Creamy Or Crunchy?

     From Nextgov/FCW:

...The longer arc of this agency is a phenomenally dedicated, committed, compassionate culture. [SSA staff has] been traumatized by the increased volume and nine years of steady staff reductions, given the lack of any Congressional attention to our budget or even the decency of our own appropriations hearings, said [Social Security Commissioner Martin] O'Malley” ...

The SSI program “purports to be a program of last resort,” but “forces the poorest of people to jump through hoops, stand on their head and gargle peanut butter in order to qualify for it,” he told lawmakers at a recent hearing. ...

For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant

    My firm is starting a new blog directed at Social Security disability claimants, rather than Social Security professionals. It's called For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. We're just getting started but you can look in now.

Detecting Overpayments Due To Marriage

     From Impact of Undetected Marriages on Social Security Administration Payments, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

... Marriage can impact a Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) beneficiary’s payment. We randomly selected 1 of 20 segments from the Supplemental Security Record (SSR) and Master Beneficiary Record (MBR). We identified 3 populations with name changes and sampled 250 individuals ...

SSA did not always take the necessary manual actions to properly update 38 of the 250 payment records for SSI recipients or OASDI beneficiaries when there was a name change because of marriage. Furthermore, SSA had not taken manual action on 11 SSI recipients or OASDI beneficiaries who changed their name via the iSSNRC application. We estimate SSA improperly paid 16,631 SSI recipients and OASDI beneficiaries approximately $240.9 million when there was a name change because of marriage. ...

When a person changes their name, SSA systems do not automatically determine whether they are receiving benefits. SSA does not know about a marriage until an individual reports it. ...

SSA explored the feasibility of using electronic marriage data to determine if OASDI beneficiaries changed their marital status. However, not all states/jurisdictions have a central repository of electronic marriage data, and many do not require, or collect, the marriage applicants’ Social Security number. ...

    There's a lot that Social Security could do to prevent overpayments if it had an adequate workforce. A different Inspector General might want to issue a report detailing how much money is being wasted due to inadequate staffing at the Social Security Administration.

    By the way, there's also the question of whether marriage should have as many effects as it does on Social Security and SSI benefits but that's another topic.

It's Taking Longer And Longer To Get Through To Social Security On The Phone

     From an article in the Daily Mail:

Closure Of Field Office Due To Staffing And Attrition Problems

     The union local that represents most Social Security employees is reporting that because of staffing and attrition issues Social Security is closing a field office in Southeast Cleveland that serves an area that is 94% black.

Interview With Commissioner

     Social Security has released a recording of an interview of Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security, by Jeffrey Buckner, Social Security's Assistant Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Communications. You can listen to the audio or read a transcript. Here's a little snippet: "The common sense is, you are not going to have satisfied customers if you have miserable and overworked employees."

Congressional Hearing On GPO/WEP

     The House Social Security Subcommittee held a hearing on Tuesday on the Government Pension Offset/Windfall Elimination Provision in the Social Security Act that deal with cases in which a person is eligible for both Social Security benefits and a pension based upon earnings not covered by FICA. Two of the four witnesses called for modification of the formulas used to determine the offset and another called for its elimination. As things stand now, it's highly unlikely that anything will be done about this.

New SSI Regs

     From a notice that Social Security will publish in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are finalizing our proposed rule to expand the definition of a public assistance (PA) household for purposes of our programs, particularly the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, to include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as an additional means-tested public income-maintenance (PIM) program. We are also revising the definition of a PA household from a household in which every member receives some kind of PIM payment to a household that has both an SSI applicant or recipient, and at least one other household member who receives one or more of the listed PIM payments (the any other definition). If determined to be living in a PA household, inside in-kind support and maintenance (ISM) would no longer need to be developed. The final rule will decrease the number of SSI applicants and recipients charged with ISM from others within their household. In addition, we expect this rule to decrease the amount of income we would deem to SSI applicants and recipients because we will no longer deem as income from ineligible spouses and parents who live in the same household: the value of the SNAP benefits that they receive; any income that was counted or excluded in figuring the amount of that payment; or any income that was used to determine the amount of SNAP benefits to someone else. These policy changes reduce administrative burden for low-income households and SSA. ...

PRW To Go Down From 15 Years To 5 On June 8

     From a notice that Social Security will publish in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are finalizing our proposed regulation to revise the time period that we consider when determining whether an individual’s past work is relevant for the purposes of making disability determinations and decisions. We are revising the definition of past relevant work (PRW) by reducing the relevant work period from 15 to 5 years. Additionally, we will not consider past work that started and stopped in fewer than 30 calendar days to be PRW. ...

DATES: This final rule will be effective on June 8, 2024.

Perfect Timing?

    Wouldn't now be the time to end the reconsideration step in Social Security disability determination? Over the years the objection to doing that has been that that it would throw too many cases to the hearing level but at the moment the backlogs are enormous at the initial and reconsideration steps and quite low at OHO. Doing it now would kill two birds with one stone. You'd dramatically reduce the backlogs at DDS and you'd give OHO something to do at a time when they're rapidly running out of work. It would create the "drinking from a fire hose" problem at OHO but I'd rather see that than have OHO lacking work while DDS struggles. 

    By the way, I have a vested interest in seeing this come to pass since I have a vested interest in seeing Social Security disability claims resolved expeditiously. Is that a bad thing?