Telework Thread

     I'm tired of deleting comments from readers who try to post their views about telework in response to every post I make, whether telework is relevant to what I posted or not. So, here is a post about telework. I don't have anything to say about it. Unlike most of my readers I don't have strong feelings about it. I just want to let readers speak their minds about telework. Have at it. Make endless, tedious, pointless comments if you want and let the comments on the other posts be about those posts.

Just For One Person

    Here's a note intended only for one person. You're trying to post comments under the name "Admin." You're pretending to be me but you're not me. I'm not going to allow any comment you try to post to ever appear, you jackass!

Recent Posts For Frustrated Disability Claimants

      I and my partner continue posting on the firm's separate blog directed at a different audience -- For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. Take a look at the recent posts on that blog. 

• I'm On Social Security Disability. I've Gotten Even Sicker. Can I Get A Higher Benefit?

• Arthritis

• "I Can't Afford To File For Social Security Disability. I HAVE To Get Back To Work"

• Lumbees And Social Security Disability Benefits

• Skin Disorders

• Can I Get Social Security Disability For Anxiety?

• What Are "Back" Social Security Disability Benefits?

• It Takes An Immigrant To Point Out Just How Awful This Situation Is

• Cancer

• LTD And Social Security Disability

• Wow! Funny And Incisive View Of Social Security Disability!

• Are Social Security Disability Benefits Taxable?

• Diabetes

• Are You Ashamed To Be Disabled?

• 10 Things A Disability Lawyer Can Do For You

• Liver Disease

• What Does It Mean When My Social Security Account Tells Me That They're 70% Finished Reviewing My Disability Claim?

• Can I File for My Social Security Disability?

On That Other Blog

    I continue posting on my firm's separate blog directed at a different audience -- For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. Take a look at some of the recent posts on that blog.  

• Disabled Widow And Widower Benefits
• Auto-Immune Disorders
• What Are Disabled Adult Child Benefits?
• What Is Disability Insurance Benefits?
• Fibromyalgia
• How Do I Dress For A Social Security Disability Hearing?
• What Is SSI?
• Your Medical Condition
• Avoid Unnecessary Payment Delays
• Why Is There A Waiting Period?
• FAQs On Consultative Examinations
• Help Yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singapore?

The Singapore Skyline

     I recently looked at the analytics on this board which give me a lot of information about visitors to this board, such as their operating system and which search engine they used if they used a search engine. Don't worry. Even if I were interested, I couldn't identify individual visitors. It's far from that detailed. 

    The analytics included a list of the hits on this blog from various countries. Here's what it shows as the top countries for a one week time period:

• United States 11.2K
• Singapore 6.56K
• Hong Kong 103
• Germany 56
• Australia 28
• Canada 19
• United Kingdom 19
• Russia 15
• Spain 7

    Apart from the U.S., you'd expect random hits from most of these countries. Hong Kong seems a bit high but who knows? However, Singapore really stands out. It only has a population of about six million. How many of the residents of that small, but wealthy, city state at the tip of the Malay Peninsula could possibly be interested in U.S. Social Security matters?

    My guess is that traffic from other countries -- probably the U.S. -- is being routed through Singapore for some arcane reason, perhaps through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) located in Singapore. I didn't know there were that many VPN users inside the U.S. There are other uses but VPNs are what you use when you're in China or Russia and you're trying to avoid government censorship. 

    Who knows? Maybe Google Analytics is hallucinating and those aren't real hits. Anybody have a guess?

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.

More Details On Plan To Reduce Overpayment Harshness

     From a press release:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley today announced he is taking four vital steps to immediately address overpayment issues customers and the agency have experienced. ...

1. Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
2. We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment.
3. For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources, and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months).
4. And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay. ...

    You may recall that on January 4 I posted on What Can Social Security Do About Overpayments If It Really Wants To? There's much similarity between what I posted then and what the Commissioner announced. I doubt that my post had anything to do with what Social Security decided to do. Both they and I were looking at statutes and regulations to see what could be done about the overpayment problems that were on the news and on the minds of members of Congress. We both came to much the same conclusion that there was plenty that could be done, especially with the "against equity and good conscience" provision in the statute. 

    By the way, I've read comments saying that Social Security is required by statutes and regulations to collect 100% of the benefits of an overpaid individual until they collect the overpayment, making the Commissioner's announcement illegal. Look at what I posted on January 4. There's ample wiggle room to default to a 10% repayment schedule as the Commissioner announced. It's pretty straight forward.

Reaction To O'Malley's Decision On Telework

     Tom Temin at Federal News Network has a piece up on the new Commissioner's e-mail to staff decreasing telework for some employees. He is kind enough to refer to this blog by name as "reliable." He quotes several comments made to the post.

    Erich Wagner at Government Executive has a longer piece on the e-mail, particularly to the reaction of Rich Couture, chief negotiator for the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents most Social Security employees. Couture expressed relief at what O'Malley had done. The article says that only 4,000 bargaining unit employees would be affected by the announcement. Here's a quote from Couture:

AFGE is pleased to see [O’Malley] is maintaining telework at current levels, and it’s clear that the commissioner recognizes the importance of telework for workers and their work-life balance, as well as its importance for retention and recruitment efforts,” Couture said. “We’re still in a public service crisis fueled by understaffing and attrition, and one way to maintain staffing levels is by offering telework. A commitment to continuing current telework levels for those employees is critical to keeping the agency’s ability to serve the public intact by keeping our employees working here.

     After almost 100 comments, I cut off commenting on the original post since the comments had become so repetitive but, still, I don't think anyone mentioned something about O'Malley's e-mail that caught my eye. Before signing his name to the e-mail, the Commissioner included the phrase "Yours in solidarity." That word, "solidarity," has long been associated with labor unions.

Yet Another Golden Oldie

     A post on this blog on June 9, 2020:

    The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has issued a brief report recommending that the Social Security Administration "use evidence-based measures to evaluate access to agency services" which isn't the most exciting recommendation you'll find even in the context of government advisory board reports. There's another more complete report which adds detail. However, the brief report includes this chart which I think is far more interesting than the text in either report. (Click on the image to view full size.)

  

    What I get from this is that the dramatic increase in internet services provided by the Social Security Administration has had almost no effect upon the demand for services provided in person or over the telephone. 

     The idea that Social Security can wean the public off personal service so that in the future the public will just deal with the agency through its online services is bunk. There's no reason to expect that's ever going to work. By all means, provide online services but don't expect that online services will ever replace field offices and telephone service.

He Didn't See It Coming

     From this blog on July 9, 2021:

President Fires Saul And Black

      With no fanfare, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice issued an opinion yesterday that the President may remove the Commissioner of Social Security from office notwithstanding the statutory provisions limiting removal from office. An opinion had been requested by the Deputy Counsel for the President.

     Update: Senator Grassley has tweeted that he's hearing that the President may oust Andrew Saul from his position as Commissioner. Senator McConnell has retweeted this saying "httI agree with @ChuckGrassley. This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration."

     Further update: I've received several reports that there was a blast e-mail to Social Security employees at 4:30 today from an Acting Commissioner of Social Security indicating that Saul and Black are gone.

     And another update: The Washington Post reports that Saul still believes he’s Commissioner and plans to report for work on Monday — remotely from his home in New York City. Who’s going to break it to him?

Another Golden Oldie — Many Vets With 100% VA Ratings Get Turned Down When They Apply For Social Security Disability

     A post on this blog on August 7, 2014:

Below is a chart labeled "Allowance rates for first DI applications filed by veterans after receiving VA disability ratings of 100% or IU during fiscal years 2000–2006, by VA rating and SSA primary diagnosis body system and selected diagnostic categories." This appears in Veterans Who Apply for Social Security Disabled-Worker Benefits After Receiving a Department of Veterans Affairs Rating of “Total Disability” for Service-Connected Impairments: Characteristics and Outcomes by L. Scott Muller, Nancy Early, and Justin Ronca published in the Social Security Bulletin, the agency's research journal. DI refers to Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits. IU refers to Individual Unemployability. Veterans may be approved for 100% VA disability benefits either with or without consideration of IU.

          Overall, Social Security is denying about 31% of disability claims filed by veterans with a 100% VA rating. Social Security approves only 43.5% of these 100% disabled veterans claims at the initial level and 13.8% at reconsideration but 70.8% at the Administrative Law Judge level. Social Security is turning down 25.3% of the claims filed by veterans determined 100% disabled by VA due to traumatic brain injury and 34.8% of those found 100% disabled by VA due to dementia associated with brain trauma.

Click on image to view full size

 

A Golden Oldie

      It’s a slow time in Social Security world so let me reprise a post from almost ten years ago. The themes coming from shills have changed but the problem hasn’t gone away. I’ve become quicker to delete comments that look phony to me. I do note comments now that appear to me to come from employee unions but it’s hard to tell since there are obvious reasons why many Social Security employees agree with union talking points.

Bombarding This Blog — From November 8, 2013

If you read the comments posted on this blog you might come to the impression that everyone knows that:

• Social Security employees do most of their "work" from at home but they don't really work because they're all lazy. The agency has way too many employees.
• Social Security's Administrative Law Judges are particularly lazy. They approve Social Security disability claims because they're lazy. A lot of the judges are crooks in cahoots with crooked disability claimants and their crooked attorneys.
• Most Social Security disability claimants are just crooks trying to scam the program.
• It's way too easy to get on Social Security disability benefits, especially for "mental illness." Anyone can get on Social Security disability benefits for "mental illness" just by pretending to be crazy.
• SSI child's benefits are the biggest scam. It's nothing but lazy, drug addicted mothers coaching their kids to act crazy. They get child after child on SSI child's benefits and then steal the money to support their drug habits.
• Attorneys who represent Social Security claimants are lazy. They're paid huge sums of money by Social Security but they do nothing for their clients. If anything, they're just crooks who assist their crooked clients in perpetrating fraud.
• There is no money in the Social Security trust funds. The money was all stolen by Democrats. The U.S. government bonds that are supposed to be in the trust funds are meaningless pieces of paper.
• Social Security is going bankrupt.You'll never get back the money you paid in. It's all a scam.

     Some of this comes from individuals legitimately expressing their opinions. However, it's long been apparent to me that most of this is coming from people who have been paid to post online comments about Social Security. Often, these people pretend to be Social Security employees, Social Security claimants or Social Security attorneys. Often, their comments just don't ring true because they're pretending to be someone they're not.

     Does it seem outlandish, even paranoid to think that someone would be paid to post slanted comments online? Take a look at this article from the Baltimore Sun. Officials at the University of Maryland had a problem. They wanted to shift the University's athletic programs from the Atlantic Coast Conference to the Big Ten. They knew that many of the University's alumni would be furious with this move. Here's what they did:

Brian Ullmann, the university's assistant vice president for marketing and communications ... wrote that the school planned to "engage professional assistance in helping to drop positive messages into the blogs, comments and message board sites. I will arrange for this service today." ...

Lee Zeidman, the corporate communications consultant who helped Maryland draft letters and talking points, said Wednesday that it is "standard operating procedure" in the business world to weigh in directly on message boards. "There are special PR agencies who work in the digital space who bombard blogs and newspaper sites where no one puts their name," Zeidman said.

     Who would pay online shills to post on Social Security issues? Pete Peterson and the Koch brothers are the prime candidates. They're tossing around tens of millions of dollars in their fight against Social Security. They certainly wouldn't be going after just this blog. It's quite unlikely they know anything about it. They would mostly be going after message boards at news media sites. However, I don't know that there's any other web site quite like this one where there's an ongoing discussion on Social Security issues. If you're doing an online campaign to malign Social Security both as a social program and as an agency, you're going to come here.
    I wonder how someone who works as an online shill would feel about their job. Would it make them proud? Would they tell their children about what they do for a living?

A Top Ten List

     It's a slow time in the world of Social Security, so here's a list of the top ten most read posts on this blog in the last twelve months. The number given is for those who went straight to the post, perhaps as a  result of receiving a link in an e-mail or seeing the link listed in some other forum,  rather than going on the blog generally and reading the post listed here along with others.

1. Shakeup At Social Security

3.59K

 

2. Now Now. Not Later. Not Ever.

2.24K

 

3. SSA Ranks Poorly As Employer

1.7K

 

4. A Poll

1.67K

 

5. Broadcast E-Mail On Morale

1.64K

 

6. O'Malley Nominated To Be Commissioner Of Social Security

1.44K

7. Union Negotiations Start On Monday

1.4K

8. Workforce Decline Continues

1.29K

 

9. You Know, Maybe We Should Do Something About This

1.22K

10. Kim Receives Award

1.2K

It's Been Slow Lately

     You may have noticed that I'm not posting much recently. That doesn't have to do with me. There is little to report. Things aren't changing for good or ill. Some of this is Congress. They're doing little with Social Security. Oversight hearings seem to be nearly a thing of the past. There's no hope of passing Social Security legislation. Some of it may be due to lingering effects of the pandemic. Until recently, there was little time to develop new policies for anything other than coping with Covid. Policy development was and is difficult anyway with people working from home most of the time. However, I think a lot of the torpor at Social Security has to do with the fact that there's no confirmed Commissioner of Social Security. An Acting Commissioner can't lead in the same way that a confirmed Commissioner can. Yes, there's a real potential for bad new policies as well as good with a confirmed Commissioner but sitting dead in the water for years on end isn't good for the agency or the people it serves. The lack of action on an occupational information system is one prominent example of the lack of leadership at Social Security.

    So, why hasn't the President nominated a new Commissioner?

Please Read Before Commenting On This Blog

     I don't know why but there seem to be more and more comments posted on this blog. I think it may be a good idea to discuss the way that comments are handled here.

     Any comments you make on this board are moderated by me. They don't appear until I approve them. I approve comments one by one. Lately I have been deleting more comments. I don't think that's because my standards have changed. It's because the comments have changed. There are more objectionable comments offered. 

    I don't have any comprehensive list of standards for comments but let me list some that will get your comment trashed:

• Comment has no relevance to what I posted.
• Comment has only tangential relevance to what I posted. (There's a lot of subjectivity here. How tangential is too tangential?)
• The comment is repetitive. (Sometimes people repeat their comment merely because the fact that it didn't immediately appear confused them. Often, multiple comments seem to come from paid shills and, yes, it's obvious to me that this blog is targeted by paid shills. I try to knock them all out.)
  
• The comment seems intended to be insulting. (Some subjectivity here but there are way too many really insulting comments offered. I offer more leniency when we're talking about public officials.)
  
• The comment seems intended to troll. (Some subjectivity here.)
  
• The comment contains a clearly false and misleading statement of fact. (I few of these are honest errors but there are too many attempts to offer "alternative facts.")
  

    Remember, this is my blog. It's not a democracy. I get to be an autocrat. I can turn my thumb up or down on comments as I please. My purpose is to promote a useful and civil dialog. I certainly allow comments that express disagreement with me or which say my facts are wrong but I don't allow comments that are intended to insult me or anyone else or comments which appear to be deliberate lies.

    By the way, remember that I have to get around to reviewing your comment before it appears. This may happen quickly or it may take hours. It depends on my schedule. 

      Judging by what I have to throw out, I'd guess that most of my readers would prefer that the comments be moderated.

Has Anything Really Changed?

      I looked back at the numbers on posts on I made on this blog in 2021. The one that was the most read was the one announcing that Andrew Saul had been fired as Commissioner of Social Security. Coming in second was this post from March 8, 2021 which may still have relevance:

     An anonymous e-mail I received:

Hi Charles - I have been reading your blog for years.

I'm a field office manager and felt compelled to share what management has sustained for nearly twelve months.

First off - kudos to SSA for putting somewhat of plan together by sending everyone home after cancelling telework...of course. Since that time things have gotten just awful and unsustainable. 

We don’t have centralized print so management is asked to go in and pack every letter daily. Many ma agents don’t have updated mail machines so we must weigh envelopes individually and seal them by hand. The process takes hours. After outgoing is done all day - we handle incoming. Hundreds of documents from the public daily in some cases. Items go missing regularly. We open every piece and scan them into a program so employees can work. This process is even longer than outgoing mail. When it concludes - the day is likely over. As this work from home progresses we were slowly told things would return to normal but from home. Problem is we don’t the technology - everything at home takes longer. Managers were drowning in mail and still are- the calls exploded - an office like mine went from 600 calls to roughly 2000. We could not keep up - Area directors insisted on 90% answer rates. Workload immediately fell off. Instead of adjusting they increased our PSI goals in one area in particular- ssi redetermination. We had some of the highest targets ever yet we were receiving no help. Through all this management was told they could not work OT because it would look bad. We were told that management doing production was also frowned upon.

Months have passed and the agency did little to aid mgmt. in fact they made it worse. They made exceptions to allow individuals in office and mgmt was asked to pull away from mail to risk ourselves with claimants. It’s ok - they bought flimsy sneeze guard to protect us. When we asked for hazard pay or ability to carryover we were told no.

We have been wildly mistreated by the DCo front office. This year is worse still

For your audience our initials claims have gone from 125 as a goal for an initial decison to 170 days and recons from 118 to 152 days . In short it’s now average 11 months before you make it to a hearing In many cases - replacement cards take a month before processing . Record request from attys - I haven’t been able to get to them in months. You want certified record - that’s 6 months minimum. We are a disaster and holding it all together on the back of managers that are breaking. We are told we can’t let calls go but due to a nearly 500 million budget shortfall we won’t have any OT , are still expected to clear 20% more redeterminations and answer 90% of goals. Oh and all mail most be processed in 60 days.

I could go on forever - I only share to say how truly dire SSA situation is. I also share to show this who represent people that we are in a giant spiral with zero plan.

How out of touch you say - well dco touted a great Mobil check in program that they didn’t realize can’t handle foreign ss5 because a lack of having a number. They actually developed , designed, shared , gloated and didn’t realize its flaws until a manager pointed out the obvious.

Sorry for the rant and misspelling -perhaps you can take some blurbs to share with readers that we aren’t bad - we work hard - we just are given no chance for success and it’s getting worse. Thanks Charles

I Don't Know What's Going On

     There have been a number of strange comments that one or more people have tried to post here. I haven't allowed them to post but, still, I think readers may find them of interest so I've posted them below. The ones below are just from today. I think you'll understand why I didn't allow them to post normally. Some of these could just be awkwardly phrased but others seem to be coming from one or more people who barely speak English. Many of these come in bursts of two or three comments at a time, some of them the identical comment sent in response to different posts that I had made.

• Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Legislation Introduced To Address Ovepayments Duri...": Send me the money inside the next spend car
• Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Legislation Introduced To Address Ovepayments Duri...": I need my money
• Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "DDS Hiring In Arkansas In Anticipation Of A Signif...": Looks like Otto Von Trump. If he wins his true colors will come out and full retirement age will increase to 70 to 75. Maybe Saul will leave and Sen Rick Santorum will become new COSS.
• Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Legislation Introduced To Address Ovepayments Duri...": If your not entitle to money you spent it .you should of call SS to ask not spent money. The stimulus check was given its call greed using pandemic as loop hole to get money
• Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Legislation Introduced To Address Ovepayments Duri...": To many people on SSI SSI were getting unemployment benefits to Pandemic was approving these people Now they want their money back Its governments fault for giving out thousands of dallars
• Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Legislation Introduced To Address Ovepayments Duri...": My roommate was over paid by 500 dollars. They took it all back out of her next SAI payment. This affects me to. I'm also her landlord.