Showing posts with label Editorials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorials. Show all posts

May 26, 2022

What Do You Think?

     From Bloomberg Opinion:

... Even if private-sector employers see benefits in allowing workers to maintain hybrid work arrangements, the standard for public servants is different. Remote work hobbles the ability of government officials to collaborate, respond nimbly to crises, and forge consensus on policy goals. Because taxpayer funds will be spent maintaining federal buildings regardless, it also wastes money and worsens voters’ cynicism about government. ...

Jul 24, 2018

Editorials Opposing Trump ALJ Order

     The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have run editorials, independent of each other, criticizing President Trump's use of the Supreme Court decision in Lucia v. SEC as a pretext for removing the protections against politicizing the hiring of Administrative Law Judges. It took a little while but I think it's become clear to everyone who's taken the time to look at this that the Trump order, in addition to being unnecessary, was a bad idea.

Jul 3, 2018

Offended By Washington Post Editorial

     From Dean Baker writing for the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
The paper owned by the man who got incredibly rich by avoiding state and local sales taxes is upset because workers are getting Social Security disability payments that average less than $1,300 a month. Since the U.S. has one of the least generous disability programs of any wealthy country, this might seem like a strange concern. Here's the picture from the OECD.
Click on image to view full size
Of course the Post is also a paper that gets hysterical over the prospect that truck drivers will get pay increases. In short, these are folks who practice crude class war. They are okay with some crumbs for the poor, but anything that is good for ordinary workers means giving up money that could be in the pockets of the Bezoses of the world.

Washington Post Returns To Its Campaign Against Social Security Disability Benefits

     From a Washington Post editorial:
... Just three years ago, in July 2015, the Obama administration warned that the [Social Security Disability Insurance] program’s reserves were so low that it might not be able to cover expected benefits in 2016. Now, the trustees say the program will be solvent until 2032. Declining disability insurance receipts may be one reason that labor force participation by “prime-age” workers, those between the ages of 25 and 54, has ticked up from 80.6 percent in September 2015 to 81.8 in May 2018. ...
What does not explain the decline is any structural reform to the program. The fact that disability rolls decline when the economy improves, and vice versa, reflects no intended purpose of disability insurance, because there’s no intrinsic connection between macroeconomic conditions and the likelihood of becoming disabled. Instead, SSDI has functioned as de facto long-term unemployment insurance, fraught with inefficiencies and perverse incentives. In particular, SSDI’s rules require that applicants be unable to engage in any significant paid work, giving them every incentive to cease working completely to qualify and to avoid rehabilitation — that is, to exit the labor force for good. The rules need to change so applicants face something other than a binary choice between work and benefits, perhaps by allowing benefits to phase out gradually as earnings from employment rise. ...
     Sure, convert the earnings test from a cliff to a slope but the subtext of this editorial is that there really is no such thing as disability or, perhaps I should say, "disability." I mean, what more proof do you need than Stephen Hawking that anybody who wants to work can work? Those people on Social Security "disability" aren't really disabled. They're just lazy and a lot of them are drug addicts. Not only is Social Security disability not needed but it is an evil program that destroys lives by paying benefits for sloth. Needless to say, that's not my view but it is the view of those who believe that Social Security disability is the "soft underbelly" of Social Security. Take out Social Security disability and you're one step closer to the holy grail of the right wing, abolishing Social Security itself.

Jun 22, 2018

Delays In South Jersey

     The South Jersey Times isn't happy with the lengthy delays in processing Social Security disability claims:
Between the poles of allowing fraudulent Social Security disability applications to proceed unfettered, and holding up benefits from the deserving during an excruciatingly long process, there must be a "sweet spot" for regional Social Security Administration offices.
Whatever is going on, the South Jersey office is not hitting that sweet spot. ...
Average waits for a decision there are, stunningly, the third longest among the nation's 168 offices. ...
So why isn't this being treated by Congress or the public as a scandal ... ? ... [T]here's that little twinge of concern within most of us that injured, working-age non-veterans who ask for government benefit checks might really be trying to pull one over on Uncle Sam.
It happens, of course. We love watching videos of "injured" middle-aged guys who say they can't work, working the dance floor or shooting hoops in the driveway.
The Supplemental Security Income/disability process, which can result in multiple denials until someone finally the hires "right" lawyer, creates even more suspicion. For years, SSI payments were derisively known in some down-and-out areas as "crazy checks," obtained -- not always honestly -- by citing psychological disorders.
Large-scale commercial fraud, like the $550 million conviction of a Kentucky country lawyer and a plea from his administrative law-judge accomplice, requires monitoring of waves of unusually easy benefit approvals from the same jurisdiction. But how hard is it to separate these odd patterns from individual cases with no apparent irregularities? ...

Feb 28, 2018

Waiting In Albany

     The Albany Times Union has an editorial calling for increased administrative funding for the Social Security Administration. The best thing about it is their awesome illustration.

Dec 31, 2017

Reduce The Backlog

     In an editorial, the Tampa Bay Times calls for action to reduce the hearing backlog at Social Security.

Sep 20, 2017

Another Editorial On Backlogs

     The Denver Post has published an editorial on the backlogs in processing Social Security disability claims. It's got a reference to fraud but I think that the Republican effort to portray the Social Security disability programs as being rife with fraud is fading. They could only go so far with that because it's just not true. Instead, we're seeing more reporting on the horrible backlogs.