From WUSA:
For 59-year-old Mary Gates, returning to work was supposed to be a step toward greater independence.
Instead, when her work-study job ended, Gates said her Social Security disability benefits stopped too. She spent months trying to get them restored, falling behind on bills before Legal Aid D.C. helped resolve her case. …
Gates told WUSA9 she took a work-study job at the University of the District of Columbia. When the program ended in March, she said her benefits also stopped.
"In the process of it, they also ended my Social Security," Gates said.
She said she repeatedly contacted the Social Security Administration but struggled to get answers. …
"I had gotten behind on all my bills," Gates said. "They're telling me, 'Well, we're still working on it.'"
Without the monthly payments she depended on, Gates said she feared she could lose her home before the issue was resolved. …
When I say multiply by 100,000 I’m not just talking about disability claimants who return to work and then stop. I’m talking about all the myriad ways that things may get out of whack or need to be updated. They’re not tracking the delays in doing these sort of things or at least they’re not releasing the numbers if they do. And you may have to multiply by a lot more than 100,000 to get the full scope of the problem. It’s “fast-tracking”, i.e., doing the easiest work first, on a massive scale, leaving cases that involve even a little complexity unworked on for months and months. It’s maddening both for the claimants and the employees.
12 comments:
Maddening for the SSA employees? Management wants clearances and that’s what they are getting at the expense of complex cases being pushed aside. Time and knowledge are needed to process the difficult cases and SSA is lacking in both. The agency is cooking the books in order to give the public a false sense of hope that the agency is on the right path.
Let’s tip our cap to DOGE and it’s remarkable job of fighting waste, fraud and abuse. This great EO let thousands of knowledgeable SSA employees leave the agency and now the public wants answers? Elections have consequences.
Sorry but nothing new. This goes back decades. Anyone who worked in the PCO's remembers screening--easy cases first including "NAN" decisions, no action necessary cases, to get the pending down. BA, CR, Supervisor and DM 1981-2018. Not saying things are not worse now but cases such as this have always been with us.
Based on the 46 years I worked at the agency the mantra was do more with less and get the pending workloads down by any means necessary. Only got worse after Vought and DOGE forced a lot of people out of the agency...
Was told in a staff meeting to stop wrapping up but dont just stop well actually……..we need full 6 hrs of 800# coverage. Nothing is getting done unless you are working OT.
The SSA playbook of cooking the books is becoming popular. 👨🍳
A Statistical Revamp Is About to Lower Inflation, at a Critical Time
Bureau of Economic Analysis is altering how it measures several components of a price gauge watched by Fed.
Translation… clear as much as you can while answering phones since OT might be limited.
It’s quantity over quality. I wonder how many shortcuts are being done in order to keep the clearances high. It all eventually comes back to haunt the agency with overpayments.
SSA has lost so much expertise. A lot of field office staff don't know about the Extended Period of Eligibility and Expedited Reinstatement, and which one is appropriate when, and how to make the computer systems do what is needed for each. It's not their fault they weren't trained on it and the systems are bad and the people who could have served as mentors (TEs, AWICs, etc.) have left the agency. But it does cause gigantic problems for beneficiaries, who may not know they're being given incorrect information and who therefore may never get what they're entitled to. Even when SSA does the right thing, it can take so long that people lose their housing or go into debt, and it's not like SSA pays them interest or any sort of compensation for the delay.
were Extended Period of Eligibility cases considered complicated back then? Compared to some of the things SSA deals with, they seem pretty straightforward.
We haven’t hit rock bottom yet. Wait until we completely switch over our claims processing to a new program in a few months, add that in with retirements and a potential shutdown (no overtime) and things will hit the fan real quick.
Doing so again. Another realignment is putting skilled people on 800 numbers and attorneys doing transcription. Obviously wanting more people to quit.
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