From Forbes:
Last October, my mother walked into the family room of her rural North Carolina house and found my dad, her husband of nearly 60 years, sitting motionless in the recliner.
In the days that followed, as our family processed our shock and grief, we had to deal with some very practical issues, including money. As retirees, my parents had relied largely on their individual Social Security checks and his small pension to pay the bills. We assumed that, following my dad’s death, she could continue to draw income from those two sources. Plus, my mom had me—an estate and tax lawyer and journalist who has advised dozens of families and written extensively about Social Security—to help make sure the transition went smoothly.
Instead, it took five months, numerous phone calls, letters and faxes and help from my mom’s Congressman, to get all of the Social Security she was owed. Along the way, we got contradictory answers from the Social Security Administration (SSA) on the phone and conflicting letters in the mail, including one advising my mom to call a toll-free number that was disconnected.
We also saw Social Security payments appear and disappear from her bank account and began to fear that her health coverage might lapse too, since she was paying her Medicare premiums (as the majority of seniors do) through deductions from her Social Security check.Sadly, our experience was not all that unusual. Even as the number of Americans eligible for Social Security has been rising, the SSA has shed thousands of employees. After President Donald Trump set billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency loose on the federal workforce in January 2025, more than 7,200 positions were eliminated. Additional cuts have left the agency with just 52,045 workers as of January, down almost 20% over the last decade. …
The article goes on to document all the problems caused by inadequate online systems and inadequate personnel. If even transactions like this which should be simple are so difficult, what is the public to do? You know that somewhere down the road when we have a truly independent Inspector General there will be report after report showing that huge numbers of people have been underpaid billions of dollars.
Charles, nothing is going to change until staffing levels are increased by at least 7,000.
ReplyDeleteThe agency was critically understaffed before it lost those 7000. Hiring 7000 would just be throwing fresh meat into the grinder at this point.
DeleteThe training needs to be overhauled. Who is available to mentor? Staff are so under water new staff is almost like giving a drowning person a glass of water.
DeleteQuit dreaming. They're not going to hire to later fire for AI.
ReplyDeleteWe will see after the midterms.
DeleteYou act as the SSA is a top priority for Congress.
DeleteNewsflash: it won't be until the trust fund runs low and benefits are cut. They're going to kick the can down the road.
I had to call my congressmen to get my issue taken care of, and it was an easier issue than what they experienced in this post. *shrug* Guess that's the times we are living in now with SSA.
ReplyDeleteIf Congress is flooded by the public requiring assistance, maybe they will take note and do something. But it has to be 1000s of people daily calling.
DeleteThe agency can afford to hire more frontline employees if they'd cut down on higher pay folks "managing" workloads. These people were everywhere at SSA, including OGC and the hearing component. After Bisignano took on IRS, whatever transformation was planned, seemed to slow under the SES and SES equivalents.
ReplyDeleteWhat's truly remarkable about this story is how the author, after all of this, still has no idea how the process works. SSA does not withdraw money from banks, the banks return the money to the Treasury. Widows are automatically converted and the lump sump paid without a new application if they were receiving spouse benefits on the deceased when they died, unless the survivor is under FRA in which case they would have to make an election for a reduced benefit. The survivor's benefit is never suspended because the widow claim is processing. When the survivor is on their own record and applies on their deceased spouse, it pays a combined benefit calculated from both.
ReplyDeleteThe author touts the advantages of having a lawyer helping when talking about submitting a 561, not realizing that the suspension was for address which cannot be corrected by a 561 and they were just throwing more paperwork into the dumpster. Classic lawyer move.
The under-staffing at the agency means that nobody took the time to tell the author's mom that the bank returned her husband's payment, and likely hers or it got returned for another reason, which placed her benefit in address suspense. She may or may not have needed an application at all for the survivor benefit.
This was such a simple problem with such simple solutions that any T2 CS with half a brain and 5 minutes could have figured it out. Instead it took multiple calls, appointments, form submissions and two congressionals to resolve, which is a perfect illustration of why "do more with less" doesn't work. By getting rid of or hamstringing the people who actually do the work, they're just making more work, taking 5 minutes tasks and turning them into months long boondoggles.
The agency is trying to push the actual work onto the claimants and their paid representatives using online services, because costs and wait-times that happen off SSA's books don't count, and it's all about appearance over substance. Frank doesn't care how long you wait, so long as you're doing it somewhere else. And if you die waiting, even better. One more happy customer!
Problem is, that strategy relies on the public and their paid reps to actually know what they're doing, and they don't. A lot of people at SSA don't know either, or don't know enough, because there's too much to know. The person who wrote this article allegedly has been offering advice on Social Security for years, and yet is painfully ignorant on the subject.
The Social Security Administration needs two things to actually work as intended for the American people. Simplification, and funding. Both of which have to come from congress. Which means it's not going to happen, and the disabled and elderly can just go ahead and find a comfortable gutter to crawl into and die.
The most f**ked up part of it all is that simplification would in most cases result in bigger savings than whatever perceived windfall the endless red tape was intended to prevent. How many tens of thousands of dollars does SSA need to spend every day to ensure some destitute black mother doesn’t get an extra $1000 of money before you idiots wake the f**k up and realize your congressman who professes to be sparing you from fraud is just on a racist and classist power trip?
Delete“ If even transactions like this which should be simple are so difficult…”
ReplyDeleteNothing is simple at SSA. Everything is tedious and convoluted. Made worse by reduced staff.
Never have they made things easier always harder, more steps, worse programs.
DeleteGot a call from a disability claimant this morning who can't buy food for her family. We get lots of those types of calls and were getting them years before the current administration. This is a person who truly can't work. She tried for a couple of months and ended up in the ER 5 times. Where is the outrage about that? It's only worthy of outrage for some if they can use it to make the current administration look bad. Deserving disability claimants have been dying, losing their homes, going with medications and food for years before this administration. Where's the outrage. (I'm sure there will be responses from agency personnel about how all these people are lying and just choose to starve, be homeless, or go without medications.).
ReplyDeleteThey (and others like this) need to call their Congressional reps. SSA executives are so out of touch with public-facing employees who actually do the work. They don’t bother to ask if the new policies and systems they want to roll out will help make things better for the employees (and thus better for the public). Most of the time, the new policies and systems only make things more cumbersome and difficult.
DeleteSSA front-line employees are exhausted and frustrated, but it always falls on deaf ears. There is simply too much work and not enough staff to do it.
Add to that the employees who cannot or will not do their jobs, with little to no repercussions.
In my office, management doesn’t care if an employee gets everything they touch wrong. They don’t care that it takes more work and hours we already don’t have to fix it. They don’t seem to care if it disadvantages the claimants either. If numbers move, and it makes them look good, that is their bottom line. I’ve heard it said that these problem employees are bodies and we need bodies. No- we need employees that see claimants as people that deserve to be helped. We need employees who care about the people they serve. We need managers who will hold the ones accountable that don’t do these things.
We also need simplified policies, systems that work, and to be paid a living wage to attract more people to join the agency.
We do sometimes tell them to call their congressman. The congressman's office sends an inquiry and that is the extent of the good that does. This agency has made clear it doesn't care what the law is, what Congress thinks, etc. They are going to do what they are going to do. I agree, simplification and accountability are things that would be great. This agency seems to look for the most difficult ways to do things. There are a lot of unnecessary things that are required. Centralizing processing of documents would help a lot. Why is there not an online SSI app yet? So many common sense changes that could be made. ALJ's need to be trained to stop thinking they know more than doctors and psychologists. Valid claims are being denied by a couple of judges in our areas because they think people with schizophrenia with hallucinations can show up to a job and function every day. These ALJs think no one can be disabled based on psychological conditions. One in a recent decision disregarded PHQ scores because they can be manipulated. How paranoid do you have to be to think people are going to the doctor and manipulating these things thinking it will get them disability? These scores were entirely consistent with all the other evidence but instead of doing what he is supposed to do and analyze those things he simply dismissed them because of his paranoia that tells him all these claimants have devised these schemes to manipulate the system. Let's just ignore the fact that some of these claimants lack the ability to meet their basic needs - shelter, food, etc - yet they can somehow develop these clever schemes to trick the system. (Yes, it is that ludicrous). The fact that there are no checks on these types of ALJs is the biggest flaw in the system.
Delete@8:24pm Thank you for making this about race /s .The issues affect everyone, regardless of race, age, education level, and other factors. You weaken the argument when you unnecessarily apply identity politics.
ReplyDeleteSSA letters, which have never been great are now complete rubbish, incorrect or missing information, stacking multiple issues into one letter completely confusing everyone. Phone calls are useless, "you claim is with another office, I can send them an message" well thats as helpful as a fart in a spacesuit. Online cant do anything past most basic things. It will take a long long time to fix this mess.
ReplyDelete