From The Hill:
On Jan. 5, President Biden signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act, which will provide new or additional Social Security benefits for about 3 million individuals who receive government pensions from jobs not covered by Social Security. …
The Social Security Administration (SSA) will now need to quickly scramble and begin issuing large back payments to millions of individuals.
Complicating the issue, SSA received its administrative budget via a continuing resolution with no provision for the potentially large start-up costs to implement the legislation. SSA’s administrative budget has been in sharp decline over several years, and the agency recently testified before Congress that it now has “one of the lowest staffing levels in 50 years.”
It is unlikely SSA has the bandwidth to implement the new benefit structure seamlessly, quickly and correctly.
8 comments:
Trump will be in charge of implementing these payments. Does anybody believe that this repeal legislation will be on top of his list?
President-elect Trump also supported the legislation, and it will fall to his administration to actually make the new benefit structure a reality. This will be a challenge, partly because of the chaotic legislative process that brought the law into effect.
Probably a 1/3 of our phone and walk-in traffic so far this week has been people calling wanting their money or to schedule an appointment to file. We are getting Recons due to the “illegal offset of benefits” that now go to PC to flood their system. Absolutely terrible timing.
The implementation/execution of legislation is a blind spot for Democrats too. If Dems want to prove government can be competent and efficient, details matter. And while it may be politically impractical to design procedures within the legislative document, there is nothing preventing Congressional leaders from taking on a more direct oversight role in the critical 12 months following the passage of legislation. At the very least it would educate Congress on the inner workings of complex executive agencies.
And with the Supreme Court tossing out deference to agency interpretation of legislation, Congress has an opportunity to claw back some power from the executive branch. The alternative is a unaccountable "unitary executive"--which absolutely will be tested in the new Trump administration.
Without some adjustment, SSA will once again find itself in a “rob Peter to pay Paul” situation, where some members of the public receive poor service so that others can be served.
1102 am as a CS I would send to pc but write a note to dismiss the recon and ssa should have a specialized workflow to dismiss all the “illegal” offset recons
Agreed- they should've made it a future effective date just to allow SSA time to make everything right. Now we'll have missed entitlement, questionable retroactive dates for those establishing new leads, and how to even begin contacting those who we refused to take applications from in years past due to total GPO offset that may not know they need to file. All of this mess only to result in paying those beneficiaries with massive federal and state pensions an extra $360/mo on average... while the media makes it sound like they're destitute and homeless on their CSRS and state pensions.
After 40 years,the public now has a right to receive these benefits.However SSA must be given a reasonable amount of time to implement the law.Having worked for SSA for 40 years I have seen similar situations.During my tenure we were always unstaffed.Since it is new law it will probably be given some priority.Also after a reasonable amount of time people will start contacting their Congressional representatives.
I already told my wife if I die she’s entitled to the underpayment.
After 40 years of serving the public I do not believe my CSRS pension is overly generous.
WEP&GPO we’re in fact “means testing “and totally unfair.
WEP and GPO are not open to reconsideration appeal unless these offsets were imposed within the last 60 days. NH has 60 days from the date of the initial determination to file a reconsideration.
Unless the appeal is filed within 60 days or there is good cause for late filing, SSA-561 Request for Reconsideration should not be taken by the FO. The payment centers will just have to dismiss the reconsideration requests as untimely filed.
WEP or GPO imposed years ago is not a reconsideration issue.
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