Labor Day 2025

 

Bisignano A Prayer Leader

      Frank Bisignano is an "Executive Leader for Prayer" on "The Presidential Prayer Team."

Social Security Mostly Viewed Favorably

      From the Pew Research Center:

 

Chief Data Officer Resigns Over Misuse Of Agency Data

    I guess it's a coincidence this happened on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day. From the New York Times:

The Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, Charles Borges, has resigned, three days after submitting a whistle-blower complaint that alleged members of the Department of Government Efficiency had uploaded the confidential personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans to an insecure cloud server.

In his resignation letter, Borges said that he was quitting in part because he could not “verify that agency data is being used in accordance with legal agreements or in compliance with federal requirements.”

Click on image to view full size

 

A Poll

 

online polls

COSS On Fox Business

      The Commissioner of Social Security has appeared on Fox Business to claim that his agency is now providing the best service to the public that it has ever provided.

Whistleblower Complains Of Data Security Risk -- How Long Until He's Fired?

      From the New York Times:

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.

The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.

The account by the whistle-blower, Charles Borges, underscores concerns that have led to lawsuits seeking to block young software engineers at the agency built by Elon Musk from having access to confidential government data.  …

     See also an article in the Washington Post on the whistleblower complaint. 

     The biggest question in my mind is why? Getting a copy of this vital database out of Social Security seems to have been an overriding priority for the Trump Administration. They had to have known they were doing something dangerous and probably illegal. Why the urgency? What did they want to do with the data? What are they doing?

     

What Is The Definition Of "Answer"?

      The Ohio Capital Journal has out a long article on service at the Social Security Administration. It mostly quotes former Commissioner Martin O'Malley. Here are a couple of very brief quotes from the piece:

...  O’Malley, the former Democratic governor of Maryland, claimed that under its current management, the Social Security Administration is no longer reporting some metrics to Congress and manipulating others to gaslight the public. ...

O’Malley described one way he thinks the new administration is manipulating some of the metrics it does report.

At the start of 2024, the 8 million who called the agency’s 1-800 number each month had to wait 42.5 minutes on average to get through. After a vendor and technology change, the agency got the average wait down to 12.8 minutes before beneficiaries could get an answer, O’Malley said.

The Social Security Administration on Monday reported that it had gotten those wait times down even further, to eight minutes. But O’Malley said it appears to have simply changed the definition of “answer.”

“‘Answer’ would appear to be anytime a person calls and hangs up after hearing a recording, or calls and gets run around the barn three times by a chatbot and has their call dumped,” he said. “That’s what they call ‘answered.’ That’s what they call ‘served.’ None of it bears any reality to what people are experiencing.” 

A call Wednesday to the Social Security Administration’s Georgesville Road field office in Columbus appeared to produce such a result. A caller was asked by a chatbot why he was calling. When he said he wanted to check his eligibility, the chatbot hung up. ...

    It's much the same as in most aspects of the Trump Administration -- lies, exaggerations, and carefully plucked statistics that misrepresent the true situation. The experts know the truth but the public doesn't know who to believe so they believe what they want to believe until reality smacks them in the face.

 

Better And Better!

     From Yahoo!Finance:

The Social Security Administration has reported significant improvements in how it serves the public. According to its latest performance metrics Americans have collectively saved an estimated 43 million hours over the past year due to faster service and expanded access across online, phone, and in-person channels. …

Now This Is Disgusting

      From the Worcester [MA] Telegram & Gazette:

A former employee of the Gardner Social Security office, who prosecutors said solicited sex from a mother who came into his office crying after losing her job, was sentenced to six months in federal prison Aug. 22.  …

SSA Now Using Chatbot Deemed Unready By Biden Administration

      From the Los Angeles Times:

John McGing couldn’t reach a human. That might be business-as-usual in this economy, but it wasn’t business; he had called the Social Security Administration, where the questions often aren’t generic and the callers tend to be older, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable Americans.

McGing, calling on behalf of his son, had an in-the-weeds question: how to prevent overpayments that the federal government might later claw back. His call was intercepted by an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.

No matter what he said, the bot parroted canned answers to generic questions, not McGing’s obscure query. “If you do a key press, it didn’t do anything,” he said. Eventually, the bot “glitched or whatever” and got him to an agent.

It was a small but revealing incident. Unbeknownst to McGing, a former Social Security employee in Maryland, he had encountered a technological tool recently introduced by the agency. Former officials and longtime observers of the agency say the Trump administration rolled out a product that was tested but deemed not yet ready during the Biden administration. …

In interviews with KFF Health News, people who left the agency — some speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Trump administration and its supporters — said they believe the new administration simply rushed out technologies developed, but deemed not yet ready, by the Biden administration. They also said the agency’s firing of thousands of employees resulted in the loss of experienced technologists who are best equipped to roll out these initiatives and address their weaknesses. …

Agency leaders and employees who first worked on the AI product during the Biden administration anticipated those types of difficulties. Escobar-Alava said they had worked on such a bot, but wanted to clean up the policy and regulation data it was relying on first.

“We wanted to ensure the automation produced consistent and accurate answers, which was going to take more time,” she said. Instead, it seems the Trump administration opted to introduce the bot first and troubleshoot later, Escobar-Alava said. …

Commissioner In West Virginia

      From a press release issued yesterday: 

… U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) hosted Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano in Charleston, W.Va. to visit the social security field office. During the visit, Senator Capito and Commissioner Bisignano met with staff to discuss the improved customer service taking place. …

Graph Showing Number Of People Drawing Social Security Disability Benefits — Why The Drop?

 

From Social Security

Is A.I. A Solution For Social Security? What’s Your Backup Plan?

      From the New York Times:

Nearly four decades ago, when the personal computer boom was in full swing, a phenomenon known as the “productivity paradox” emerged.

It was a reference to how, despite companies’ huge investments in new technology, there was scant evidence of a corresponding gain in workers’ efficiency.

Today, the same paradox is appearing, but with generative artificial intelligence. According to recent research from McKinsey & Company, nearly eight in 10 companies have reported using generative A.I., but just as many have reported “no significant bottom-line impact.”

A.I. technology has been racing ahead with chatbots like ChatGPT, fueled by a high-stakes arms race among tech giants and superrich start-ups and prompting an expectation that everything from back-office accounting to customer service will be revolutionized. But the payoff for businesses outside the tech sector is lagging behind, plagued by issues including an irritating tendency by chatbots to make stuff up. …

Problem Solved

 

    If you’ve paid attention to the statements of Commissioner Bisignano you may have noticed that every chance he has had he’s talked about the terrible ratings that Social Security employees have given their agency as an employer, the worst of any large federal agency. He has expressed a strong desire to do something about these ratings, which are derived from surveys done by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

     The Commissioner can stop worrying about the problem. It’s been solved. OPM has decided to stop doing the surveys.

Social Security Research Shutting Down

      From Plansponsor:

The Retirement and Disability Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is set to close this week following the Social Security Administration’s cuts to research funding that were announced in February.

J. Michael Collins, who led the university’s research center, says the center “is making final close-out paperwork this week” and is “no longer operational.” Wisconsin’s research center was the second center in the retirement and disability research consortium to close in as many weeks, after the National Bureau of Economic Research Retirement and Disability Research Center shut down last week.

The SSA cuts terminated 19 projects at the University of Wisconsin’s center, affecting 100 scholars. The cuts also led to cuts of 100 planned projects through 2029, mainly research that concerned people who rely on Social Security, such as children and people living with a disability, according to the university’s website.   …

The RDRC at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which collaborates with Brandeis University and the University of Baltimore, lost funding for at least 13 projects as a result of the SSA’s funding cuts, according to Nancy Miller, the center’s co-director …

At Boston College’s RDRC, the center also had to cut projects that were about halfway completed, but it was able to secure independent funding for additional projects, according to Andrew Eschtruth, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The university continues to seek more funders to fill the gap created by the cuts …  

A Presidential Proclamation

On August 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act -- a monumental legislative achievement that protects our seniors, uplifts our citizens, and sustains the livelihoods of hardworking Americans who devoted their professions to bettering our country. On the 90th anniversary of the establishment of this historic program, I recommit to always defending Social Security, rewarding the men and women who make our country prosperous, and taking care of our own workers, families, seniors, and citizens first. 

To this day, Social Security is rooted in a simple promise: those who gave their careers to building our Nation will always have the support, stability, and relief they deserve. Thanks to my Administration's efforts, Social Security now stands stronger and more resilient than ever before. Following the passage of the historic One Big Beautiful Bill last month, the vast majority of seniors who receive Social Security will pay zero tax on their Social Security benefits -- the largest tax break for seniors in the history of our country. 

To further strengthen Social Security, my Administration is aggressively rooting out all fraud, waste, and abuse that rob our Federal programs of resources -- including stopping payments to the deceased and eliminating benefits for those who do not legally qualify. These measures will save American taxpayers billions of dollars every year and ensure that future generations receive the benefits they spent their lives paying into. At the same time, I am making the Social Security Administration more efficient, more responsive, and more effective than ever before -- reducing wait times and delivering the payments the American people worked hard to earn. I am also proudly restoring strong border security policies to ensure that Medicare and Social Security are preserved for the citizens who paid into them -- not abused by illegal aliens who have no right to be here. 

 On this 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act, we recognize the countless contributions of every American senior who has invested their time, talent, and resources into our Nation's future. On this momentous milestone, we recommit to strengthening our retirement system, protecting programs like Social Security and Medicare against fraud and abuse, and ensuring that every future generation of American citizens has the income security they need and earned. 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 14, 2025, as the 90th Anniversary of the Social Security Act. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fiftieth. 

DONALD J. TRUMP

Happy 90th Birthday, Social Security!

 

Commissioner Remains In A Self-Congratulatory Mood

 

Social Security Free To Share Data With DOGE

      From The Guardian:

A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected a bid by a group of unions to block the Trump administration government downsizing team known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing sensitive data on Americans.

The Virginia-based fourth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 decision said the unions were unlikely to prevail on claims that Doge would violate federal privacy laws by accessing data at the US Department of Education, treasury department, and office of personnel management. ...

The decision reverses a temporary injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland, which had been paused by the appeals court in April. ...

The fourth circuit on Tuesday said the unions that sued along with a group of military veterans had not shown how they would be injured by Doge accessing agencies’ computer systems. They also probably lacked legal standing to sue because that access is not a “final agency action” that can form the basis of a lawsuit, the court said.

A dissenting judge said it was prudent to temporarily block access to the data while the case plays out, and that the standard his colleagues had imposed on the plaintiffs was too high. ...    

 

Six Myths About Social Security

      With Social Security’s 90th birthday coming up the New York Times has a piece on “6 Myths About It That Won’t Go Away.” Here they are:

Social Security is ‘running out of money

Aging boomers are the problem

Social Security helps drive the deficit

The trust fund is nothing but a pile of I.O.U.s

We need to cut benefits now to pay them later

Waste, fraud and abuse abound

Has Social Security's Chief Actuary Put Her Job In Jeopardy By Delivering Bad News?

     From a letter to Senator Ron Wyden from Karen Glenn, Social Security's Chief Actuary:

... We estimate that implementation of the OBBBA [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] will result in net increased program cost starting in 2025. Over calendar years 2025 through 2034, the total net increase in OASDI [Retirement, Survivors and Disability] program cost is estimated to be $168.6 billion. In addition, the timing of combined OASI [Retirement] and DI [Disability] Trust Fund reserve depletion is accelerated from the third quarter of 2034 under the 2025 Trustees Report baseline to the first quarter of 2034 following implementation of the law. Considered alone, the reserve depletion date for the OASI Trust Fund is accelerated from the first quarter of 2033 to the fourth quarter of 2032. DI Trust Fund reserves are not projected to become depleted during the 75-year projection period. ...

Additions To Compassionate Allowance List

     Ever since Michael Astrue was Commissioner from 2007 to 2013 the Social Security has been trumpeting additions to its list of illnesses deserving compassionate allowances of disability claims. They're mostly, if not completely, rare disorders. Astrue had experience working with the rare disorder community -- and there is one.  I suppose the list has some use for a tiny number of people but in my view it's of little practical consequence. In fact, it's been my impression that additions to the list seem to come out when the agency is under public criticism. Anyway, Social Security is adding these new disorders to the compassionate allowance list:

• Bilateral Anophthalmia
• Carey-Fineman-Ziter Syndrome
• Harlequin Ichthyosis - Child
• LMNA-related Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
• Zhu-Tokita-Takenouchi-Kim Syndrome
• Au-Kline Syndrome
• Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
• Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
• Progressive Muscular Atrophy
• Pulmonary Amyloidosis – AL Type
• Rasmussen Encephalitis
• Thymic Carcinoma
• Turnpenny-Fry Syndrome
• WHO Grade III Meningiomas 

OHO Caseload Report

 

Click on image to view full size

The Counter-Argument

          Government Executive goes through the counter-arguments against the letter that Commissioner Bisignano wrote to Senator Warren claiming that service is rapidly improving at Social Security. 

     I deal with Social Security. I know things aren’t going well and the future looks grim. Service is currently improving in some ways and worsening in others. The  only reason service isn’t worse is the generous use of overtime. I expect there will be significantly less OT in the next fiscal year. 

     I know the agency has a huge problem with what I call the “Now now, not later, not ever” backlog, cases that present complications that take time to sort out, time that just doesn’t exist now. The employees are sorting out the easy cases first to create stats. The complex cases aren’t worked and under current circumstances they’re never going to be worked. They just keep piling up. I don’t think anyone is even counting them. I’m an attorney. Of course I raise complications. That’s my job. I know when the workers compensation offset is wrong. I know to ask for a protective filing date based upon a prior claim when the agency took an SSI only claim when they should have also taken a Disabled Adult Child claim. I know to point out that the agency missed a date first insured issue. I’m not the only one. Social Security employees themselves spot many of these things but have no time to act on them.

Going After Those Greedy Poor People

      From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: 

The Trump Administration is preparing to propose a rule to cut Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and strip eligibility for hundreds of thousands of low-income older people and severely disabled adults and children.

Under the rule, nearly 400,000 SSI beneficiaries living with family or friends experiencing their own financial struggles likely would have their benefits cut — typically by hundreds of dollars per month — or lose eligibility altogether. …

Currently, very low-income disabled or older people who receive SSI can have their benefits reduced by up to one-third (about $300 a month) if they receive “in-kind support and maintenance,” including a place to stay. Similarly, SSI recipients can have their benefits reduced based on the income of their parents (if they are under 18) or spouse, under the assumption that they will contribute to an SSI beneficiary’s living expenses. However, these reductions don’t apply to beneficiaries who live in a household that receives “public assistance,” including food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s because households financially precarious enough to qualify for those benefits can’t afford to financially support SSI recipients. These rules help families support their elderly or disabled relatives, including by allowing them to live in their homes, reducing the likelihood that they experience homelessness or need institutional care. …

Under the anticipated Trump Administration proposal, it’s expected that receiving food assistance from SNAP would no longer be enough to qualify a family as a “public assistance household.” …

Smiles All Around

      Social Security’s Commissioner recently visited an agency field office in Staten Island, NY. The Commissioner talked about this visit on a new appearance on Fox News.

Already A Political Ad

Rerouting Calls To Distant Field Offices Doesn't Help Unless You View Providing Service As Only A PR Problem

     From National Public Radio (which is still a thing):

Phone calls to local Social Security offices are currently being rerouted to other field offices — often to staff who don't have jurisdiction over the caller's case, employees say.

Disability advocates and experts warn this is making it harder for people to get help. ...

In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson for the agency said that "the goal of the phone sharing system is to enhance customer service by reducing wait times and addressing customer needs at the first point of contact. ... 

But Angela Digeronimo, a claims specialist in Woodbridge, N.J., and president of a union that represents employees at 25 offices in the state, told NPR this new system creates a "hit or miss" situation for people calling in to their local office.

Digeronimo said the intention of this change "may have been to not have callers waiting," which is a good thing. But in practice, she said, it delays getting an issue sorted if a caller is rerouted to a local office that can't actually fix their problem.

"If it's someone else's office, the jurisdiction is someone else's," she said. "You can't take action on it because your office does not have the ability to clear that claim. You have to refer it over to the servicing office, which is what the member of the public thought they were doing. So, it gets a little bit cumbersome." ...

 

“Big Balls” Carjacked

      From the Washington Post:

A protégé of Elon Musk and former DOGE staffer was injured in an attempted carjacking early Sunday morning in D.C., two people familiar with the incident said, in an attack that captured the attention of President Donald Trump and reinspired his threats to take over the nation’s capital.
 …

Billionaire Elon Musk, who helmed DOGE, wrote on X that a DOGE “team member” was attacked and called to federalize D.C. The two people familiar with the incident identified the victim as Edward Coristine [who worked at Social Security] who is also known by the nickname “Big Balls.” …

Can We Ever Step Back From This?

      Commissioner Bisignano has replied to the recent letter sent to him by Senator Warren. As you might guess Bisignano’s letter bristles with vicious partisanship. Sure, Warren’s letter was accusatory but public servants are not allowed to respond by escalating the situation. At least they weren’t until this Administration. Nothing like this would have been imaginable at any other time in the 90 year history of the Social Security Administration or any other agency.

BLS And SSA

 

    You’ve probably heard that the President has fired the Director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after receiving a disappointing report from BLS on job growth in the U.S. He claimed that the Director had “rigged” the report to hurt him. There is now clear reason to fear that future job growth reports will be manipulated or outright falsified to please the President. Job growth is certainly important to Social Security. The more jobs, the more FICA money coming in to the Trust Funds. However, statistical reports on job growth themselves aren’t important to recipients of Social Security benefits. However, other statistics generated by BLS are — the cost of living numbers. The President has claimed that the Trump tariffs won’t increase inflation. Will BLS now be willing to issue reports showing a significant increase in the cost of living? The President would probably be more upset at significant increases in the cost of living than with disappointing job growth numbers. Will he insist that the books be cooked to show low inflation even if that’s not what’s happening? If he does, Social Security’s Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) will cheat Social Security recipients. That wouldn’t be popular.  So, what’s happened at BLS is pretty important to Social Security. Keep an eye on it.

Taking An Early Victory Lap

      Commissioner Bisignano was on Fox Business channel this week talking about all his accomplishments at Social Security. 

What Do You Think?

 

online polls

"Backdoor For Privatizing Social Security"

     The Trump Administration's Treasury Secretary has said straight up that the current Administration is creating a "backdoor for privatizing Social Security."

Now It’s Optional?

     From Nextgov/FCW: 

… That public filing outlined a regime where callers would have to log into SSA online to get a one-time code that would prove their identity in order to get help with those four transactions. Since the spring, the agency has required users to supply that pin to change their direct deposit information over the phone. 

Now, an SSA spokesperson says that it will update the document “to clarify that the use of the Security Authentication PIN (SAP) feature is entirely optional.”

“We are encouraging my Social Security accountholders to use the enhanced SAP feature to quickly and securely verify their identity when calling the National 800 Number,” they said, noting that the existing processes to verify identity will remain on the agency’s phone line. 

The agency had estimated that the policy requiring people to verify themselves with a PIN would send over three million people to SSA field offices, but the spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW that “beneficiaries and my Social Security accountholders will not be required to visit a field office if they do not choose to use the SAP feature.” …

Huge New Workload For Field Offices

     From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is overwhelming its local offices by forcing millions more people to seek in-person service while cutting thousands of staff who provide that help. These offices, which primarily serve seniors, people with disabilities, and bereaved families, helped nearly 32 million visitors last year. But under a new policy set to take effect in August, beneficiaries will be forced to take millions of unnecessary trips to field offices, where they will face longer waits for appointments and slower processing times.

As of mid-August, SSA will no longer allow Social Security beneficiaries to perform routine tasks solely by phone — changing their addresses, checking the status of claims, requesting benefit verification letters, or asking for tax forms — as they’ve been able to do for decades. Instead, beneficiaries seeking to complete those tasks by phone will need to complete a multi-factor, multi-step online verification process to generate a one-time PIN code to help prove their identity.

The new PIN code process will be impossible for many beneficiaries to complete. And if they can’t, they’ll need to travel to a field office. That will require 3.4 million more people to travel to SSA offices annually, by the agency’s own estimates. This will create a significant new burden, particularly for those who live in rural areas or have transportation or mobility difficulties.

    The AARP is expressing opposition to this decision. 

Scare Tactics Having An Effect

      From USA Today:

In an AARP survey released July 22, only 36% of Americans voiced confidence in the future of the retirement trust fund, down from 43% in 2020.   

AAnother July survey, from the nonprofit Alliance for Lifetime Income, found that 58% of older Americans fear Social Security cuts because of recent news about potential changes to the program.  …

In the new AARP survey, 25% of people ages 18-49 voiced confidence in the program’s future, compared with 48% of those 50 and older. …

Senator Warren Isn’t Done

      From The Hill:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano to provide additional information about the wait times for phone calls, amid reports of discrepancies in data.

In a letter sent Sunday evening to Bisignano, provided exclusively to The Hill, Warren followed up on her meeting with the SSA chief last Wednesday, when, the senator said, she secured a commitment from Bisignano “that SSA would undergo a public audit by the Inspector General regarding your phone call wait time data reporting and that you would publish additional wait time data.” …

She asked Bisignano to provide data by Aug. 11, including on the total number of calls received; details about the calls taken by an artificial intelligence tool — including the percentage of calls dropped, transferred, or ended without resolving the issue; the same details about the calls taken by a human customer service representative. …

Going On From Social Security To Even Bigger Things

Winant

      Tom Margenau, a retired Social Security employee, writes a syndicated newspaper column about Social Security. Most recently he has written about rereading a favorite book, Citizens of London by Lynne Olson, which is about Americans who lived and worked in London during World War II and helped Britain survive. One was Edward R. Murrow, who needs no introduction. Another was Averell Harriman, who was in charge of the Lend-Lease program. Without Lend-Lease Britain could not have survived the Blitz.  The Social Security connection comes with John Gilbert Winant, the U.S Ambassador to the U.K. The Social Security connection is that prior to heading to London Winant had been the first Chairman of what was then the Social Security Board during the agency’s formative years. Winant was a Republican, by the way.

Union Victory Over Trump Administration

      From Reuters:

A federal judge has dismissed a bid by President Donald Trump's administration to obtain judicial permission to cancel dozens of collective bargaining agreements between eight federal agencies and unions representing their employees.

Waco, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Alan Albright decided late on Wednesday that the agencies do not have legal standing to bring a lawsuit to implement a Trump executive order exempting them from having to bargain with unions, handing a victory to the American Federation of Government Employees union, or AFGE. …

The Departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration, filed the lawsuit in March. The American Federation of Government Employees represents 800,000 federal workers. …