Chaotic Conditions At Social Security -- But Maybe The Post Office Will Help

 

    From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk. ...

Depending on the time of day, a recorded message [on the 800 line] tells callers that their wait on hold will last more than 120 minutes or 180 minutes. Some report being on hold for four or five hours. A callback function was only available three out of 12 times when a reporter for The Post called the toll-free line last week, presumably because the queue that day was so long that the call would not be returned by close of business. ...

On Monday, Dudek said the agency is working with U.S. Postal Service on an agreement to take on new requirements to verify claimants’ identities. ...

Meanwhile, a DOGE-imposed spending freeze has left many field offices without paper, pens and the phone headsets staff need to do their jobs communicating with callers — at the exact moment phone calls are spiking, the employee in Indiana said.

The freeze drove all federal credit cards to a $1 limit. Social Security saw the number of its approved purchasers reduced to about a dozen people for 1,300 offices, said one agency employee in the Northeast.

...

Rushing Teleservice Cuts

      From Axios:

The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios. …

Driving the news: Acting commissioner Leland Dudek said the changes in question would usually take two years to implement, but will be made in two weeks instead, the two sources said on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation. 

• Dudek also said the changes, happening so fast and with little public understanding, will create opportunities for scammers, one of the sources said.
• There will be individuals who will be victims of fraud as a result of the changes, Dudek said, according to one attendee. He said in the past Social Security had been too "thoughtful" in considering beneficiaries before making changes. …

     Why, exactly, would they be in a rush to cut telephone service?  It’s like they really embrace being evil.

Afternoon Roundup

     There are so many news articles coming out about Social Security that it's hard to keep up. Let me share a few that seem notable to me:

• MSN --  Trump’s nominee to lead Social Security Administration to face questions over DOGE cuts
• Paul Krugman --  Social Security: A Time for Outrage
• Government Executive --  Regional boards for federal agency coordination officially disbanded 
• Michigan Live -- AARP calls latest Social Security changes ‘deeply unacceptable.’ Will you be impacted? 
• CNBC --  Senators press Trump Social Security nominee on his views about privatizing the agency
• WSJ -- Dealing With Social Security Is Heading From Bad to Worse

Hasn't Worked Before, Won't Work Now

 

     Lawrence Glickman writes about the long, long history of calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme." Repeating this lie endlessly for almost 90 years doesn't make it true. It just points out how pathetically ineffective the argument is. Accept reality. The right wing has no conceivable path to eliminating Social Security or even significantly changing it, apart from what it's doing, defunding its administration, and that will ultimately prove to be horrendously unpopular as I think even they know. They just feel so strongly about this that they're willing to do a suicide charge.

A Poll

 

online polls

Does DOGE Care?

      From some television station in Cleveland:

AVON LAKE, Ohio — An Avon Lake couple tried to change their address but faced issues after dealing with the Social Security Administration (SSA) systems for hours.

Gloria and Walton Britton moved to Avon Lake last month and began changing their address so that credit cards and other bills, including social security, were sent to the right location. They spent days on the phone trying to reach someone to make the address change, but nobody ever answered.

"Hurt, frustrated, disrespected," Gloria said. 

She tried to reach someone at the Social Security administration’s office but said it was impossible.

"I gave up one day after three hours of sitting on hold and didn't even get a call back option," Gloria explained.

The couple even tried to log in through the SSA’s website but could not reach the page where they could change their address or set up an appointment. …

O'Malley's Tenure As Commissioner

     From a piece in Government Executive about Martin O'Malley's too brief tenure as Commissioner of Social Security:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley on Wednesday described his nearly a year in charge of the embattled agency responsible for administering Americans’ retirement and disability benefits as one of the “greatest honors” of his career in government and politics. ..

O’Malley told Government Executive on Wednesday that he was “enormously proud” of the agency’s beleaguered workforce, which was able to find significant customer service improvements despite operating at a 50-year staffing low and serving the most beneficiaries in history. ...

[T]he public’s preference for telephonic and video disability hearings–with 90% of new requests being through those avenues–has made it easier to optimize administrative law judges’ workloads regardless of geographic location. ...

Jim Borland, the agency’s assistant deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, said he will be retiring after a 40-year career in the federal government next month, and that this final year was “the most fun” he’s had at work in those four decades. ...

Coming Soon -- Walk-In Service To End

     

    If you're a Social Security employee who thinks this is great, remember that there is little efficiency gained here. You'll feel less harried mainly because workloads are reduced by discouraging the public from doing business with Social Security in the first place and by extending time frames for service out potentially by months. There is a significant percentage of the population who aren't capable of jumping through even a few hoops. They'll wait in your waiting room to see someone but they won't call repeatedly trying to make an appointment only to get frustrated after 30 minutes or more and hang up. Yes, you can go to the field office and make an appointment there to come back in a month or two but many people won't keep that appointment. They've got problems that keep them from working and from keeping appointments. That's frustrating but those people are a significant percentage of the population the agency is supposed to be serving.

    Imagine this. Your Social Security checks suddenly end. Your Medicare is terminated. All of your bank accounts and credit cards are frozen. You have no way of paying your bills or even buying food. Someone tells you that the problem is that you're been declared dead. You have no idea who decided you were dead After a month of desperation, someone tells you that the problem is at Social Security. You immediately go down to the local Social Security field office hoping for a quick resolution of the problem but all that happens is that you have to make an appointment two months out into the future. How would you feel?

In Person Service Matters

    From Effects Of Suspending In-Person Services At Social Security Administration Field Offices On Disability Applications And Allowances by Monica Farid, Michael T. Anderson, Gina Freeman, and Christopher Earles, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications ...

The paper found that:

• There were systematic differences in the characteristics of applicants by mode of application. In-person applicants were older, less likely to have completed high school, and less likely to speak English compared to phone or online applicants.
  

• The suspension caused a 6-percent decrease in the volume of applications, implying that not everyone who wanted to apply in-person was able to apply using other modes. The effect was larger for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications compared to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) applications.
  

• The suspension of in-person services caused some would-be in-person applicants to apply by phone, but it did not cause an increase in the volume of online applications.
  

• We did not find evidence that the suspension disproportionately affected groups of applicants defined by educational attainment, age, or English-speaking status.
  

• Our estimates imply that in-person service suspensions explain more than 50 percent of the decline in SSI and DI applications during the pandemic. ...
  

    The first and fourth points above seem to be in tension with each other.

Not Now, Not Later, Not Ever

     A Richmond, VA television station reports on a local case. SSI disability benefits were approved almost immediately for a child with a rare genetic disorder but the case has been sitting at the local Social Security field office for five months awaiting payment. 

    Undoubtedly, there's some complication. Anything complicated goes into the "Not now, not later, not ever" pile. They'll get to it when they have time but they never do. Why spend the time to complete action on one difficult case when you can easily process five uncomplicated cases in the same amount of time? Except that in this case they will because the case has been publicized.

    Is this happening because the Social Security employees are lazy? No, they're just overwhelmed with work and they're judged based upon the raw number of cases they complete. There's constant pressure to produce numbers. The easiest way to produce numbers is to work on the easiest cases first and let the difficult cases pile up. It makes sense from the point of view of an individual employee or manager but it's a horribly unfair situation as I expect those employees and managers know.

    By the way, when I say we're at the "Not now, not later, not ever" stage, I'm not exaggerating. I've got a fee petition pending at a payment center for more than three years. It's gathering dust because they're busy with other things, like answering Social Security's 800 number and the agency isn't tracking fee petitions. When are they ever going to be not so busy? It would take a major political change.

New Video On Commissioner's Goals

    Social Security has released a new video concerning the new Commissioner's goals. I wish I could it embed it here but I can't find a way so you'll have to click on the link. 

    Take a look and tell us your opinion.

State Disability Determination Services Processing Times

 

Percentage Of Callers To Social Security 800 Number Who Reach An Agency Employee

From Social Security

 

There's Enough Damn Problems Without This Crap!

@OMalleySSA [a tweet from the Commissioner]

SSA 800 # was slammed on June 3. Over 463,000 calls -- 140k more calls than a few days earlier. Why? In part because of a bogus news story about a $600 payment increase. This is FALSE: No COLA until January 2025. Big thanks to all SSA staff who helped customers with this rumor.

A Modest Idea On Getting Help To Claimants

     I wrote about the reach, and perhaps overreach, of Social Security's controls on fees for representation  before the agency in 2021. I still think what I suggested at that time would be a good idea:

The Social Security Act says that fees for representing claimants must be approved by the agency. 42 U.S.C. §406(a)(1). The agency has interpreted this provision broadly. Its position is that charging a fee just to help a claimant file a claim or an appeal must be approved by the agency. As a result no one is providing these services for a fee apart from those offering contingent fee contracts for much broader representation. This leaves a large number of people to seek services that the Social Security Administration is unable to supply. Social Security should announce that that merely helping a claimant file a claim or an appeal is not the sort of representation for which fee approval is required. This would allow attorneys and H.&R. Block and whomever else to provide these services for modest fees. As an alternative, if the agency still wants to control these fees, the Social Security Act provides authority for the Commissioner to simply approve a maximum fee. ("The Commissioner of Social Security may, by rule and regulation, prescribe the maximum fees which may be charged for services performed in connection with any claim ...) The Commissioner could announce that the maximum fee to help file a claim is, let's say, $250 and the maximum fee for helping to file an appeal is $100. Those providing these services would not have to submit a fee petition. I will concede that this suggestion helps those with some money more than it helps the destitute but one would hope that even the poor could come up with the modest fees I'm talking about. It would also free up agency personnel to provide more help for poor claimants. If Social Security cannot itself provide these services to all who need them, why stand in the way of others providing these services for modest fees?

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:

 

Wide Variance Between Regions In Number Of Customers Waiting Outside Field Offices

    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:

 

New Postings On Frustrated Claimants Blog

    My firm has started a new blog directed at Social Security disability claimants, rather than Social Security professionals. It's called For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. Here are links to some recent posts:

• Disability And Homelessness

• If You're Able To Read This, Count Your Blessings; If You're Not, Expect That Others Won't Understand Your Problem

• How Do You Give Good Public Service When Your Employees Are Really Unhappy? You Don't!

• From Social Security: Top Baby Names

• 47% Of Disabled Americans Aren't Getting The Help They Need

• On Being Disabled And Homeless In Rural America

 

 

 

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