New Ruling On Disability In Young Adults

      The Social Security Administration will publish Social Security Ruling SSR-26-2p Documenting and Evaluating Disability in Young Adults in the Federal Register tomorrow. At a first superficial glance I see nothing sensitive in the Ruling.

Wisdom From More Than 90 Years Ago

President Franklin Roosevelt (November 1934):

“We must not allow this type of insurance to become a dole through the mingling of insurance and relief. It is not charity. It must be financed by contributions, not taxes.”

SSA To Help Investigate Complex Fraud

      From a press release:

The Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General (SSA OIG) announced its partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in the launch of the National Fraud Detection Center (NFDC). As a signatory of the NFDC Charter, SSAOIG has committed dedicated analysts and investigators to the prosecutor-led effort to strengthen interagency coordination to detect and dismantle complex fraud schemes. …

     How many “complex fraud schemes” have there been at Social Security? Not many. 

July CAR Out

      The Social Security Administration has released the Caseload Analysis Report for July for its hearing component.

I’m From The Government and I’m Here To Help You

      From Clarin:

In an effort to identify and address irregularities within the federal benefits system, the US Social Security Administration (SSA) has launched in-person checks targeting retirees, pensioners and recipients of federal benefits. …

In-person checks are not random, nor do they cover the entire retiree population. Instead, they primarily target recipients of two programs: Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).

Furthermore, checks are triggered when SSA systems detect discrepancies in reported data, mismatches between tax records and actual income, or address changes that were not reported within required deadlines. …

     Some may remember the old centenarian project at Social Security. Agency employees were sent out supposedly to congratulate those turning 100. The purpose was actually to make sure the claimants were still alive. 

     I guess that employees will attend to this chore in their spare time.

An Idea For “Saving” Social Security

      The Editorial Board of the Washington Post has come out with its plan to “save” Social Security. It’s fairly simple: means test benefits. They don’t even mention the possibility of raising taxes. They don’t engage with the fact that means testing Social Security doesn’t even “save” Social Security unless you apply it quite harshly to those now receiving Social Security or you use vast amounts of general revenues to make up the difference, something they dismiss off the top.

     You’d never guess that the Post is owned by Jeff Bezos who’s worth more than $280 billion.

     Right wing think tanks and editorial pages seem to be coalescing around means testing Social Security as their demand for “saving” Social Security. I think Republicans in Congress will stand behind this demand — way behind it, like on a different continent. 

     The Democratic plan is to lift the cap on FICA. That’s vastly more popular with the public than turning Social Security into a “welfare” program. As someone once said, a program for poor people is a poor program. Democrats aren’t agreeing to means testing. 

Banker Brought In To Modernize Social Security

      From CNBC:

Former JPMorgan Chase executive Matt Zames will join the Trump administration as an advisor to the Social Security agency, CNBC has learned.

Zames is taking an unpaid position to help his former JPMorgan colleague Frank Bisignano, who became Social Security Commissioner last year, tackle modernization of the agency, said people with knowledge of the move. …

Zames, a former hedge fund trader who rose to prominence at JPMorgan after helping clean up the bank’s $6 billion “London Whale” mess, was its chief operating officer for about five years. …

     Will this position allow Zames to sell his JP Morgan Chase stock without paying taxes? That trick worked for Bisignano. 

Union Makes Reasonable Request That's Impossible Today

      From Morningstar:

... The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents a total of 820,000 federal government workers, recently called on Congress to restore about $3 billion in funding to the SSA that was lost to budget cuts, and to boost the workforce by as much as 40% from current levels. ...

The SSA's administrative budget has fallen from 1.2% of benefit outlays in 2017 to 0.86% currently, which represents an annual loss of $3 billion in operating revenue, the union said. In comparison, private insurance companies are funded at roughly 20% of their benefit outlays, meaning that the SSA is deeply underfunded, the union said. 

Meanwhile, SSA staffing has declined 14% during President Donald Trump's second term - from 57,384 in January 2025 down to 49,439 in June 2026 - a net loss of 7,945 employees, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. ...

CATO To Social Security Recipients: Drop Dead

      Jeffrey Mirin of the right wing Cato Institute looks at the possibility of the Social Security trust funds running dry and benefits being cut by more than 20% and yawns. His view is any increase in taxes is quite out of the question so let's do nothing and let nature take its course. As he says, "the ideal Social Security system would have much lower benefits, if any."

Americans Have Ideas On “Saving" Social Security

      From a press release issued by Nationwide Insurance:

Despite widespread political divisions, Americans across political party lines largely agree that Social Security needs reform. According to the Nationwide Retirement Institute's 2026 Social Security Survey, 80% of U.S. adults who receive or expect to receive Social Security say the system needs to change, including 82% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans.

The agreement extends to potential solutions. The same three proposals were ranked as the most popular approaches to strengthening Social Security among both Democrats and Republicans:

1. Increase taxes on higher earners to increase funding: 51% overall, including 56% of Democrats and 43% of Republicans
2. Increase funding through taxes paid by employers: 42% overall, including 44% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans
3. Reduce or eliminate benefits for individuals with incomes above a certain threshold: 38% overall, including 38% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans. 

Miss Pearl

      Since this is a slow news day I thought I would write about something of interest to me,  regional differences in English usage.

    I started hearing a few clients refer to me as Mr. Charles when I was in my 40s. This usage was not unfamiliar to me. I particularly remember a woman in my neighborhood growing up in Winston-Salem who was always referred to as Miss Pearl but she was not the only one who received this honorific, and, yes, it was intended as an honorific. I always understood this usage as one denoting increasing age, respect and affection. Miss Pearl qualified in every way. I was not completely happy being referred to as Mr. Charles since it indicated I was getting older but I knew I was being referred to with affection and respect so I couldn’t complain. I have no problem with it now.

     I’ve always thought of this as a Southern thing and particularly common among African Americans but I’ve never known for sure. I do know it’s less common than it used to be but that may be because I now live in Raleigh, a community that has received a huge influx of people from other parts of the country and the world. As an example, Raleigh’s largest suburb is Cary. The joke locally is that Cary is an acronym standing for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees! The last person who called me Mr. Charles was a young woman wearing a hijab.

     Anyway, I’d be interested in knowing if this is a usage you’re familiar with. Who uses it? How is it used? Is it as common as it used to be?

Hiltzik On Larson’s Defeat

      Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, himself a big friend of Social Security, has a column out bemoaning John Larson’s defeat in the primary race to continue representing his Connecticut district in the House of Representatives. Larson has been the Chairman and now Ranking Member of the House Social Security Subcommittee. There is much to admire in Larson’s career. He has certainly been a huge friend to Social Security. However, while there are strong explanations, Larson has been quite ineffective in passing Social Security legislation.

SSA Seeks Information On AI

      The Social Security Administration is seeking information to examine “how to better leverage AI and agentic AI capabilities across SSA programs, workforce, and infrastructure.” There’s no additional detail about what they’re seeking so I have to think they’re at a very early stage. 

     This is consistent with past Republican, and sometimes Democratic, behavior — an eagerness to spend billions of dollars on contractors accompanied by a great unwillingness to spend money on personnel to make the system work.

A Poll

 

The Judge Lottery

      From  The Judge Lottery: Within-Office Disparities in Social Security Disability Adjudication, Fiscal Year 2025 by Drew Patterson:

Description

A claimant who appeals a denied Social Security disability claim is assigned, essentially at random, to an administrative law judge (ALJ) within a hearing office. Using the Social Security Administration's public ALJ disposition files for fiscal year 2025, this paper measures how much that assignment matters. Among 1,023 judges who issued at least 100 decisions in a single office (317,462 decisions in total), allowance rates ranged from 8.8 percent to 92.8 percent. The disparity is not primarily geographic: 73 percent of the variance in judge allowance rates lies within hearing offices rather than between them, and in the median office the gap between the most and least generous judge is 32.6 percentage points. A simulation in which every judge in an office decides identical case pools shows that sampling noise can account for only about 5 percent of the observed within-office variance. Judge allowance rates are also highly stable across years (r = 0.93 between FY2025 and FY2026 year-to-date), which rules out one-off docket composition as an explanation. Office-level workload measures explain little of either the level or the spread of allowance rates, and a state-month panel of initial-level determinations from 2015 to 2026 shows only a small association between backlog pressure and allowance rates. The judge draw remains one of the largest observable determinants of whether a disability appeal succeeds, a decade after the agency's quality-review reforms. Includes full analysis code and the exact SSA public data snapshots used. …

I’m Back

      I’m sorry that I was unable to approve comments on this blog for the last day. Blogger is quite reliable until it isn’t. For about 24 hours it professed not to know me. I’ll have something substantive to post tomorrow.

New Compassionate Allowance List

      A message from Social Security:

Social Security Adds 14 Compassionate Allowance Conditions

Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2026 

 Dear Colleague, 

 Today, Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano announced the addition of 14 conditions to Social Security’s Compassionate Allowances list. The Compassionate Allowances initiative is designed to cut through red tape and allows us to quickly identify claims where the applicant’s medical condition or disease clearly meets our definition of disability. Given the severity of these conditions, claims are often approved based on medical confirmation of the diagnosis alone, helping individuals experiencing life-changing diagnoses receive the support they need as fast as possible. 

 The newly added Compassionate Allowances conditions are: 

• Adenylosuccinate Lyase Deficiency – Neonatal Form and Type 1 
• Aicardi Syndrome 
• Baraitser-Winter Syndrome 
• Beare-Stevenson Cutis Gyrata Syndrome 
• Bohring-Opitz Syndrome 
• CASK-Related Gene Disorders
• Hepatosplenic T-Cell Lymphoma 
• Lafora Disease 
• Malignant Migrating Partial Seizures of Infancy (MMPSI) 
• OPHN1 Syndrome 
• Primary Cardiac Sarcoma 
• Primary Intracranial Malignant Melanoma 
• Uveal Melanoma – with Metastases 
• Warburg Micro Syndrome 

I encourage you to share this important update with your members, colleagues, affiliates, and other interested parties. Sincerely, Nick Perrine Chief Communications Officer

     Think most readers of this blog realize that the Compassionate Allowance list is nearly meaningless. The list is comprised of very rare disorders so it affects few. Virtually all of them would have been approved quickly even without the Compassionate Allowance list. The list does allow for various Administrations to claim they’re doing something for disabled people even though they aren’t.

Larson Loses Primary

      John Larson, the ranking member of the House Social Security Subcommittee, lost his Connecticut primary race to hang on to his seat in the House of Representatives.

A New Position For Dudek

       Leland Dudek, who served briefly as Acting Commissioner of Social Security, is now Advisory Council Chair for Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD), a group founded not too long ago. ACRD is a rival to the much older National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR). 

     I am quite surprised to see Dudek linked in such a way to any Social Security organization that wishes to help claimants. I expect that Dudek sees himself as a friend to claimants and a supporter of Social Security but his tenure as Acting Commissioner was notable for his cooperation with DOGE and that permanently tarnished his reputation in the minds of most people who support the mission of the Social Security Administration.

Winning!

      A recent message from a colleague:

Does anybody answer the phone at the **** OHO anymore? 

We could not reach a person this afternoon, and apparently no one received the message I left. 

Some gentleman called this morning saying he had a telephone hearing today, but he was late and when he tried to call the OHO no one answered or returned his call.

What’s Going On With CDRs?

      The ranking (Democratic) members of the House Ways and Means Committee subcommittees having jurisdiction over Social Security and SSI have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the agency’s decision to assume the role of continuing disability reviews (CDRs).

     I’m not sure that I see anything sinister in what Social Security is doing but I don’t see how it makes sense either. It’s not like there have been problems with CDRs that I’ve been aware of, so why are they doing it..

Agency Performance Stats

      The Social Security Administration has released a highly massaged set of statistics on agency performance. There are many aspects of agency performance not included. I wish things were getting better. They’re not.

One Problem With Those “Trump” Accounts

      From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Starting this month, families can open Trump Accounts for their children. Those welcoming new babies between 2025 and 2028 will qualify for a $1,000 federal contribution to seed the account. But for some families caring for disabled children — who will need savings the most as they come of age — the accounts could create big problems. That’s because once account holders reach adulthood, the money saved in their Trump Accounts will likely run afoul of the extraordinarily strict asset limits in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for low-income disabled people. If those savings exceed the cap — just $2,000 — it will lead not only to the loss of needed monthly income support from SSI, but could also jeopardize their eligibility for health care and community-based services through Medicaid. …

Yesterday’s Senate Hearing

      Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the looming depletion of Social Security’s Retirement and Survivors Trust Fund. Of course, you’d expect a serious nonpartisan discussion of the options. Right. The reality is that there were sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats favor a plan to remove the cap on wages subject to the FICA tax. Republicans thought that idea was terrible but had no plan of their own or at least not one they’ll release.

     Actually, it’s fairly easy to figure out the Republicans plan. They will demand a plan that includes both benefits cuts and tax increases. However, the overwhelming majority of Republican legislators will vote against the plan. They will only supply the bare minimum number of votes needed for passage. Then, they’ll campaign against Democrats for cutting benefits and raising taxes. Jujitsu! I don’t think Democrats will fall for this but maybe they’ll never have control of both houses of Congress and the White House as well as the will to get past the Senate filibuster so they can do what they think needs to be done.

Bisignano Meets With Holy Father

      Apparently, Commissioner Bisignano had his photo taken with Pope Leo yesterday. I’d like to post the photo here but there are technical problems. You can see it at the link.

Differential Routing Of Calls

      An e-mail I received from Social Security:

As part of our ongoing commitment to improving how we serve the American public, we recently announced an enhanced call-routing process for people applying for survivor benefits. To better support Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients, we now route calls from people who need to change their address to specially trained representatives. 

Frailty, Medicaid And SSI

      People who are desperately poor and disabled file claims with Social Security for Supplemental Security Income. If that claim is approved, they are categorically eligible for Medicaid, but that approval is unlikely to come until at least several months have passed and the wait can easily be far longer than that. How do they get health care in the meantime? Since the Affordable Care Act was passed, in most states, they’ve been able to get Medicaid because of their poverty. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a piece out about what’s in the process of changing on that front. The 2025 reconciliation act requires that as of January 1, 2027 those on Medicaid must meet work requirements. One exception to this work requirement is if the person seeking to get on or stay on Medicaid is “medically frail.” Those familiar with Social Security’s definition of disability know that the term “medically frail” isn’t part of that definition. To the best of my knowledge “medically frail” isn’t part of any definition previously used in any government program in the U.S. The reconciliation act defines “medically frail” to include “five categories of individuals who: are blind or disabled; have a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability that limits their ability to perform one or more activities of daily living (ADL); have a substance use disorder; have a “disabling” mental disorder; or have a “serious or complex” medical condition.” Again, for the most part, this is not Social Security terminology. Other guidance being given the states helps little.

     Who in state government will be handling the workload of determining “medical fragility?” Probably the state disability determination services but they’re already overwhelmed with Social Security work. How long will it take them? It could easily be many months especially since the guidance they’ll receive probably won’t be great, especially at the beginning. The Trump Administration doesn’t have an abundance of Medicaid expertise. Many of the career employees who might have this sort of expertise are no longer working for the government. In the Trump Administration the political appointees who are supposed to be managing this may harbor considerable hostility towards poor people. They may be the sorts of people who naively believe that almost anyone can work and that mental illness is “all in your head.”

     I don’t like how this may all sort out. There may be a lot of disabled people getting all their treatment at hospital emergency rooms? That’s bad for both patient and hospital. At least the hospitals will want a loose definition of “medical fragility.” They want to get reimbursement for the treatment they render and want to keep people who just need outpatient treatment out of their ERs.

Larson In Trouble?

      From the Hartford Courant:

John Larson is the Social Security congressman.

Larson, 78, has built his career around Social Security as his signature issue. He says he needs to win this November so that he can become the chairman of the powerful Social Security subcommittee if the Democrats regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

But challenger Luke Bronin is criticizing Larson on his signature issue as they head toward the Aug. 11 Democratic primary in a competitive four-way race. Bronin recently highlighted that Larson was one of only four Democrats to vote in 2024 against the Social Security Fairness Act, which was later signed into law by President Joe Biden.

The measure expanded benefits for Social Security for more than 2.8 million teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public workers in an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 327 to 75. …

     There are signs that Larson may be in trouble. Is it time for him to retire? 

“I’m Comin’ Gunning For You All”

      From KFVS:

A southeast Missouri man who threatened employees of the Social Security Administration twice in 2025 was sentenced on Tuesday, July 28 to a year and a day in prison.

According to a news release from the prosecuting attorney, 57-year-old Timothy Wells Stevens will be on supervised release for two years after his release from prison.

Stevens is accused of threatening SSA employees in October 2025.

According to the news release, Stevens told one SSA employee in Pennsylvania that if he didn’t receive payments, “I’m comin’ gunning for you all.” …

70 Years

      Today is the 70th anniversary of the creation of Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits. 

     I don’t have a link handy but there’s no photo available of then President Eisenhower signing the bill. He had opposed it and signed it only reluctantly. He didn’t want a photo taken. Occasionally you see a photo of Eisenhower signing a bill on a news release or article about this anniversary but the photo is of Ike signing some different bill. Other than the creational of the interstate highway system the creation of Social Security disability benefits was probably the most consequential domestic legislation that became law during Ike’s presidency.