ERE Down

      I am hearing reports that Social Security’s ERE system that allows attorneys representing claimants access to their clients’ files and the ability to upload medical and other records is down this morning. I don’t know whether it’s working for agency employees.

Advances For My SSA Accounts But Problems Persist

      From NextGov/FCW:

… The Social Security Administration hit its target of reaching 105 million 'my Social Security' accounts — an online portal Americans use to access services — by the end of the month, an agency spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW on Friday. The agency now aims to reach 110 million by the end of next September, per a strategic plan released in August. 

But that 110 million goal is far less lofty than the target SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told Congress about last year: 200 million online accounts by the end of 2026.

The SSA spokesperson said the agency continues to strive for 200 million my Social Security account holders, but they did not offer a target date. …

Adults generally interact with SSA in very specific moments of their lives, which explains much of the tepid adoption in the younger age bracket, Arabella Crawford, a civic tech consultant and Tech Viaduct contributor, told Nextgov/FCW. Those moments include turning 65, being diagnosed with a disability or changing their legal name, she explained. …

Many [potential claimants] are also not technologically savvy, lack internet access or have disabilities that make it difficult to use technology …

Clients ran into issues using my Social Security accounts’ digital identity verification services, she explained. For example, some clients found it difficult to use video proofing on ID.me — a digital identity validation service used across several agencies — while others had to wait for the government’s in-house option, Login.gov, to send codes through the mail, she said. …

How Much Money Is Paid To MEs And VEs?

      Social Security has posted data showing how much is being paid to each individual or entity providing testimony for the agency as Vocational Experts (VEs) or Medical Experts (MEs) at hearings on disability claims.

     Let me note a couple of things. First, the entities probably include more than one VE or ME. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but I think some of the VEs and MEs let an entity handle the paperwork for them in exchange for a cut of the fees. Second, don’t take these numbers as gospel. Social Security also posts numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and law firms representing claimants before the agency. I deliberately don’t post links to these numbers since they have always contained inaccuracies that were obvious to me. I know the rough size of some firms and the numbers given for those firms align poorly with what I know. I don’t know about the VE or ME numbers.

Not All Children Paid Properly

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

… The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program provides monthly benefits to retired and disabled workers and their dependents as well as the survivors of deceased workers. The minor child of an insured worker may receive Social Securitybenefits until they reach age 18. A child beneficiary may continue receiving benefits after they reach age 18 if they qualify as a student beneficiary. …

We identified 521,393 beneficiaries who were entitled to student benefits for 1 or more months from January 2022 through December 2024. We randomly selected 100 of these beneficiaries to determine whether SSA accurately paid student benefits to eligible beneficiaries.  Of the 100 beneficiaries we reviewed, SSA correctly paid benefits to 71 in accordance with policy. However, SSA did not correctly pay benefits to 17 beneficiaries. In addition, SSA did not retain documentation to support benefit payments to 12 beneficiaries. SSA did not correctly pay benefits to 17 beneficiaries as follows.

 For nine, beneficiaries and school officials did not provide SSA accurate or current school attendance information that affected eligibility for student benefits, and SSA was unaware the information contained errors.

 For eight, SSA employees did not correctly use available school attendance and graduation information to determine the duration of student benefit eligibility.

In addition, SSA employees did not retain completed Forms SSA-1372 for 12 of the 100 beneficiaries, as required. Without evidence, we could not determine whether the individual  were entitled to the student benefits SSA paid them. As a result, SSA improperly paid beneficiaries $49,447 and could not support an additional $93,466 in benefit payments. Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA improperly paid approximately $211 million to about 89,000 beneficiaries. In addition, we estimate SSA made approximately $342 million in unsupported payments to about 63,000 student beneficiaries. …

I Have Never Heard Of This Kind Of Fraud Before

      From Clickon Detroit:

A Detroit-area mother allegedly kept nearly $30,000 in Social Security benefits intended for her son -- even bringing an imposter to a medical appointment to keep the money coming in, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Keshaune Pace, a.k.a. Keshaune Jenkins of Eastpointe, is accused of theft of government funds and Social Security representative payee fraud. The complaint filed Sept. 18 covered the period from July 2021 through October 2024.

Pace began receiving Social Security benefits on behalf of her son after applying for benefits when he was four years old, according to the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General.

The benefits were based on alleged mental disabilities, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. As her son’s representative payee, Pace was required to use the money for his care and report changes that could affect his eligibility, including changes in his living arrangements and income.

Investigators say her son moved out of Pace’s home in or around July 2021, a few months before his 18th birthday. School records later indicated he was living outside his mother’s custody and was considered an unaccompanied homeless youth.

But Pace continued receiving the benefits, the feds said. …

In January 2023, Pace allegedly took someone other than her son to a psychiatric consultative examination required as part of a review of his continuing eligibility for benefits.

The person who appeared at the examination was listed as 6 feet tall, while her son is 5 feet 7 inches, according to the feds. The person claimed to hear voices and said, “I need help for the voices in my head,” court records said. …

When the examiner allegedly asked Pace why there had not been any treatment since her son was 14 years old, Pace said, “It’s hard to get him out. Transportation is hard.”

The examiner questioned the person’s performance and described him as a “very poor historian” who “seemed to be greatly exaggerating.” The examiner also found that the person’s full-scale IQ score of 48 was invalid because it was inconsistent with records showing her son had been in regular education and had not received special education services.

Investigators said Pace eventually admitted the person she brought to the examination was not her son, saying she did it “to keep the benefits from being stopped.” …

More About Punishing Federal Employees

      From Government Executive:

Senate Democrats are warning that new limits on annual leave and sick time at the IRS and the Social Security Administration will push more employees out the door, making it harder for Americans to get assistance from these agencies.  …

In a letter to Frank Bisignano, the IRS chief executive officer and Senate-confirmed commissioner of SSA, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. led colleagues in denouncing this new policy as a “cruel and unjustified plan that is likely to drive additional employees out the door, doubling down on the administration’s already disastrous efforts to push out federal employees.”  …

“Your actions give the appearance that this policy is less about improving service delivery, and more about punishing federal employees — and by extension, the American people,” the senators wrote. …

Sound Familiar?

      From Government Executive:

An IRS watchdog is taking a closer look at the agency’s temporary reassignment of mid-career employees to frontline entry-level jobs many of them had no prior experience doing.  … 

The IRS cut tens of thousands of jobs last year — more than a quarter of its workforce — and fell short of its hiring goals for this year’s filing season.  

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano said the IRS carried out a successful filing season this year, despite losing more than 25,000 employees. He told the House Ways and Means Committee in March that “I feel good about the number of employees I have right now.”  … 

Employees placed on these involuntary details are doing jobs several pay grades below the work they were hired to perform, but continue to receive their regular paychecks. In practice, the IRS is paying them double or triple what a normal customer service representative or tax examiner would make.  … 

Several impacted IRS employees told Government Executive that the initial details were involuntary, they have received insufficient training and support for this work, and they have no clear idea what work is available to them at the IRS if they leave these details. 

According to two IRS employees currently on details, the agency is looking for volunteers to remain in taxpayer services for a third 120-day tour of duty. Employees who complete a third stint would be away from their day jobs for nearly a year. But these employees say the agency is giving them few alternatives. Both previously worked in IT roles at the agency, and have been told they cannot return to their former jobs.  … 

In May, IRS Chief Human Capital Officer Alex Kweskin acknowledged that some employees on temporary details were unhappy with their current arrangements, and encouraged them to apply for other roles within the agency. Employees, however, said they have applied for other 2210-classified IT positions at the IRS, only for those job announcements to be cancelled days later.    …

Office Openings On Holidays?

      From Govly:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is implementing significant changes to workforce scheduling and holiday staffing policies to address operational backlogs and staffing shortages. These changes include offering overtime work on federal holidays with telework options, testing office openings on holidays with holiday pay incentives, and reportedly eliminating credit hours in favor of fixed shifts. These adjustments reflect SSA's efforts to improve operational efficiency amid ongoing workforce challenges and reduced staffing levels.SSA's holiday overtime offerings and potential holiday office openings signal increased demand for flexible staffing solutions and may affect contract labor planning and telework arrangements. …

• The elimination of credit hours and move to fixed shifts at SSA could impact contractor workforce management, requiring adjustments to labor scheduling and compliance with new agency policies.
• Procurement professionals should monitor these evolving workforce policies as they may influence contract performance metrics, labor cost structures, and staffing requirements for SSA and related federal agencies.
• The CECOM pilot program suggests potential future shifts in federal workforce scheduling practices that contractors supporting DoD components should consider in operational planning. …

Return Of The Conn Cases

      I am hearing reports that Social Security has gone back to adjudicating cases left behind in the wake of the Eric Conn fiasco. Conn was an attorney in Kentucky who was found guilty of bribing an ALJ to approve his clients’ Social Security disability cases. The agency tried to cut off benefits to all claimants involved but this engendered litigation which led to readjudications of the cases which the claimants mostly won. Attorneys all over the country, including me, were involved in representing these claimants. I think it was apparent to all involved that none of the claimants had any knowledge of what Conn was up to and that the overwhelming majority of the claimants involved would have won anyway. The claimants looked more like victims than fraudsters. I’ve often wondered why Conn would have paid bribes. He didn’t need to do it. Maybe the bribes were solicited. Who knows? In any case, it’s still bribery.

     The agency stopped action on the Conn cases a few years ago. I don’t know why they’re going back now. A high percentage of these claimants are of retirement age now. Few could actually be cut off benefits. They waive overpayments in these cases. There’s no value to the agency in a retroactive cessation if the claimant stays on benefits and the overpayment is waived. The cost benefit ratio for these cases is probably below zero for the agency.      

     By the way, while I’m retired, those claimants will mostly, if not entirely, get pro bono representation this time around as well. That network hasn’t gone away. The old gang is getting back together.

      It’s not like the agency lacks other work to do. My impression has been that most at Social Security were happy to let this sleeping dog lie. 

     If you’re not familiar with the cases it looks awful that people could be allowed to profit from fraud. Up close the cases look different. The claimants are quite sympathetic.

It Keeps Getting Worse

      Social Security has posted the Caseload Analysis Report for its hearing function for this month. Same old same old.  The number of ALJs continue to decline as backlogs continue to grow. More cases are pending for extreme lengths of time. And this is despite lots of overtime.

OIG Report On SSI Claimants With More Than One Car

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

SSA considers recipients’ resources when determining eligibility for SSI. While SSA generally excludes one vehicle per household from countable resources, additional vehicles may affect a recipient’s eligibility for SSI payments. SSA relies on recipients to report the vehicles they own and changes in vehicle ownership.

We reviewed 208 SSI recipients to determine whether recipients accurately reported their vehicle ownership to SSA and whether the Agency properly valued multiple vehicles when recipients reported owning more than one.

Of the 208 SSI recipients we reviewed, 154 (74 percent)accurately reported their vehicle ownership. However, public records indicated 54 recipients (26 percent) owned vehicles they did not report. For 8 recipients, the additional vehicles caused their countable resources to exceed SSI eligibility limits, resulting in $40,474 in payments for which they were ineligible. Based on our results, we estimate SSA overpaid approximately 660 recipients $435,000 because inaccurately reported vehicle ownership affected their SSI eligibility. …

I once had a client on SSI with, I think it was 29 cars in his name. His history was that he bought the absolutely cheapest used car he could find and did no maintenance or repair on it. When the car stopped running, he would abandon it on his rural property.  He considered the cars worthless and he was probably right. He never turned in the titles on the cars. I told him to turn in the car titles and talk with Social Security. I knew that, at least, he would be eligible from that point on. Social Security agreed that the cars had been worthless and there was no overpayment. You may think this must have been some sort of scam but he seemed quite believable to me and to Social Security. Life is different in poor rural areas.

Pain Matters

      The New York Times has a piece out about a man who, after years of battling to get the workers compensation and Social Security disability benefits he deserved, committed suicide. The reason he had such a hard time getting benefits was that he had the misfortune of developing a chronic pain syndrome after a very real on the job injury. His MRIs and other tests were negative but he was still in horrible pain. Because his tests were negative his pain meant nothing to Social Security. However, if you’ve worked long with the Social Security disability program and take your work seriously you know there is such a thing as chronic pain syndrome and that it’s a terrible thing with little correlation to physical tests although it clearly correlates with psychiatric exams. Those psychiatric effects may be more a result of the pain than its cause. This man’s suicide is proof of the high stakes in Social Security disability determinations. 

OIG Concerned By AI Enabled Fraud

      From GovCio:

The Social Security Administration is coordinating with federal agencies to combat a growing threat from AI-enabled fraud as criminals increasingly use deepfakes and other emerging technologies to impersonate people and trusted institutions. 

As the federal government has moved quickly to adopt artificial intelligence, criminal groups have also embraced the technology, said Chad Bungard, chief strategy officer in SSA’s Office of Inspector General, at an event hosted by GovExec in Washington D.C. Tuesday. 

Bungard said rapidly advancing deepfake technology that can realistically mimic human voices and images has fueled fraud schemes targeting SSA. These schemes include attempts to change direct-deposit information, spoof identities and impersonate trusted institutions, sometimes using the names of real employees to appear legitimate. 

Citing data from Deloitte and Accenture, Bungard said losses from deepfake-enabled fraud are projected to reach $40.1 billion by 2027. 

“It’s something we have to take seriously,” he said. …

Surprised The Trump Administration Didn’t Pour It Down The Drain

      From a contracting notice posted by Social Security:

Request for Quotation for the disposal of surplus alcohol-based hand sanitizer for Social Security Administration (SSA) facilities nationwide at approximately 20 locations. SSA has a hazardous waste surplus of expired alcohol-based hand sanitizer from the COVID-19 epidemic, which requires disposal. The disposal must be completed in accordance with the laws as required by the Federal, State, and Local Environmental Laws.

Is This Accurate?

      I received this message from a reader.

In case you and NOSSCR are not aware of it, in the last few days SSA has reversed a long standing policy that will potentially have major implications and may introduce legal liability to 3rd party representatives. On claims, SSA will no longer recognize a protective filing for a spouse or children listed on a claim unless the NH puts a statement in the remarks of the application expressing an intent to file on behalf of the spouse/children. I haven't seen this POMS, and I don't know if it is being implemented retroactively or prospectively going forward. Legal reps might have liability if they list the spouse/kids but fail to add the intent to file language to the application remarks. This is obviously a thinly veiled attempt to deny a protective filing to spouses/children of people filing claims. The office I retired from told me they are planning a training session on it very soon.

POMS GN 00204.010 contains the new policy. It has apparently been in place since 04/27/2026. The prior policy applies up to 04/26/2026.

     The claims forms ask for a list of children and a spouse. I don’t know how you could not interpret that as an intention to file a claim for them. 

     There have been problems in the pst when a claimant fails to list all the children, usually for malicious reasons relating to a divorce, but sometimes because the child was born after the claim was filed. That problem is probably a direct result of the statute and regulations rather than anything intended to be harsh.

     If we’re talking about harsh and malicious, what the reader is talking about would definitely be a serious gotcha that I would call harsh and malicious. I have a hard time believing this could happen but it’s hard to put anything past this Administration. I think they could not prevail in Court on this.

Two Agencies With A Similar Problem

      From an article in the New York Times:

… The Trump administration has held up the publication of an annual Internal Revenue Service estimate of unpaid taxes, a delay that could mask the fiscal cost of the steep decline in the agency’s ability to audit the rich. 

The I.R.S. has long published an estimate of the tax gap, the amount of tax owed under existing law that goes uncollected each year.  … 

The shift comes after the Trump administration pushed out roughly a quarter of the I.R.S. work force and cut the agency’s budget, weakening the government’s ability to conduct time-intensive audits.  … 

The absence of an updated tax gap estimate is part of a pattern across the Trump administration, which has either stopped collecting or sought to change the measurement of federal data that scientists and other researchers have long relied on for a rigorous, unvarnished understanding of the country.  … 

An I.R.S. spokesman said the agency was updating the methodologies used to calculate the tax gap and would release the figure when it was ready. Mr. Bisignano, in a statement, said revenue from tax enforcement was increasing this year and did not depend on the number of auditors. … 

“Without a metric of the tax gap that is telling us in real time about trends in compliance and how they’re changing, I worry that it’s hard for policymakers to see the full swath of the damage that’s been done by the gutting of the agency,” said Natasha Sarin, a Treasury official during the Biden administration who has written extensively about the tax gap. “And, in fact, I worry that’s the point.” …  

In appearances before Congress in the spring, Mr. Bisignano, the first chief executive officer of the I.R.S., suggested that he was skeptical of the methodology behind the tax gap, saying that he wanted to focus on the subset of unpaid taxes that the I.R.S. could realistically collect. …

     Sound familiar? Cut staff to the point an agency cannot fulfill its core responsibilities, refuse to release statistics showing how bad things have gotten and try to come up with your own tortured statistics making it look as if things aren’t as bad as they really are. Bisignano is at the helm of two agencies doing this but it sounds like the problem is government wide.

And The Problem Will Just Get Worse Until The Agency Gets More Employees

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

… To maintain accurate earnings information, SSA uses the earnings alert system to identify discrepancies between a recipient’s reported and actual wages. A discrepancy occurs when a recipient’s actual earnings differ from the earnings SSA used to calculate the SSI payment.

We identified 417,291 SSI recipients who had at least 1 pending earnings alert on their record as of September 2024. We randomly selected 100 of these recipients to determine whether SSA took appropriate action to resolve the alerts. 

SSA employees resolved earnings alerts for 20 of the 100 recipients we reviewed. However, Agency employees did not resolve earnings alerts for 80 recipients who had at least 1 earnings alert pending as of September 2024.

• For 63 recipients SSA employees did not start reviews of 37 earnings alerts and did not complete their reviews of 26 earnings alerts. As of April 2025, the 63 earnings alerts remained pending.
• For 17 recipients, SSA employees cleared the earnings alerts but did not verify and record all earnings that affected the SSI payment amounts.. their reviews of 26 earnings alerts. As of April 2025, the 63 earnings alerts remained pending.  …

Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA paid about 333,800 recipients approximately $1 billion that they would not have been eligible to receive had the Agency properly considered and fully developed their unreported earnings when it determined their SSI eligibility and associated payment amounts. .

A Poll

 

More From Chat GPT

 I’ve asked Chat GPT about Commissioner Bisignano’s real estate holdings. Unfortunately, there are layout problems I don’t know how to correct. It still seems worth posting despite the way it looks.

How many homes does Frank Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security, own and where are they located?

According to Frank J. Bisignano’s public federal financial-disclosure filing, he reported 11 residential properties. The filing does not necessarily mean all are personally titled in his name; several are held through LLCs or trusts in which he reports an ownership interest. 

Location	Number	Description in disclosure
Mantoloking, New Jersey	1	Residential rental property
Montclair, New Jersey	1	Residential rental property
Westfield, New Jersey	1	Residential rental property
Watchung, New Jersey	1	Residential rental real estate
New York City, New York	4	Units identified as 19-B, PH1F-G, 25F and 6-H
Emerald Isle, North Carolina	1	Residential rental property
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina	1	Residential rental property
Bachelor Gulch, Colorado	1	Residential rental/vacation property
Total	11

The filing also reports vacant land in Watchung, New Jersey, which I have not counted as a home. It separately reports a commercial rental property in Watchung, also not counted. 

A few important qualifications:

• The Bachelor Gulch, Colorado property was acquired in 2024 and was described as a rental/vacation property that had not yet been rented when the disclosure was filed. 
• The Watchung residential property and the four New York properties are reported under MAH Realty Management LLC, with the filing indicating that a trust owns a one-third interest in the assets listed under that entity. 
• The disclosure lists values rather than street addresses. I would not infer or provide private residential street addresses from other property records.
• SSA confirms that Bisignano is currently the agency’s 18th Senate-confirmed Commissioner and that he resides in New Jersey. 
• Break down the value of those properties.

Break down the values of those properties.

Yes. I reviewed the underlying OGE Form 278e financial disclosure rather than relying on the summary. The disclosure gives value ranges, not exact appraised values. 

Bisignano’s reported residential real estate

Property	Reported value
Mantoloking, NJ	$1,000,001 - $5,000,000
Montclair, NJ	$500,00 - $1,000,000
Westfield, NJ	$1,000,000 - $5,000,000
Watchung, NJ	$5,000,001 - $25,000,000
New York City 19-B	$1,000,001 - $5,000,000
New York City PH1F-G	$5,000,001 - $25,000,000
New York City 25F	$1,000,001 - $5,000,000
New York City 6-H	$500,001 - $1,000,000
Emerald Isle, NC	$1,000,001 - $5,000,000
Atlantic Beach, NC	$1,000,001 - $5,000,000
Bachelor Gulch, CO	$5,000,001 - $25,000,000

The individual figures are directly from the disclosure. 

Total reported value

Adding the ranges gives a combined reported property value of approximately $18 million to $87 million.

There is an important wrinkle, however: the disclosure says that 2020 Trust 1 owns a one-third interest in the Watchung and four New York properties.  Thus, the $5–25 million Watchung figure and the four NYC figures represent the reported value of the underlying real estate, not necessarily the value of Bisignano’s personal beneficial interest.

The Bachelor Gulch property is particularly notable: it was purchased in 2024 for purposes of being a rental/vacation property and had not yet been rented as of the date of the filing. It was reported at $5,000,001–$25,000,000. 

Also, I would correct one point from my previous answer: the Watchung property is described in the filing as residential rental real estate, while a separate Watchung property is commercial real estate. The commercial property is worth $5,000,001–$25,000,000 but is not included in the 11 residential properties above. 

If you want, I can next calculate Bisignano’s estimated personal equity in each property, taking into account the disclosed mortgages and the one-third trust interests, which gives a much more meaningful picture of what the properties are actually worth to him.