This Affects Few Cases But It’s A Sign Of The Financial Strain At SSA

      From a recent update to Social Security’s POMS manual:

The DDS [Disability Determination Services] has always had jurisdiction for getting consultative examination on Railroad (RR) claims. Due to fiscal processing limitations, the Federal Disability Determination Division Chicago (FDDD) is no longer able to pay for MER requests for RRB Dual Eligibility (D/E) claims. As a result, we need to reach out to the local DDS via an assistance request for that DDS to request and pay for MER. When using our prior legacy system we only reached out to the local DDS to request and pay for CEs. This process and POMS update only applies to RRB D/E claims. The local DDS does not adjudicate the claim …

     Make DDS pay? They’re not exactly rolling in dough themselves. Where I am DDS is already struggling to come up with enough money to pay for medical development in cases over which it has jurisdiction. 

DOGE Handling Of SSA Data About What We Expected — Highly Illegal

      From Politico:

Two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls, the Justice Department revealed in newly disclosed court papers.

Elizabeth Shapiro, a top Justice Department official, said SSA referred both DOGE employees for potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from using their official positions for political purposes.

Shapiro’s previously unreported disclosure, dated Friday, came as part of a list of “corrections” to testimony by top SSA officials during last year’s legal battles over DOGE’s access to Social Security data. They revealed that DOGE team members shared data on unapproved “third-party” servers and may have accessed private information that had been ruled off-limits by a court at the time. …

Shapiro, a longtime DOJ veteran, said it’s not yet clear whether either of the two DOGE team members — who are not identified in her filing – actually shared data with the advocacy group, which is also unidentified. But she said emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.” …

Shapiro also revealed that Steve Davis, a senior adviser to Musk and DOGE’s team, was copied on a March 3, 2025 email that included a password-protected file containing private information of about 1,000 people contained in Social Security systems. It’s unclear, she said, whether Davis ever accessed the file. And Shapiro said current SSA employees have been unable to access the file to determine precisely what it contained. …

A Poll

 

Put A Stake Through Its Heart

      From The Fulcrum:

We reported in the Fulcrum on November 30th that in early November, disability advocates walked out of the West Wing, believing they had secured a rare reversal from the Trump administration of an order that stripped disability benefits from more than 800,000 older manual laborers.

The public record has remained conspicuously quiet on the matter. No press release, no Federal Register notice, no formal statement from the White House or the Social Security Administration has confirmed what senior officials told Jason Turkish and his colleagues behind closed doors in November: that the administration would not move forward with a regulation that could have stripped disability benefits from more than 800,000 older manual laborers. According to a memo shared by an agency official and verified by multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions, an internal meeting in early November involved key SSA decision-makers outlining the administration's intent to halt the proposal. This memo, though not publicly released, is said to detail the political and social ramifications of proceeding with the regulation, highlighting its unpopularity among constituents who would be affected by the changes. …

For advocates, the lack of formal withdrawal is both reassuring and unsettling. Reassuring because every signal from inside the agency still points to the same conclusion: the rule is dormant. Unsettling because the decision that affects hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Americans exists only in private assurances, not in public commitments. As one advocate put it, 'We were told it was dead. But nothing is dead in Washington until it’s buried.' …

     We’ll be able to tell this is officially dead when it’s removed from the Regulatory Agenda but that’s only updated quarterly and I don’t think there’s been an update since we were told this is dead.  In any case, in theory, this could come back quickly if they really wanted to bring it back but it’s really radioactive. There have never been more than a few ideologues who wanted the change. I think I know enough about this subject to say definitively that all hell would break loose if this plan were adopted.

Charming Fellow

      From USA Today:

A man caught on video verbally berating a security guard and yelling racial slurs outside a Social Security office in an Atlanta suburb has been arrested, police say. …

Robert Burke, 65, was identified as the man at the center of a viral video showing him being escorted from the Social Security office as he threatened to physically harm the security guard. …

Burke is heard telling the security guard to "take a shot (expletive)" and saying he would "beat the (expletive)" out of him.

"I'm a (expletive) citizen," Burke continues, and then he refers to the security guard, who is Black, using a racial slur repeatedly.

As he walks into the parking lot, he yells back to the guard "What are you going to do, it's free speech" before continuing to use expletives and slurs. …

While this may have been the most explosive encounter, employees of the Social Security office told police Burke had been a problem before and had caused previous disturbances at that location. …

Status Of SSA Appropriation

      The Congressional Research Service has issued a report on the status of Social Security’s appropriation for the current fiscal year.  Technically, it’s about the agency’s Limitation on Administrative Expenditures (LAE) but, in effect, it’s about the appropriation. The report is as dry as dust but, like all appropriations matters, it’s vitally important. Here’s a table from the report:

Annual LAE	FY2025 Enacted	FY2026 Commissioner's Budget	FY2026 President's Budget	FY2026 House Committee	FY2026 Senate Committee	FY2026 Enacted
Dollar amount	$14,299	$14,793	$14,793	$14,793	$14,893
Dollar difference relative to FY2025 enacted	—	+$494	+$494	+$494	+$594
Percentage change relative to FY2025 enacted	—	+3.5%	+3.5%	+3.5%	+4.2%

Low Pay For Frontline Employees

      From Federal News Network:

More than half of the Social Security Administration’s frontline employees are earning less than what’s necessary to afford a basic standard of living in their communities, according to a new report.

Released Wednesday by the Strategic Organizing Center, a research partner for the American Federation of Government Employees, the report found 54% of the 36,000 frontline SSA employees represented by AFGE were paid less than a living wage for their geographic region. A living wage is the minimum income needed for an individual to afford the minimum standard of living in their community. …

U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

      From The Economic Times of India:

… According to a global comparison conducted by HR and payroll specialists at Moorepay, the United States ranks outside the top 10 when it comes to how well Social Security payments cover basic living costs, as per a report by The Express. …

The study showed that several countries far exceed the U.S. in how much their pensions cover living costs. Kuwait ranked first, with pensions covering more than 566% of basic expenses. Bahrain followed at 253%, while Luxembourg, Italy, and Finland also ranked high, each covering more than double the average cost of living. 

Other countries rounding out the top 10 included Spain, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Germany, all of which surpassed the U.S. in pension strength relative to living expenses. …

A Bipartisan Bill — Amazing

      From a press release:

Today, House Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member John B. Larson (CT-01) released the following statement after House passage of S. 269, bipartisan legislation that allows the Department of Treasury’s Do Not Pay system to use the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) death records in order to help stop erroneous payments to deceased individuals. After today’s passage, the bill goes to the President’s desk to be signed into law.  

Importantly, the bill contains a provision to prevent the Social Security Administration from meddling with death records to target residents. Last year, the Trump Administration was caught using the Social Security Death Master File to pressure thousands of immigrants with legal status to leave the country, effectively marking them as dead and cutting off their access to the financial system. At the time, Ranking Member Larson decried this abuse of power and called on Congress to act. S. 269 adds explicit protections to the law to prohibit SSA from recording a death unless the individual is actually deceased.  …

“Financial Hardship And Emotional Distress”

      From Follow-up on Claims Denied Because Claimants Were Not Insured for Benefits, a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… This audit is a follow up to our 2016 review of Retirement Claim Denials Because of Lack of Insured Status.  

Generally, to be insured for retirement benefits, a claimant must have 40 quarters of covered earnings and have attained age 62. SSA employees should not deny a retirement claim if the claimant is not insured for benefits at the time of filing but will become insured within 4 months and evidence of the earnings is available.  

We obtained the records of 450,209 retirement claims filed between May 2014 and June 2023 that SSA employees determined the claimants lacked insured status. From this, we identified 4,077 claimants who may have been insured because they had 40 or more quarters of coverage in the year of filing. Of the 100 claimants in our sample, SSA employees denied retirement claims for 43 who alleged lag earnings when they filed their claims, were fully insured, and entitled to retirement benefits but employees did not consider their lag earnings. Despite reminders issued to employees after our prior review, employees denied the retirement claims because they determined the claimants lacked insured status; however, the claimants had lag earnings when they filed their claims.  

Based on sample results, we estimate, from May 2014 to June 2023, employees denied retirement benefits to 1,753 claimants who were insured for benefits. Of these, 1,347 claimants were entitled to over $3 million in retirement benefits.  

Without controls and processes to ensure employees identify, review, and document lag earnings, SSA will continue denying millions of dollars in retirement benefits to claimants who should be receiving them. Depriving retired individuals of the benefits to which they are entitled could have a significant and harmful effect on beneficiaries, including financial hardship and emotional distress. …

     This problem is not limited to retirement claims. I’d say it’s more common in disability claims. 

Which Is His Day Job?

      From Tax Notes:

IRS CEO Frank Bisignano is positioned to lead the tax agency through the next filing season and beyond, according to observers.

After seeing seven different commissioners — including one who underwent a full-length confirmation process — the IRS ended 2025 with a leader whose position didn’t exist two months ago. …

Scams Way Down Since 2020

      Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a Quarterly Scam Update. It says it’s the 18th such update but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. 

     The report shows that Social Security scams reached a peak in 2020 but went way down in 2022 and have stayed much lower. Maybe the Trump Administration will claim credit for the reduction.Surprisingly, at least to me, those under the age of 50 were the most likely to be scammed but older people showed larger losses.

Social Security Planning To Nationalize Claims Taking

      From Federal News Network:

The Social Security Administration is rolling out nationwide systems in the coming months that will impact how the agency schedules appointments for initial claims and triages its workload to employees.

SSA employees told Federal News Network that they’re used to processing claims submitted locally, but will soon tackle a nationwide inventory of cases.

Employees are wary that these changes will introduce more complexity to their workloads, as well as a higher risk of overpayments that SSA would have to claw back.

“Someone who applies in California could be speaking to an SSA rep in Maine,” one SSA employee said. …

[A] SSA employee said staff were briefed on these changes this week. The employee said staff submitted multiple requests to management seeking clarification on these points, but were told to “worry about today, not tomorrow.” …

Doing Less With Less

      The Strategic Organizing Center, which I’m unfamiliar with, has issued a report on the state of service at the Social Security Administration. It’s a discouraging read. Staffing is down and it’s far from uniform. Some states and areas within states have lost far more than others. I’d give you some excerpts but it seems to be set up to block copying. Read the original.

Bisignano With Newly Sworn In Deputy Commissioner Arjun Mody

  

From Twitter (X)

Former Social Security Running For Office

     From News From The States:

Lauren Reinhold, a longtime federal employee at the Social Security Administration, was swept up in Elon Musk’s DOGE purge of federal employees. Colin McRoberts, a professor at the University of Kansas business school, was inspired to run for office after attending Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall’s contentious March 1 town hall in Oakley.

Both Reinhold and McRoberts believe they can overcome the long odds Democrats have faced in the district by taking aim at Mann’s willingness to support an unpopular Republican agenda.

“We were promised: ‘Things are going to be better for you.’ And I’m just one person, but they certainly were not better for me,” Reinhold said.

“I was lied to. I was told my prices would be lower,” she added. “I was told that things would be better for my kids. I was told they would fix health care. And it’s been a year, and none of that’s happened.” …

Live View Of Social Security Employee At Work

 

An Agency Response

      Social Security has a response to the “fake news” Washington Post article about the deterioration of service at the agency published by the Daily Caller, a far right wing publication. (The Daily Caller was the best you could do?)  It amounts to saying that if you just rely on what is presented in Social Security’s press releases, you have to admit that things are getting better and better. “Who are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?”

It's Over

 

Happy New Year