What The Wistleblower Reported

    From a post on X:

               

    The Data Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, is calling for an independent investigation into the matter 

Hearing On Removing Barriers To Employment

      From a press release:

House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08), Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Ron Estes (KS-04), and Work & Welfare Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (IL-16) announced today that the Subcommittees on Social Security and Work & Welfare will hold a joint hearing to discuss barriers to work and how policymakers can support opportunities for individuals with disabilities to establish, renew, or strengthen their connection to the workforce. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM in 1100 Longworth House Office Building.

     Republican ideas for removing “barriers” have sometimes included time limited disability benefits. I think they regard the lack of compulsion to return to work as a “barrier.”I do not expect anything coming out of this hearing that would genuinely help anyone drawing benefits.

     By the way, when are they going to reschedule that hearing with the Commissioner? Ever?

A Shakeup

      From a press release:

Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano announced today his executive leadership team and organizational changes designed to strengthen accountability, improve performance, and modernize service delivery. …

Social Security Administration Executive Leadership Team:

Chief of Staff & Chief Risk Officer

Chad Poist

Chief Actuary

Karen Glenn

Chief Communications Officer

Nicholas Perrine

Chief of Disability Adjudication

Jay Ortis (Acting)

Chief of Field Operations

Andy Sriubas

Chief of Processing Centers

Mark Quinlan

Chief of Digital Services

Stephen Evangelista

Chief Human Capital Officer

Florence Felix-Lawson

Chief Information Officer (Core Business Functions)

Michael L. Russo

Chief Information Officer (Technology and Customer Products)

Aram Moghaddassi

Chief of Law, Policy, & Legislative Affairs

Mark Steffensen

Chief Financial Officer

Thomas Holland

Chief of Security and Resiliency

Jessica Taylor

To enhance SSA’s focus on operational excellence and foster a structure that brings leadership closer to the frontlines, the functions previously under Operations will be realigned into three distinct areas: Field Operations, Processing Center, and Digital Service.

SSA is also consolidating all Security functions into a single, integrated organization, which will be responsible for providing strategic direction and oversight of information security, physical and protective security, as well as personnel security and suitability programs. …

Call Wait Time Audit To Be Completed By End Of Year

      From Axios:

The Social Security Administration — under pressure from Senate Democrats —is on track to finish an internal audit of the agency's call wait times by year's end, Axios has learned. …

     Remember that Social Security’s Office of Inspector General is no longer independent. This could easily be a whitewash.

Approval Sought For Cardiovascular Listings Changes

      The Social Security Administration has asked for White House approval of proposed changes to its cardiovascular listings.  There’s no way of knowing what’s in the proposal.

Got A Story To Tell?

    The Federal Employees & Contractors Oral History Project (FECOHP) is “preserving the voices of those who’ve served the American people – before, during, and after January 2025.” Get in touch with them if you have a story that should be preserved.

Labor Day 2025

 

Bisignano A Prayer Leader

      Frank Bisignano is an "Executive Leader for Prayer" on "The Presidential Prayer Team."

Social Security Mostly Viewed Favorably

      From the Pew Research Center:

 

Chief Data Officer Resigns Over Misuse Of Agency Data

    I guess it's a coincidence this happened on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day. From the New York Times:

The Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, Charles Borges, has resigned, three days after submitting a whistle-blower complaint that alleged members of the Department of Government Efficiency had uploaded the confidential personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans to an insecure cloud server.

In his resignation letter, Borges said that he was quitting in part because he could not “verify that agency data is being used in accordance with legal agreements or in compliance with federal requirements.”

Click on image to view full size

 

A Poll

 

online polls

COSS On Fox Business

      The Commissioner of Social Security has appeared on Fox Business to claim that his agency is now providing the best service to the public that it has ever provided.

Whistleblower Complains Of Data Security Risk -- How Long Until He's Fired?

      From the New York Times:

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.

The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.

The account by the whistle-blower, Charles Borges, underscores concerns that have led to lawsuits seeking to block young software engineers at the agency built by Elon Musk from having access to confidential government data.  …

     See also an article in the Washington Post on the whistleblower complaint. 

     The biggest question in my mind is why? Getting a copy of this vital database out of Social Security seems to have been an overriding priority for the Trump Administration. They had to have known they were doing something dangerous and probably illegal. Why the urgency? What did they want to do with the data? What are they doing?

     

What Is The Definition Of "Answer"?

      The Ohio Capital Journal has out a long article on service at the Social Security Administration. It mostly quotes former Commissioner Martin O'Malley. Here are a couple of very brief quotes from the piece:

...  O’Malley, the former Democratic governor of Maryland, claimed that under its current management, the Social Security Administration is no longer reporting some metrics to Congress and manipulating others to gaslight the public. ...

O’Malley described one way he thinks the new administration is manipulating some of the metrics it does report.

At the start of 2024, the 8 million who called the agency’s 1-800 number each month had to wait 42.5 minutes on average to get through. After a vendor and technology change, the agency got the average wait down to 12.8 minutes before beneficiaries could get an answer, O’Malley said.

The Social Security Administration on Monday reported that it had gotten those wait times down even further, to eight minutes. But O’Malley said it appears to have simply changed the definition of “answer.”

“‘Answer’ would appear to be anytime a person calls and hangs up after hearing a recording, or calls and gets run around the barn three times by a chatbot and has their call dumped,” he said. “That’s what they call ‘answered.’ That’s what they call ‘served.’ None of it bears any reality to what people are experiencing.” 

A call Wednesday to the Social Security Administration’s Georgesville Road field office in Columbus appeared to produce such a result. A caller was asked by a chatbot why he was calling. When he said he wanted to check his eligibility, the chatbot hung up. ...

    It's much the same as in most aspects of the Trump Administration -- lies, exaggerations, and carefully plucked statistics that misrepresent the true situation. The experts know the truth but the public doesn't know who to believe so they believe what they want to believe until reality smacks them in the face.

 

Better And Better!

     From Yahoo!Finance:

The Social Security Administration has reported significant improvements in how it serves the public. According to its latest performance metrics Americans have collectively saved an estimated 43 million hours over the past year due to faster service and expanded access across online, phone, and in-person channels. …

Now This Is Disgusting

      From the Worcester [MA] Telegram & Gazette:

A former employee of the Gardner Social Security office, who prosecutors said solicited sex from a mother who came into his office crying after losing her job, was sentenced to six months in federal prison Aug. 22.  …

SSA Now Using Chatbot Deemed Unready By Biden Administration

      From the Los Angeles Times:

John McGing couldn’t reach a human. That might be business-as-usual in this economy, but it wasn’t business; he had called the Social Security Administration, where the questions often aren’t generic and the callers tend to be older, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable Americans.

McGing, calling on behalf of his son, had an in-the-weeds question: how to prevent overpayments that the federal government might later claw back. His call was intercepted by an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.

No matter what he said, the bot parroted canned answers to generic questions, not McGing’s obscure query. “If you do a key press, it didn’t do anything,” he said. Eventually, the bot “glitched or whatever” and got him to an agent.

It was a small but revealing incident. Unbeknownst to McGing, a former Social Security employee in Maryland, he had encountered a technological tool recently introduced by the agency. Former officials and longtime observers of the agency say the Trump administration rolled out a product that was tested but deemed not yet ready during the Biden administration. …

In interviews with KFF Health News, people who left the agency — some speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Trump administration and its supporters — said they believe the new administration simply rushed out technologies developed, but deemed not yet ready, by the Biden administration. They also said the agency’s firing of thousands of employees resulted in the loss of experienced technologists who are best equipped to roll out these initiatives and address their weaknesses. …

Agency leaders and employees who first worked on the AI product during the Biden administration anticipated those types of difficulties. Escobar-Alava said they had worked on such a bot, but wanted to clean up the policy and regulation data it was relying on first.

“We wanted to ensure the automation produced consistent and accurate answers, which was going to take more time,” she said. Instead, it seems the Trump administration opted to introduce the bot first and troubleshoot later, Escobar-Alava said. …

Commissioner In West Virginia

      From a press release issued yesterday: 

… U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) hosted Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano in Charleston, W.Va. to visit the social security field office. During the visit, Senator Capito and Commissioner Bisignano met with staff to discuss the improved customer service taking place. …

Graph Showing Number Of People Drawing Social Security Disability Benefits — Why The Drop?

 

From Social Security

Is A.I. A Solution For Social Security? What’s Your Backup Plan?

      From the New York Times:

Nearly four decades ago, when the personal computer boom was in full swing, a phenomenon known as the “productivity paradox” emerged.

It was a reference to how, despite companies’ huge investments in new technology, there was scant evidence of a corresponding gain in workers’ efficiency.

Today, the same paradox is appearing, but with generative artificial intelligence. According to recent research from McKinsey & Company, nearly eight in 10 companies have reported using generative A.I., but just as many have reported “no significant bottom-line impact.”

A.I. technology has been racing ahead with chatbots like ChatGPT, fueled by a high-stakes arms race among tech giants and superrich start-ups and prompting an expectation that everything from back-office accounting to customer service will be revolutionized. But the payoff for businesses outside the tech sector is lagging behind, plagued by issues including an irritating tendency by chatbots to make stuff up. …