From new entry in Social Security’s operating manual, POMS:
We created a new POMS section titled, "Addressing Anomalous Electronic Annual Wage Reporting Activity" in response to an increase in irregularities observed in electronic wage reporting. …
SSA may delay processing or decline to process anomalous wage reports. When anomalies are detected that, in SSA's judgement, warrant investigation, SSA will suspend processing some or all electronic reports from the submitter and contact the submitter to initiate an investigation. …
SSA may also refer a matter to OIG for possible investigation. Technicians should report suspected cases of fraud to OIG via Allegation Referral Intake System (ARIS). …
This may be nothing but it looks to me like the start of a new immigration enforcement mechanism, trying to find employers of immigrants and harassing them. That’s better than what ICE is doing in Minneapolis but it still involves Social Security in immigration enforcement which is not its mission.
By the way, as someone steeped in administrative law, I’m noticing a complete lack of due process, which is the sort of thing that could quickly shut this down. You just can’t harass employers and their employees like this badly without giving them an opportunity to be heard by a neutral adjudicator.
5 comments:
Thanks for flagging this, Charles. But this doesn't seem to me like anything to do with cracking down on immigrants, as it's very focused on the employer (or third-party, like a payroll provider) *submitting* wage reports to SSA. It's not unusual for SSA to sometimes encounter a pattern where a certain employer or processor submits a whole bunch of clearly fraudulent wage reports all at once. So I would guess something like that happened again recently, and this is in response to it and/or advance preparations to more efficiently respond to the next one. Note that it doesn't change anything about how SSA identifies wage reports to go into the Earnings Suspense File, which is what happens to those they think have a name/SSN mismatch or other SSN misuse. But, I'll be curious to see what others think.
Oh good grief. You really are paranoid. We've seen several instances lately where ridiculous amounts of wages have shown up for disability claimants - like $100,000 for someone who has never made more than a few thousand a year in their life. Obviously there is some fraudulent activity going on and most ALJs will accept the claimant's denial that it belongs to them but in one case we had a hearing delayed until we got it resolved. This is certainly something that they need to investigate. Your paranoia is simply a symptom of TDS. There is help available.
I agree with @9:39. Anomalous wage reporting has been an issue since way before the second coming of Orange Julius and his reckless ICE operation. It's only taken this long to get a sound policy because of the chaos DOGE caused. If only Leland would have stayed in his lane.
If you can‘t see why one might have the concerns shared in this post, then you’re either ignorant and not paying attention, downright stupid, or both.
Breaking news from this TDS website... The sky is falling again today, film at 11. How dare any investigation occur into anything untoward. Wage fraud is a real thing to obtain insured status to nonworkers. Earnings fraud is a real thing where SSNs are used by those who aren't number holders. Just post everything and enable the fraud to continue.
Post a Comment