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.
18 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.
The Social Security Administration must immediately stop taking money withheld from almost 3 million people now that the Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA) made that illegal. That law did not allow a "grace" period to delay enacting that law so to permit government to continue the theft of earned benefits. How many people will die and not receive the money owed them because of SSA's delay? SSA suffers no penalty for slow walking what fixes a decades old problem, but innocent people continue to suffer the financial penalties until earned benefits are restored.
Effectuating the SSFA should be a simple matter of programming the SSA payment formulas to set WEP/GPO deductions at $0 effective December 2023 and continuing and forcing a recalculation of benefits to issue payments based on information for individuals already known by SSA. A notice explaining the reason for payment can be very generic, much in the same manner as when almost 68 million people receive yearly notices when cost of living raises increase benefits with most of those people also notified when changes in Medicare Pt. B deductions affect benefits paid.
This action does not require a complicated revision of formulas that calculate benefits due. All eligibility and payment factors are already known. The factors that determined the exact amount of the WEP/GPO deduction are also known. All that is needed is to remove the poison pills that are the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Do not accept bureaucratic excuses as to why something so simple cannot be done quickly to effectuate the SSFA. This action deserves priority.
For new claims for SSA benefits, all questions concerning government pension payments must be removed from applications. If that is a programing problem, then those questions must be answered "NO" to prevent incorrect payment calculations.
The Social Security Administration is responsible for taking immediate and timely action to accurately issue benefits due working people who paid their social security taxes for many years and rightfully expected government to treat all people equally.
Action will be taken timely. But not all cases are simple. Many in GPO don't even recall filing for spouses or widows benefits so have not kept SSA abreast of their address and bank information. One might need a bit of legwork to keep from sending a large retroactive check to the wrong account.
There's going to be many who declined to file due to GPO that will be flooding offices to file.
WEP should be much easier to release money to beneficiaries but if dually entitled those could be a bit of a mess.
It seems the comments are now trending towards small or anti-government trolls, and people seemingly more liberal who take or make outrageous stands (as counterpoint to the first group?) along with the usual band of folks from both sides who wouldn't have a clue if it bit them. And while people who work at SSA do kick in with useful information, it seems a lot of them, on this subject at least, can't let go of the fact the law passed as it did and keep moaning about "how and what it should have been written like". It passed as it did, time to move on. Just saying the comments used to have better quality comments (including mine, to beat teh obvious pushback.)
PCs are the most understaffed and backlogged part of SSA.
@8:03pm If it were that simple, that would take care of those who are currently offset for WEP/GPO. But out of the 3 million folks who never filed applications because of the offset will now be contacting SSA to file new applications... causing major stress on an already understaffed agency. Most offices are probably scheduling appointments 30-90 days out from the first point of contact. I personally would recommend that these beneficiaries file online since iClaims are prioritized.
For the beneficiaries who are currently offset, there will be delays similar to whenever the IRS has had to interpret and enact new tax laws. Saying that "law did not allow a "grace" period to delay enacting that law" is clearly unrealistic to expect payments to go out the day the bill is signed into law - we're talking about an agency that still mails paper checks to over half a million people. What "should be a simple matter of programming the SSA payment formulas" would be easier if not for the decades-old systems that are still being used and regularly encounter bugs that require months-long workarounds. I imagine as soon as the programmers attempt to change something in the system, it will result in further incorrect payments and confusing letters that they cannot control, adding the possibility of more recons, hearings (further backlogging the dwindling ALJ's), and appeals council reviews.
What's next? Removal of Workers Compensation offset? Let's continue draining the coffers until there's nothing left for all Americans all in the name of the 1% of "innocent people continu[ing] to suffer."
"a simple matter of programming" lol
To 10:01 AM Jan 10
It was a far more complicated and time-consuming task to include application and notice language and formula and payment calculations to effectuate GPO which began in 1977 and then change that in 1983. The same is true when WEP began in 1983. However, Social Security did it and took adverse actions to take money from earned benefits using far more primitive programming code and computer hardware and technology than available today. All that began over 47 years ago.
Imagine all that formula code, regardless of how many steps of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, only exists to determine a single number that follows an = sign. That WEP or GPO number is the amount of money stolen from the earned benefit for a specific month of payment. Find that end result data field for WEP or GPO deductions for months December 2023 and continuing and set it to $0. The advances in computer systems, including memory, CPUs, and processing speeds, and new skills of programmers and efficiencies of the systems coding used, should make removing the WEP/GPO poison pills far easier in 2025 than creating those poison pills decades ago.
SSA doesn’t have the fears you have when taking actions to include increases for cost of living or deductions for Medicare Pt. B. Those yearly actions are needed for almost 68 million people. I am not requiring instant payment of money owed, but I seek priority actions by finding a simpler solution. The same is true for correctly paying benefits for new applications. The number of new applications filed solely because of ending GPO/WEP will be extremely small and have a meaningless impact on Social Security, as will be the number of related appeals.
Your final statements about workers compensation and “draining the coffers” prove your opposition to the Social Security Fairness Act is not based on treating people equally. It is sad that you are willing to financially punish a small number of people just because you can.
@1227. You probably don't realize that auxiliary and survivor claims were predominantly or perhaps exclusively 101s back when GPO started. Not A101s but regular 101s where every field from name. SSN, etc to various codes related to PIA, reduced benefits were all completed and sent to the PC from field offices. When GPO started it wasn't retroactive so no programming required to "steal" benefits. I only work in an FO but realize that some things are more complicated than they should appear to be.
@1227. I'm guessing you're not familiar with current SSA systems because if you were, you would be ready to quit after fighting daily with software that has been slowly rolled out in phases, over several years, encountering bugs which do not get resolved timely (if you're unaware of SSA's three failed attempts at switching timekeeping software recently, then this will prove my point). While programming has evolved over time, the agency IT department seems to be lightyears behind other agencies from my conversations with other federal employees in other agencies. If you would like to become part of the solution, I would recommend contacting the agency and recommending any coding actions based on your experience with the systems.
Furthermore, your erroneous assumption that I do not treat people equally is predicated on the notion that the SSFA bill is based on income-equality. Why then was the original law established nearly 50 years ago? Because Congress (and likely a large majority of Americans) believed that public workers were getting an unfair advantage by receiving a public pension as well as SSA benefits that were skewed based on their relatively short careers outside the public sector. Therefore, the WEP/GPO laws - contrary to your argument - leveled the playing field and attempted in the best legislative way possible to treat everyone equally. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it's the federal government we're talking about...
The final comments you made about my willingness to punish a small number of people is just simply laughable. Who am I punishing? CSRS retirees? You may be reminded that they had the option of opting into FERS and knew the risks of staying in CSRS (which was financially wiser in hindsight). Am I punishing state pension beneficiaries? No, because they were advised that they would not receive SSA benefits if they retired. Foreign pension beneficiaries? Again, they likely understood that they can't double-dip. All Americans are being punished when the legislation is being pushed by a small group of lobbyists.
If I were foolish enough to take your bait, then it sounds to me like your goal of "seek[ing] priority actions" is quite unfair. Thousands of payment actions are pending in the PC, but you want these escalated in front of all the other "working people who paid their social security taxes for many years and rightfully [expect] government to treat all people equally." That sounds like punishing people to me... To be fair and equal, PC can handle every action on a first-in-first-out basis.
@1227 lol you think SSA is using better software than they had in 1983. They're using the SAME software they had in 1983, but now with a bunch of bloatware "modernization" garbage making it even worse. Do you know how hard it is to find programmers who are proficient in COBOL? Clearly not.
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