Even More Sought For GPO-WEP People

      From FEDweek:

As many as several million people have not received full back payments related to the repeal of the government pension offset and windfall elimination provision due to how the SSA interpreted the retroactive payment eligibility under the GPO-WEP repeal law, a bipartisan group of senators has said. …

The GPO had reduced, and in many cases eliminated, spousal or survivor Social Security benefits of such persons. The WEP has reduced the personally earned Social Security benefits of such persons based on other earnings—such as employment before, after or on the side during, a federal career—for which they did pay into Social Security (unless those earnings exceeded an annual threshold for at least 30 years). …

The ongoing issue relates to those who had not applied for Social Security benefits while the GPO was in effect because it would have eliminated them. Organizations such as the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association last year encouraged such persons to file for benefits. However, citing a general provision limiting retroactive payments for new Social Security applicants, the SSA said they would be eligible for only six months of retroactive payments at most. …

They urged the SSA to “follow the plain text of the SSFA and provide one-year of retroactivity (beginning in January 2024) to all applicants regardless of application date.”

President’s Budget Calls For Flat Appropriation For SSA

      The President’s budget for the fiscal year beginning on October 1st of this year is out. It calls for a flat appropriation for the Social Security Administration, neither increased nor decreased from the current fiscal year. However, considering inflation, which is heading up significantly over the next year this would amount to a significant cut in the agency’s effective operating budget.

     Don’t get too excited about the President’s budget proposal for it's merely a proposal. It’s up to Congress to pass appropriations acts. The problem with Congress is that Republican Congressional leaders aren’t all that much more interested in adequately funding the Social Security Administration than the President. The silver lining is that there probably won’t be an appropriation act covering Social Security until after the first of next year when a new Congress will be seated. That Congress may be more sympathetic to SSA than the current one.

The Start Of Enlightenment: Go Slowly Until You Know All The Consequences Of Your Plan

      From NEXTGOV/FCW:

The Social Security Administration is delaying its rollout of new systems to centralize claims processing and appointment scheduling and pivoting to a pilot approach, according to internal emails obtained by Nextgov/FCW. 

SSA had intended to debut these new systems early this month. They were expected to be a major shift in how the agency operates, moving from processing claims locally to a national system.

The optics of such a change factored into SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s decision to delay the rollout of the new systems — “particularly where customers may expect access to their local office,” read an internal email sent Monday. 

It also outlined the importance of the agency moving slowly to make sure the effects on customer experience are fully understood before the National Appointment Scheduling Calendar and National Workload Management system are implemented broadly. Bisignano had touted the plans as coming improvements to staff just last week in an internal email. …

The decision to pilot the changes will allow the agency to test if the expected efficiencies are realized and “ensure we maintain customer confidence” before a wider launch, the email announcing the change said. Details on the pilot are forthcoming, it said, after the agency has spent months preparing for the national rollout. …

Bisignano Controversial At IRS

     From Politico:

… The unusual nature of [Bisignano’s] role [as “CEO” of the IRS] — one that doesn’t exist in federal law — is raising questions about who’s really in charge of the agency as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds the title of acting IRS commissioner. Fueling the scrutiny is the fact that Bisignano also serves as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. …

The unusual nature of Bisignano’s position is at the heart of concerns voiced by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as well as agency staff over whether he can be a change agent for an agency that’s struggled to improve customer service after dramatic swings in leadership and operations since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. The questions are set to be aired publicly when he appears for the first time before the Senate Finance Committee on April 15, just as the first tax filing season of Trump’s second term comes to a close. …

Six people at the IRS, who were granted anonymity to avoid retribution, described a leader who has claimed credit for others’ work, sown discord and acted as Trump’s lieutenant. …

One IRS official called Bisignano “a fake” and said the only notable recent update to the refund tool was making the service accessible through “individual online accounts,” which happened before he came to the agency. The official said Bisignano’s order for the IRS to review and justify contracts made him a “single person chokepoint for procurement” who impaired the agency’s ability to move forward on efforts like using artificial intelligence to aid with tax collection. …

What Do You Think?

      This is a comment that I allowed to be posted yesterday concerning agency employees saying they were afraid of reporting misconduct:

Doesn't make sense. The agency has an increased emphasis on catching and stopping fraud. My office has been eagerly assisting such efforts. No one is afraid. We wake up motivated each day.

     To my eye that last sentence looks like something that a paid shill came up with, or, perhaps more likely, AI wrote it. I decided to post it since it wasn’t clear. There are others which are far more obvious, even humorous examples, that I quickly blocked

     What do you think I ought to do about these? Allow them to post so there’s a vigorous debate? Reject them if they don’t ring true to me even though I may reject a few genuine comments? Muddle through as best I can? Allow the most ridiculous examples with some attached commentary so you can be amused or angered by them?

Social Security Employees Are Afraid

 

New POMS Section On Relations With Attorneys

Poms

      Social Security has issued an amended section in its POMS manual dealing with disclosures of information to attorneys and others representing claimants before the agency. I see nothing really new here but it certainly deserves close scrutiny. The section still says “Entities may not be appointed as representatives.” This causes severe problems for law firms representing claimants. I don’t think the agency appreciates how difficult the problems are. Perhaps they do and are happy to cause the problems. At least they realize that it’s normal for attorneys to have legal assistants and paralegals working with them.

What’s Going On Here?

 

    From WFLA:

A Florida woman has been stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare for years since the death of her husband, when the Social Security Administration informed her that she, too, was dead.  …

While SSA eventually corrected the error, Mercer’s troubles persisted with other government agencies.

After getting pulled over for speeding, Mercer learned the Department of Motor Vehicles also believed she was dead, with her license showing the officer a “deceased” error. SSA then had to inform the agency that Mercer is still alive.

But her troubles didn’t end there; the Internal Revenue Service also believes she’s dead. First Coast News reported that she hasn’t been able to file her taxes in six years because of the ongoing issue. …

     I have to guess that Social Security didn’t properly resurrect this poor woman and has never corrected the mistake but I don’t know the ins and outs of the Death Master File. Can anyone guess what has happened?

EAJA Awards For 2025

      The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) shifts the costs of attorney fees to the federal government if the agency loses in many cases. For Social Security EAJA fees are awarded in almost all cases won in the federal courts or remanded from them, but not those resolved administratively.

     The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) produces an annual report on EAJA awards. Here’s a table from the report for 2025:

Agency	# of Awards Reported	Total Amount Reported
Social Security Administration	8,447	$ 53,220,859.93
Department of Veterans Affairs	6,834	$ 53,527,169.71
Department of Homeland Security	40	$ 11,025,985.33
Federal Trade Commission	1	$ 3,046,291.94
Department of the Interior	10	$ 1,785,233.00
Department of War	35	$ 1,388,437.86
Department of Agriculture	12	$ 1,301,602.26
Environmental Protection Agency	4	$ 1,220,000.00
Department of Commerce	4	$ 1,013,000.00
Department of Justice	3	$ 287,569.00
Department of Health and Human Services	5	$ 232,499.00
Department of Housing and Urban Development	5	$ 168,475.00
Department of Energy	1	$ 140,003.20
National Labor Relations Board	2	$ 105,539.00
Department of Labor	1	$ 76,190.47
Department of Transportation	1	$ 51,762.00
Railroad Retirement Board	1	$ 7,330.60
Totals	15,406	$128,597,948.30

     It’s worth mentioning that the attorney representing the claimant who receives an EAJA award does not get to pocket both the EAJA fee and the fee coming out of the claimant’s benefits. The lower amount must be refunded to the claimant.

What An Idea

The real Elvis Social Security card

      From The Daily Beast:

President Donald Trump may be considering a flashy upgrade to one of the government’s most mundane documents—after a visit to Graceland left him impressed by Elvis Presley’s taste for gold.

During a tour of Presley’s famed Memphis estate on Monday, Trump, 79, was shown a collection of the late singer’s personal belongings—including a gold-colored Social Security card that appeared to spark an idea to beautify the blue-and-gray paper card first issued back in 1936. …

As the guide paraded the customized item, she made clear to the president that the card was only for show.

“The gold metal Social Security cards were not officially issued by the government,” she explained, describing it as a “novelty item” popular at the time because standard paper cards would often wear out.

That didn’t stop Trump from floating a revival.

“Good idea,” he replied. “Maybe we should do that again.” …

Congressional Hearing On Social Security Financing

       The Senate Budget Committee held a hearing yesterday on Social Security: A Discussion on the Facts and the Path Forward. It doesn’t look as if there is anything interesting coming out of this.

     It’s not this Committee or the witnesses at the hearing but I’m always surprised at the number of policymakers and commentators who think that Social Security’s long term, perhaps now medium term, funding problems are some riddle that can be solved by some brilliant person with no one feeling pain. The reality is that you can cut benefits significantly or you can raise taxes significantly or some combination of the two. Even then Treasury will probably need to lend money to the Social Security trust funds for at least a few years. At this point Republicans want benefit cuts but want to find a way to make Democrats politically responsible for the cuts while Democrats want higher taxes but are worried about the backlash. Few, if any, are interested in compromise. I predict no benefit cuts nor tax increases; just Treasury funding for well into the future.

Cap Couple’s Benefits At $100,000 Per Year?

      From a Washington Post editorial:

With the federal government $39 trillion in debt and running deficits larger than during the Great Depression, there’s no reason that the largest federal spending program should be sending six figures in annual benefits to rich people. Yet that’s exactly what Social Security is set to do.

Starting this year, the Social Security benefits formula gives the very highest-income couples who retire at age 67 over $100,000. While few will receive that now, their numbers will only increase as time goes on and the formula, which raises benefits faster than consumer price inflation, keeps boosting payments.

Though it won’t fully address the program’s long-term sustainability, capping benefits for the richest seniors would help restore sanity to a program millions of Americans depend on. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is proposing what it calls the “Six Figure Limit” to ensure that no couple who retires at the normal age receives over $100,000 in annual benefits. …

You Can’t Cut Personnel Significantly Without Also Cutting Service Significantly

      From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The Trump Administration deliberately caused the loss of an unprecedented number of workers from the Social Security Administration (SSA) in its first year in office, reducing staffing by roughly 7,500 employees (13 percent) from January 2025 to January 2026. 

New data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reveal more about how the resulting short-staffing of critical functions is degrading service for the largely older, bereaved, and severely disabled people who most rely on SSA and creating challenges that will be difficult to turn around without major changes. …

One area of SSA operations affected by both staffing losses and reduced transparency is the large and growing backlog of hearings for people appealing SSA’s denial of their application for disability benefits. The number of cases pending rose by more than 73,000 from January 2025 to February 2026, threatening harm for some of the most vulnerable people SSA serves …

By January 2026, SSA had fewer employees than at any time since 1967, when the agency was not yet responsible for administering Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and served 52 million fewer beneficiaries. …

You Can Issue Orders But You Need Personnel To Execute Them

      From Emergency Message 26-011

… We are establishing new timeframes for early case actions for certain priority case types at the initial level of adjudication. Staff must follow the instructions in this EM until we publish the revised POMS.

· Presumptive Disability or Blindness Cases


IMPORTANT: A claimant, including a child, applying for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) based on disability or blindness, may receive up to 6 months of payments prior to the determination of disability or blindness if he or she is found to be presumptively disabled or blind and meets all other eligibility requirements. To make a PD or PB finding, the available evidence must reflect a high degree of probability that the claimant’s impairment or combination of impairments meets the statutory definition of disability or blindness. The FO will add PD/PB flag in EDCS prior to DDS case transfer.


FO/WSU
o The FO or WSU must schedule an appointment within 3 workdays of claimant contact or referral from the 800 number.

o FO/WSU enters disability information into EDCS and within 2 workdays transfers to the DDS for certified electronic folders, and within 7 workdays for non-certified electronic folders. 



DDS


DDS must receipt cases within 2 workdays of FO/WSU transfer (7 workdays for non-certified electronic folders) and assign to an adjudicator by the next workday. 
· Inquiries from Public Officials 


IMPORTANT: An inquiry from a public official is a request for information that comes from a U.S. Congress member or state or local official about a disability claim. Cases with an inquiry from a U.S. Congress member are flagged as Congressional Inquiry. Cases from any other public official are flagged as Public Inquiry. For the purpose of this EM, inquiries from public officials other than Congress members are referred to as “Non-Congressional.”

IMPORTANT: For “Inquiries from Public Officials,” prioritization means providing a timely and responsive answer to the official, not expediting the related disability case unless it already qualifies for expedited processing (e.g., CAL, QDD, Terminal Illness (TERI), Dire Need). Administrative staff should ensure prompt communication with the official and review the case for any expedited processing flags.

FO/WSU



Congressional and Non-Congressional Inquiries: 

Upon receipt of the inquiry, review and reply to the inquiry within 20 workdays. If the claim, matter, or issue does not meet criteria to be expedited, provide an interim response and set a diary to provide a response every 30 days until case processing is complete.

DDS

Congressional and Non-Congressional Inquiries: A response is due within 7 calendar days from the date of receipt of a congressional inquiry and 14 calendar days from the date of receipt of a non-congressional inquiry. Inquiries referred to SSA by the White House should receive a substantive or final reply within 9 working days. A final reply is due within 20 calendar days after the date of the acknowledgement. If the DDS cannot make a final reply within that time-period, send an interim response. Make any subsequent communication, either interim or final, within 30 calendar days after the date of the prior reply to the inquirer. 

 

· Delayed Cases 


IMPORTANT: Delayed cases are those which are at a work station for a time considered to be excessive when measured against normal case processing experience. The period of time for considering a case “delayed excessively” is normally 70 calendar days. To effectively identify such cases, a flagging procedure is followed at the various work stations, i.e., Field Operations, WSU, Risk and Quality, Central Operations Portfolios, and DDS. A flag attached at one station will remain on the case through all subsequent operations including final handling in Central Operations/Processing Centers. 

IMPORTANT: The “Delayed Case” flag is not applicable at the Hearing or Appeals Council adjudicative level, as these components do not use this flag when applying standards for case processing. 

FO/WSU


Any initial-level case in the FO/WSU that has been delayed excessively from the filing date of the application must be flagged for expedited processing and transferred within 2-3 workdays after receipt of all necessary information. 

DDS

The DDS must assign a case within 2–3 workdays to initiate case development upon receipt of:
o An initial case from the FO/WSU that meets delayed case criteria, or any other shorter period as specified by the Central Operations/Processing Centers, if the case has not been properly identified as a delayed; or

o Any case, including reconsideration cases, continuing disability review (CDR) cases, or cases returned by the Central Operations/Processing Centers or by Risk and Quality for additional consideration, that has remained at the FO for 70 days or more after the application, reconsideration request, or CDR initiation date.



If additional time is needed, a status update must be provided to the claimant within 15 workdays of initiating development.



· Homeless Cases 


IMPORTANT: A claimant is homeless if they do not have a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. SSA also considers claimants homeless if they expect to lose current accommodations within 14 days, and will not have a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime 

residence. The FO/WSU will flag the claim as “Homeless” and complete all necessary forms (e.g. Function Report, Work History Report) whenever a claimant alleges, or case information indicates, the claimant is homeless. If needed, DDS can add the flag, Homeless, in the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) or eView.

FO/WSU


Upon receipt of the case, complete all required forms during the initial interview and do not curtail completion. Transfer the case no later than the next workday.

DDS

Upon receipt in DDS, expedite assignment of homeless cases no later than the next workday. …

SSA Employees Unhappy

      From Politico:

… A new survey of federal workers found that, government wide, only 32 percent of the federal workforce is satisfied with and engaged in their jobs.  …

The survey, conducted late last year by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, was launched after the White House instructed the Office of Personnel Management to cancel its annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, a long-running survey tracking agency performance and workplace morale across four administrations, according to a person with knowledge of OPM’s plans and granted anonymity to discuss them.  …

[A]t the Social Security Administration, the score fell from 54.2 to 15.2. …

You Can’t Trust Social Security’s IG

      From a Washington Post article on Inspectors General:

… At the Social Security Administration, acting inspector general Michelle Anderson meets regularly with Commissioner Frank Bisignano and has given him information about her work, according to two people familiar with the meetings. Anderson has wanted to maintain a good relationship with Bisignano, the people said.


The inspector general’s office has largely avoided digging into the work of the U.S. DOGE Service at the agency, but it recently told Congress it is investigating allegations that a DOGE member has improper access to sensitive Social Security data. Before that, it had told senators last year that it would not evaluate the agency’s decision to classify thousands of living immigrants as dead.


In December, the Social Security IG released an audit of the agency’s phone metrics, which found that the wait time for someone to talk to a representative had dropped to single-digit minutes. Agency leaders celebrated the report as a vindication of their claims that they had improved customer service. Bisignano later told staffers he had thought the inspector general had wasted taxpayer dollars even looking into the statistics, according to a recording of his remarks.

However, an unpublished draft of the report reviewed by The Post showed that the inspector general had planned to report another metric — called the “total wait time” — to measure the overall time it takes for callers to be connected with an SSA employee. According to that draft report, in 2025 total wait time averaged 46 minutes to over two hours. That information was deleted from the draft after the agency reviewed it before publication, according to the document’s revision history. …

Disastrous Service For Widows

      From 19th News:

Kathy Quitno-Bolt was still numb when she started calling Social Security days after her husband’s sudden death in July. Steve, her partner of 25 years and husband of 13, died four days after being diagnosed with lung cancer — just enough time for their daughter to arrive and say goodbye.

When she finally got through to someone, they told her they wouldn’t have an appointment to begin her application for survivor benefits until October. 

Her head started spinning. Did she have enough saved to make it through then?

Survivor benefits could have stabilized Quitno-Bolt’s life when it felt like everything she knew was falling apart. But like many people across the country, she was facing significant delays at the Social Security Administration (SSA).  …

Among those facing the longest delays are people claiming survivor benefits after the loss of a spouse and those applying on behalf of children who lost a parent. These groups are entitled to monthly payments that vary depending on the earnings of the worker who died and the age of the surviving spouse. There’s no online application for survivor benefits; they are at the mercy of the phones and the appointment calendar, which in the past year has become a logistical nightmare that has a disproportionate impact on women and children.  …

After her first appointment in October, Quitno-Bolt submitted her documents, including her husband’s death certificate and their marriage license, to her local office thinking that was the end. But she heard nothing back for weeks. In November, she found out SSA had denied her benefits, saying she didn’t turn in her documents even though she had already received them back from the agency.  …

For the past four months now, she’s called the agency almost weekly trying to sort through what went wrong. Typically, she waits on hold for 70 to 90 minutes. At one point, she was told her application was closed without a denial or approval. More recently, she was told her second application was being processed. She’s still in limbo. 

“It’s been a mess, and I can’t even think anymore because I’m so worried about everything,” said Quitno-Bolt, 57, who is disabled and can’t work. Her husband, a factory worker, was the breadwinner. A GoFundMe set up by her daughter helped her scrape by, but she said the last of her savings will run out this month.  …