AFGE On Pay Freeze

      A press release from AFGE, the union that represents most Social Security employees:

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley today issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s decision to freeze the salaries of most federal employees next year:

“For the second year in a row, President Trump has decided to deny most federal workersa pay raise next year. This is a slap in the face to the dedicated civil servants who keep our nation running and will make it harder for federal agencies to recruit and retain essential employees.

“For years, wages for federal employees haven’t kept pace with rising costs for housing, food, utilities, and other essentials. Private-sector workers currently earn 27% more on average than federal employees doing the same job. To add insult to injury, the administration is asking for special approval to pay hundreds of employees ‘requiring an extremely high level of expertise’ up to $400,000 a year – equal to the president’s base salary – even as it denies workers a basic cost-of-living raise.

“Federal employees treat our veterans and support our military, safeguard our food and air, process retirement and disability payments for tens of millions of Americans every month, and so much more. Making sure they earn a fair wage isn’t just good for them – it’s good for the quality of government services and the people we all serve.

“Because this White House refuses to recognize the invaluable contributions our federal workers make every day, I’m calling on Congress to step up and pass the Federal Adjustment of Incomes Rates (FAIR) Act, which would provide federal employees with a much-deserved 4.1% pay raise in 2027.”

Lots Of Poor People Not Being Paid The Benefits They Are Due

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… When SSA identifies an underpayment of $1 or more, it issues the underpayment to the recipient, or an eligible survivor if the recipient is deceased, after it offsets any  outstanding overpayments, Interim Assistance reimbursements, and authorized representative fees. 

For large underpayments, employees must conduct and document a pre-payment review before they release a payment.

We identified 2 populations: Population 1 comprised 2.5 million underpayments pending on the Supplemental Security Record as of September 2024 and Population 2 comprised 2.4 million underpayments SSA paid between  

Of the 160 pending underpayments in Population 1, SSA paid 80 SSI recipients (50 percent) the underpayments they were due when required. However, SSA employees did not follow policy to ensure the SSA paid 69 recipients (43 percent) the underpayments they were due. The remaining 11 (7 percent) were incorrect underpayments that should be removed from the records.  

Additionally, of the 80 underpayments for deceased recipients in Population 1, we identified 47 underpayments, totaling $22,861, that remained on SSA’s records even though they were not payable to anyone.  

Of the 100 underpayments in Population 2, SSA paid 88 SSI recipients (88 percent) the underpayments they were due and conducted pre-payment reviews for them when required. We did not find evidence SSA employees followed policy and conducted
pre-payment reviews for the remaining 12 (12 percent) underpayments, as required. Of the 2.5 million underpayments that were pending as of September 2024, we estimate SSA did not pay 1.1 million underpayments, totaling about $291 million, that were owed to SSI recipients. …

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.