast, is now the Acting Executive Director for Disability Innovation.

James van der Schalie, currently the Associate Commissioner for National Disability Determinations, is now the Executive Director for Disability Solutions.

Hank McKnelly, currently the Associate Commissioner for Hearings, is now the Executive Director for Disability Governance.

Jeffrey Kirkwood, currently the Executive Director for Appeals, is now the Executive Director for Disability Compliance.

LeRoy Weeks, currently the Assistant Associate Commissioner for Office of Management, is now the Executive Advisor for the Flexible Support Division (FSD).

In Appeals, Lucinda Davis, currently Deputy Associate Commissioner for National Disability Determinations, is now the Head of Requests for Review. Claudia Postell, former Deputy Commissioner for Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, is now the Head of Civil Actions. …