Does He Even Bother To Reply?

      Democratic Senators Wyden and Warren have written the Commissioner of Social Security asking for answers about the sudden reassignments of front line agency employees to answering 1-800 phone calls at about the same time that many metrics of agency functioning have been removed from public view. 

Mass Deportation Not So Good For Trust Funds

      From a report by the widely respected Penn Wharton Budget Model:

Deporting unauthorized workers over 10 years cuts Social Security revenue, raises deficits by $133 billion (10 yrs) and $884 billion (30 yrs). The Trust Fund depletes 6 months earlier; 75-year deficit rises by 0.25% of payroll.

Robbing Peter To Pay Paul

    From Government Executive:

In recent days, the Social Security Administration and its newly confirmed commissioner Frank Bisignano have celebrated “key milestones” in its quest to improve customer service, citing its implementation of the Social Security Fairness Act and addition of new automated service lanes on the agency’s 1-800 number and website. …

But workers at the agency say that as the agency shrinks by an aspired 7,000 workers this fiscal year, management is simultaneously scrambling to triage escalating workloads, causing a communications whiplash akin to being “gaslit,” one said. …

Beginning last week, the agency involuntarily reassigned 500 field office customer support representatives to handle calls to the 1-800 number indefinitely and without notice. By Tuesday, that number had risen to 1,000 reassignments. …

They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” [said the leader of the union that represents most Social Security employees].“And it really invalidates [Bisignano’s] whole theory and vision that SSA doesn’t need any more staff and that AI—or other technology—will solve the customer service problems at the agency and on the 1-800 number.” … 

Bisignano’s email to staff on Monday included an additional bit of news: performance bonuses will be distributed next month. Though Bisignano said he “directed” their distribution, the bonuses were originally slated to go out earlier this year but were delayed during the tenure of then-acting Commissioner Leland Dudek. …

A Free Lunch That Only Costs A Few Trillion Dollars But It Will All Be Paid Back 75 Years From Now

      From an op ed piece in the Washington Post by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Tim Kaine (D-VV):

… We propose creating an additional investment fund — in parallel to the trust fund, not replacing it — that would be invested in stocks, bonds and other investments that generate a higher rate of return, helping keep the program from running dry.


We estimate that it would take a $1.5 trillion up-front investment into the fund to get it going, and we propose giving the fund 75 years to grow. The Treasury would temporarily shoulder the burden of providing benefits to Social Security beneficiaries — but when the new fund’s 75 years are up, it would pay the Treasury back and supplement payroll taxes to help fill the future gap.

The result? The consistent delivery of Social Security benefits for generations of Americans, and a reduction to the United States’ long-term indebtedness by up to 20 percent. …

OHO Gets 41,000 Hours Of OT In June And Still Loses Ground

 

Click on image to view full size

Service Is Just Getting Better And Better!

      From a press release:

 Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced significant progress in its ongoing efforts to improve customer service while handling record transaction volumes. Key milestones include:

• Completing over 3.1 million payments to all who were entitled under the Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA) five months ahead of schedule
• Continuing to upgrade SSA’s telephone technology nationwide, deploying the platform to 841 field offices, representing 70 percent of field offices nationwide
• Reducing the average speed of answer (ASA) on the 800 Number to 13 minutes, a 35 percent reduction compared to this time last year and over a 50 percent reduction compared to last year’s annual average
• Optimizing technology on the 800 Number so that 90 percent of calls handled are now served via automated self-service options or convenient callbacks, minimizing hold times
• Implementing a new service model in field offices that has reduced wait times about 10 percent for all customers year-over-year
• Decreasing the initial disability claims backlog by 25 percent, from a record high of 1.2 million cases pending last summer to 950,000 cases pending today
• Achieving a historic low of approximately 276,000 disability hearings pending, with customers experiencing wait times 60 days shorter than last summer
• Upgrading the my Social Security online portal to provide uninterrupted, 24/7 access to customers starting mid-July …

Playing Games With Stats Doesn’t Answer The Phone

      From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

For a “real lesson in torture,” try calling your local Social Security Administration office with a question.

That’s what Marcia Chestnut, a 62-year-old former housekeeper from Philadelphia, sardonically suggests.

In February, Chestnut — who lives with various disabilities — received a notice from the SSA saying her benefits would be cut off by April.

To find out why, Chestnut phoned her local SSA office every weekday for two months. She’d get put on hold for four hours or longer, then the calls would be disconnected.

“Live people don’t answer,” she said. “You’re not getting anybody who’ll talk to you.” …

We spend a lot of time calling Social Security offices on people’s behalf — sometimes 15 times a day,“ [a local advocate] said. ”We’re on hold for hours, then get AI bots spewing random information you never asked for before hanging up. …

Congressional Hearing Scheduled

      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 Wednesday, July 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM …

     When they say “support”, they may mean “demand.”  Time limited benefits would be a possibility. That may be the next logical step for Republicans. Further work incentives are pointless. If you demand that they be half dead to get benefits, why are you surprised that they don’t go back to work? 

    Update: This hearing has already been postponed. No new date given. 

Another Data Point Suggesting That The Average Call Wait Time That Social Security Is Giving Out Is Wildly Optimistic

     A Las Vegas television station did its own checking on call wait times at Social Security and concludes that the 18.5 minute call wait time that the Social Security Administration is giving out is "wildly optimistic."

    I think this needs a Office of Inspector General investigation. 

Defining Deviancy Down

      The Washington Post has an article on the emails from Social Security to beneficiaries touting the passage of the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Only at the end does it mention how wildly inappropriate the emails are. Apparently, they regard this as something only of interest to “left-leaning” groups.  It’s much the same with USA Today, CNN and NBC News. Apparently, the New York Times has taken off for the long weekend and hasn’t noticed the emails at all. By Sunday or Monday it may just be old news to them.

Happy Independence Day

 

Outrageous Abuse Of Social Security For Political Purposes

      I have trouble believing it but apparently Social Security sent out this e-mail yesterday to many Social Security benefits recipients. It didn’t go out to all of them. I’m on retirement benefits and I did not receive it. 

     This is wrong. It’s probably illegal. It’s misleading. The “Big Beautiful Bill” contains no provisions touching on the work done by the Social Security Administration.

Happy July 4th!

 

Taking A Hard Line On Ending Paper Checks

      From Emergency Message EM-25040 released yesterday:

… Effective immediately, the agency will comply with the relevant legal authorities in initial claims by removing references to an option to receive a paper check and directing people who insist on a paper check to apply to Treasury for a waiver.

In compliance with the law and enforced by the recently released EO, the following changes supersede current instructions in GN 02402.001and GN 02402.005 and are effective as of the date of this publication.

1. Updates to GN 02402.001

a. Section C bullet 4 is no longer applicable and has been removed. Effective immediately, technicians should no longer offer a temporary paper check option while waiting for Treasury contact regarding enrollment in electronic funds transfer (EFT) .
b. Section C bullet 5 should read:

“As of March 1, 2013, Title II beneficiaries and Title XVI recipients must select a form of electronic payment or if they allege a qualifying exemption, then apply for a waiver. Treasury is responsible for reviewing the request and making a determination. Instruct the individual to contact the U.S. Treasury Electronic Payment Solution Center at 1-800-967-5042. Currently, SSA cannot accept a waiver application or approve a waiver request. Treasury will contact the individuals directly once they make a determination.”

c. Additionally, field offices are no longer required to maintain a list of financial institutions in their servicing area. …

      This will be much harder to implement than it sounds.

Can We Trust Social Security’s Numbers?

From USA Today:

… Over the last several weeks, the agency has stopped making public 34 real-time performance metrics about things like how long they will have to wait to reach a live person on the phone, and how long applications for new senior benefits or social security benefits take to be approved. The metrics have been used for years to show how time-consuming it can be to reach a live person at certain locations or through the national 1-800 number, and as an accountability measure for the agency.

Instead the webpage now emphasizes how quickly problems can be resolved online, and says the "average speed of answer," which excludes callback wait time, is 19.2 minutes.

USA TODAY reporters called Social Security's 1-800 line multiple times over several days and found the wait times to be consistently over an hour. Multiple times they did not reach a live person before the line disconnected with no warning. …

Concerned that the information now available on the website didn't match what her staff was hearing from constituents, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's staff began conducting its own test of the 1-800 number, making hourly phone calls from June 12 through June 20. 

In a letter Warren sent to Bisignano late on June 25, she called the results of her office survey "deeply troubling." Compared to the number available online, wait times averaged nearly an hour and 45 minutes and often exceeded three hours.

Data from the office survey showed that in 50 calls, more than 50% were never answered by a human. The majority ended when the caller was placed on hold and then the call dropped.

Of calls that were answered, 32% had wait times exceeding two hours. The average wait time was 102 minutes. …

  Jen Burdick, supervising attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, said they haven't seen a reduction in call times.

"Social Security attorneys and paralegals from our office call SSA dozens of times every day. We are uniformly finding that we can't get placed into the queue, either because of system outages, phone disconnects, or AI chatbot issues.  When we do get put into the queue, wait times seem to be up from last year ‒ sometimes more than an hour.  …

     I’m fully expecting no further Congressional hearings on Social Security in this Congress but Commissioner Bisignano could still be subpoenaed to testify about this issue before a Social Security Subcommittee controlled by Democrats in 2027 even if he’s no longer Commissioner. 

Widespread Resurrections Reported But They’re Now Economic Zombies Instead

       From the New York Times:

The Trump administration has backed away from a maneuver in which it sought to classify thousands of living immigrants as dead in a critical Social Security database, part of a strategy to pressure them to self-deport.

In April, the Social Security Administration placed roughly 6,300 migrants whose legal status had been revoked on its “death master file,” a vital data set that gets distributed to banks, lenders and other financial institutions. …

[N]ow the Social Security Administration has reversed course, taking them off the list in a process known internally as being “resurrected,” according to S.S.A. and White House officials.

Instead, the Social Security numbers of the 6,300 migrants are being flagged as “unverified” in a system typically used by financial institutions to check the numbers. The website generates that response when a person’s Social Security number, name or date of birth do not match the agency’s records. That classification is typically used when a Social Security number may be fraudulent, erroneous or mistakenly associated with someone. …

The new approach was spearheaded by Frank Bisignano, the new commissioner of the agency who took over in May, according to an administration official. It comes after the initial decision to put migrants on the death list generated enormous controversy within the agency. At one meeting shortly after the decision was made, senior level S.S.A. officials had voiced widespread “policy, legal and data integrity” concerns about the approach, according to an email summarizing the meeting viewed by The New York Times. …

Social Security To End Enumeration At Birth?

      Whitney Wimbish has written a piece for The American Prospect predicting that the Social Security Administration will end enumeration at birth, the current process that almost automatically assigns a Social Security number to every child born in the U.S. Instead, parents would have to go through some application process. The point would be to prevent assigning Social Security numbers to the children of  non-citizens. 

     This could happen but there are obvious obstacles. Social Security isn’t remotely ready for the workload. Parents would be frustrated by the process. It’s all unconstitutional anyway. The 14th Amendment clearly says that virtually all children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens. 

     The Supreme Court has said the courts can’t issue nationwide injunctions. Great. There are thousands of Social Security attorneys around the country ready to adjudicate this in every district in the country for the Equal Access to Justice Act fees. Easy money. By the time this issue is finally before the Supreme Court, the Trump Administration will wish it had been dealing with a nationwide injunction.

Sounds Sinister

 

    NPR is reporting that the Trump Administration is combining data from several agencies, including the Social Security Administration, to create a searchable database of U.S. citizens, something which has not been done heretofore. One expert described it as a “hair on fire” moment. The immediate purpose of the database is to verify citizenship for voter registration but I’d say there’s zero chance it would stop there. Apparently, there’s been no effort to comply with government privacy rules requiring notices about the creation of new databases and data exchanges.

Another New CIO

Moghaddassi

      From Fedscoop:

The Social Security Administration has moved on to its third chief information officer of the Trump administration, tapping yet another individual with Department of Government Efficiency affiliations. 

According to an update to CIO.gov, a federal page that features IT leaders in the government, Aram Moghaddassi has taken over as SSA’s top IT official after previously working at the agency in a different role. Moghaddassi, who has also worked at the Labor Department, was at one point given access to IT systems at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, FedScoop previously reported. 

Per his LinkedIn profile, Moghaddassi previously worked for two Elon Musk-owned companies: the social media platform X and Neuralink.

Moghaddassi is at least the third DOGE associate to be named CIO at SSA since President Donald Trump took office in January. Mike Russo, a former CIO at Oracle and the payments processing company Shift4, was installed in the position in early February, an agency spokesperson told FedScoop.  …

Employee Fraud In Georgia

       From WDUN in Gainesville, GA:

A former Social Security Administration (SSA) employee from Winder pled guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft. 

According to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore S. Hertzberg, 47-year-old Christina Daniels used her position at the SSA office in Norcross to change the direct deposit information for approximately 28 beneficiaries.  …

The crimes allegedly happened between January 2023 to May 2024. As a customer service representative, Daniels allegedly stole more than $110,000. …