The Counter-Argument

          Government Executive goes through the counter-arguments against the letter that Commissioner Bisignano wrote to Senator Warren claiming that service is rapidly improving at Social Security. 

     I deal with Social Security. I know things aren’t going well and the future looks grim. Service is currently improving in some ways and worsening in others. The  only reason service isn’t worse is the generous use of overtime. I expect there will be significantly less OT in the next fiscal year. 

     I know the agency has a huge problem with what I call the “Now now, not later, not ever” backlog, cases that present complications that take time to sort out, time that just doesn’t exist now. The employees are sorting out the easy cases first to create stats. The complex cases aren’t worked and under current circumstances they’re never going to be worked. They just keep piling up. I don’t think anyone is even counting them. I’m an attorney. Of course I raise complications. That’s my job. I know when the workers compensation offset is wrong. I know to ask for a protective filing date based upon a prior claim when the agency took an SSI only claim when they should have also taken a Disabled Adult Child claim. I know to point out that the agency missed a date first insured issue. I’m not the only one. Social Security employees themselves spot many of these things but have no time to act on them.

Pathetic

      From HuffPost:

… In an internal memo to operations employees obtained by HuffPost, a Social Security official said the agency has received more retirement claims than in any previous year, thanks in part to the ongoing retirement of baby boomers.

The backlog has grown to 575,000 pending retirement claims, with more than 140,000 of those pending for more than 60 days. 

“I am calling for a sprint – a focused, concerted effort in all offices beginning today and lasting through the end of May – to address this growing backlog of pending retirement and survivor claims in our field offices and Workload Support Units,” Stephen Evangelista, deputy commissioner for operations, wrote in the email.

“I am calling for all offices to do their very best to increase their [Retirement, Survivors, Health Insurance] clearances by at least 10 percent daily through the end of May,” Evangelista wrote. …

HuffPost asked the Social Security press office if, in light of the retirement claims backlog and the request for SSA employees to work harder, laying off those employees might have been a mistake. The agency did not immediately respond. …

It’s A Zero Sum Game

      From David Weaver writing for The Hill:

… The start-up administrative costs of the Social Security Fairness Act [which eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset] are plausibly about $200 million. When Congress was considering the full-year continuing resolution in March, it simply chose not to provide the Social Security Administration with sufficient funding to implement the law. As a result, Congress has created a zero-sum environment at the agency: additional service to one group means less service to another. 

In the months since enactment of the SSFA, the Social Security Administration has taken an additional 146,000 new benefit applications related to the new law. That means 146,000 other Americans did not have their applications considered. Additionally, the agency has had to field 450,000 calls (6,000-7,000 per day) from the public requiring agency staff to explain the new law and resolve benefit problems. That means 450,000 other Americans did not get their Social Security problems resolved.  

 

Most alarmingly, the agency’s automation efforts for retroactive payments fell short. Social Security indicated that automation would result in these payments being deposited in bank accounts “by the end of March.” After its automation runs in March, however, there were still 500,000 to 700,000 cases to be processed. These will have to be handled manually over time.   …

The Social Security Administration plans to prioritize this manual workload, but all that means is that up to 700,000 other Americans in the agency’s very large payment backlog will not have their benefit payments processed.  …

Might Tell You Something About The Future

     From the Urban Institute:

Click on image to view full size

Delay On Delay

      From WFTV in Orlando:

Sarah Grimes and her husband waited more than five years for Social Security disability payments and when they didn’t come, he took his own life. She blames the government. …

Social Security always wanted more documents and never approved his benefits while he was alive.

After his death, she appealed to federal court to get his benefits and last November a judge ruled she would get his Social Security benefits. …

When WFTV last spoke with Grimes, the government was trying to figure out what she is owed from December 2020 to February 2024, but now in 2025, Grimes told Eyewitness News that the SSA has told her she will have to wait longer for her money because they are backlogged, and her case is complicated.

It’s been so long that she said she will not be able to pay her rent next month. That could mean losing her apartment and ending up living in her car. …

Waiting In Virginia

      From WTVR in Richmond, VA:

For the past year, Lowrine Ford's pain has only gotten worse.

"It's hard. I'm in pain all the time," she said. "I sleep about three hours a night because I'm hurting all the time. My feet, my legs stay swollen. I can't hardly walk at times. I'm in so much pain."

Rheumatoid arthritis causes her joints to swell, burn, and ache, making her job as a home health aide — where she is constantly on her feet — nearly impossible.

And for the better part of a year, she has been waiting to hear from the Social Security Administration (SSA) whether she qualifies for disability benefits.

She is near despair. ..

“It's very hectic. I had been calling them for months and months. But every time I call, they tell me — this computer comes on and says, 'We're not accepting calls today. Call back another day,'" she said.

On top of the difficulty in finding someone to help her, the SSA has sent her conflicting signals.

"Then finally, when I do call back, and actually get somebody, they tell me that, on August the 23rd of last year, I was denied," Ford said. "And so they say I was denied, but I didn't get any kind of paperwork or anything saying that I was denied."

But while Ford never got documentation from the SSA about her denial, her online account continued to show a different story.

"They had I was in 'Phase Three,'" Ford said. "They were reviewing my medical history. And then after all of this, it goes to 'Phase Four.' Now it's back on 'Phase Three' again. So I really don't know what to do. I'm very confused, to be honest with you.” …

It Keeps Getting Worse

     From a recently released report:

From Social Security's Freedom of Information website

John Oliver On Social Security Disability

     I've found a video of that John Oliver piece on Social Security disability. I can't say whether this is an excerpt or the whole thing.

    By the way, I wish I could set this up so you click on the image on the left and you go directly to the video but Blogger doesn't make it that easy.

Real People

     From a Richmond, VA television station:

Earl Barry is frustrated with what he said has been a "demoralizing" experience navigating the process to apply for disability through the Social Security Administration (SSA). Barry told CBS 6 he has been going back and forth with the SSA on claims for more than a year.

"It's been very difficult and I am under-- I had to seek therapy because I was considering suicide," Barry said. ...

In October 2022, Berry applied for disability and was denied.

He reapplied in December 2023, but again was denied. ...

In March 2024, Barry said the company Premiere Disability filed a reconsideration request on his behalf. It's currently taking SSA seven months, on average, to respond to reconsideration requests.

Barry said Premier Disability recently informed him there could be a further delay.

"The representative found out that our appeal that we filed was not handled properly by SSA in March when they were supposed to have done it. They didn't transfer the file from the person who had it, the auditor, to the office for the appeal," Barry said.

But Barry said he can't afford to wait for assistance, should he get approved, any longer.

He said his savings have run dry and his Buckingham County house has now been foreclosed on. ...

Earlier this month, CBS 6 shared Ed Heavener's story, a Henrico County man who spent a year and a half waiting for disability and only got his money after our investigative reporters got involved. ...

After the story aired, CBS 6 newsroom was inundated with messages from people across Virginia and beyond, including Barry, complaining about customer service issues with SSA. ...

 

I Thought That Job One At The Payment Centers Was To Pay People

     From Reducing Processing Centers’ Pending Actions, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

...  SSA met its annual PC [Payment Center] pending actions performance measure goal in 4 of the 6 FYs [Fiscal Years] between FY 2018 through 2023. SSA reported it did not meet its goals in the remaining 2 FYs because of unexpected staff reductions, increased workloads, and less than expected overtime funding it would have used to pay employees to process more PC pending actions.

Although SSA achieved its PC pending actions performance goals in 4 of the last 6 FYs, there was no overall reduction in PC pending actions over those 6 years. In fact, the PC pending actions backlog increased from 3.2 million in FY 2018 to 4.6 million in FY 2023. As the backlog grows, many PC pending actions remain unresolved for long periods of time. From a sample of 139 pending actions, 102 (73 percent) were pending for 300 days or more, with 60 of the 102 pending for 500 days or more.

Delays in processing PC pending actions can lead to higher improper payments, which increased some beneficiaries’ financial burden as they waited longer for underpayments or were charged with increased overpayment amounts. If SSA resolved the PC pending actions we reviewed at the earliest possible instance, we estimate it would have determined approximately 528,000 beneficiaries were improperly paid approximately $534 million. After the pending actions were not processed for 12 months, the improper payment amount for those same beneficiaries rose to approximately $756 million. By the time of our review, many of the PC pending actions had been pending for longer than 12 months, and the improper payment amount had increased to approximately $1.1 billion.

    Notice that it didn't seem to bother OIG that the payment centers were frequently failing to pay benefits for long periods of time. The only thing they seemed to have been concerned about was an increase in overpayments. This in a nutshell is the OIG outlook on the Social Security world -- It doesn't matter when or if you pay claimants what they're due; the only thing that counts is that you not overpay them. That outlook is a prescription for disaster for claimants.

But It's Only Been Six Months! Maybe If We Wait Longer He'll Get Better

    From some television station in Atlanta that likes to hide its call letters:

...  For the Dickens, the unthinkable occurred in January when James had a stroke, his wife Schantalyn told 11Alive. The couple had only recently married in November 2023. 

"You plan on getting married, and after getting married, you plan on a happily ever after," Schantalyn shared. "It was so unexpected. We didn't know that the morning of January 5 at 3 in the morning, James would have a massive stroke."

Since his stroke, James has been recovering in a nursing facility. Meanwhile, Schantalyn continues to check in with eligibility officials to see whether her husband's disability claimed has been reviewed and approved. ...

[T]he time it takes to process cases varies widely. The national average for making an initial disability determination is 187 days, while in Georgia, the determination takes an average of 287 days. South Carolina tops the list for wait times, with 325 days for initial determination. SSA attributes much of the delays to staffing challenges.  ...

A One Year Sprint

     Government Executive has out a piece titled Martin O’Malley is on a one-year sprint to save Social Security. The title comes from Government Executive, not O'Malley. I'm sure that O'Malley hasn't claimed that he can "save" Social Security in any time frame, much less in a year.

    The primary thrust of the piece is O'Malley's call for additional budget resources for his agency. However, there's also crowing about O'Malley's accomplishments as Commissioner. O'Malley has certainly changed the tone at the agency and has some important accomplishments in his first six months as Commissioner but I'm pretty sure that the main accomplishment claimed in this piece -- improvement in 800 number answering -- isn't much of an accomplishment.

    Social Security's budget resources are so thin that it cannot make any significant improvement in one area of performance without taking resources from another area of performance -- borrowing from Peter to pay Paul as the old quote goes. If the 800 number service has improved, some other function must have worsened.

    Those on the inside can confirm or deny this but I think that the improvement in 800 number answering has been achieved by calling upon additional backup for the agency's Teleservice Centers (TSC's). The backup comes from the Program Service Centers (PSC's) whose primary responsibility is computing and paying benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act. This has gone on to some extent for many years. I've heard it referred to as "spiking," as in asking the PSC's to step in to handle overflow when there's a spike in call volume. It's not hard to improve 800 number phone answering if all you have to do is to shift the boundary for what's considered a "spike." Of course, the problem is that this causes degradation in the primary PSC workload of computing and paying benefits, which I have seen. Doing a better job of answering the phones is great but asking claimants who have already been approved to wait an extra month for the benefits they are owed isn't so great. Also, changing the spiking policies so that the PSC's give more help to the TSC's isn't sustainable. The payment backlogs will eventually become their own crisis.

    Finding ways to make yourself look better comes naturally to a seasoned politician like O'Malley. It's not a bad thing for the agency. At the least, it gives members of Congress confidence that if they give the Social Security Administration additional operating funds that they will be well spent. There is another side to the coin, however. Some members of Congress can say "Look, it's what we've been telling you. Social Security doesn't need more operating funds. It just needs better management."

Interview With Commissioner

     The AARP has published an interview it conducted with Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley. As you would expect from one with a political background,  O'Malley touts his agency's accomplishments. I would certainly agree that the changes in how Social Security deals with overpayments are an accomplishments. However, the accomplishments in providing service to claimants have not been across the board. As a few workloads gets diminished, others increase. It's all you can do when you lack adequate budget resources.

    There's one thing about the interview that I can't figure out. At one point the interviewer mentions that O'Malley is the first Social Security Commissioner who has served in elective office. O'Malley corrects him saying "Second! I’ll show you the wax figure down the hall." Who was that other Social Security Commissioner who had previously served in elective office? Is the "wax figure" business just some odd figure of speech or some sort of reality?

It's Taking Longer To Get An Appointment With Social Security

    From Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

 

Wait Time To Get Hearing

April 2024 numbers. From Social Security. Click on image to view full size.

 

Customer Wait Times

    From Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

 

Deep Red In More Than One Way

 

From a Social Security fact sheet

SSA Commissioner Touts Accomplishments

I can't tell. Is that logo in the center a physical object or generated electronically?

     From a Social Security website touting Commissioner Martin O'Malley's accomplishments during his first 100 days in office:

... Between November and April, SSA has reduced the average waiting time from 42 minutes to 24 minutes. Further, no one calling SSA receives busy signals and over 35 percent of our callers now receive a call back instead of holding. ...

SSA is updating its Program Operations Manual System (POMS) so agency employees are no longer forced to require wet signatures from customers where eSignature options are available. ...

[Since the agency's appropriations bill passed] Commissioner O’Malley has lifted the agency-wide hiring freeze and approved 1,600 critical hires for the teleservice centers. We also authorized 1,290 field office hires, 600 hires for the State disability determination services, and 300 hires for our hearing offices. ...

New Union Management Cooperation Councils (UMCCs) - which the Special Advisor to the Federal Labor Relations Authority described as being at the forefront of Union-Management collaboration - are engaged in productive and specific pre-decisional discussions between AFGE and SSA management on a variety of topics including improvements to new-hire training, which has been a key area for improvement towards retention of staff. 

Monthly Labor Roundtables and the UMCC provide regular opportunities to maintain an open dialogue between Labor and Management at all levels of SSA, which improves employee morale and efficient. ...

It's Taking Longer And Longer To Get Through To Social Security On The Phone

     From an article in the Daily Mail:

Perfect Timing?

    Wouldn't now be the time to end the reconsideration step in Social Security disability determination? Over the years the objection to doing that has been that that it would throw too many cases to the hearing level but at the moment the backlogs are enormous at the initial and reconsideration steps and quite low at OHO. Doing it now would kill two birds with one stone. You'd dramatically reduce the backlogs at DDS and you'd give OHO something to do at a time when they're rapidly running out of work. It would create the "drinking from a fire hose" problem at OHO but I'd rather see that than have OHO lacking work while DDS struggles. 

    By the way, I have a vested interest in seeing this come to pass since I have a vested interest in seeing Social Security disability claims resolved expeditiously. Is that a bad thing?