Regulations Advance

     Two non-controversial regulatory packages have moved forward. The Use of Electronic Payroll Data To Improve Program Administration package has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget for publication as final regs. Final rules on Availability of Information and Records to the Public, concerning Freedom of Information Act requests have been published in the Federal Register today.

You Get What You Pay For

     Social Security has decided to post a Freedom of Information Act response they've given showing the rates at which the Alabama Disability Determination Section (DDS) paid for medical examinations and some other things they ordered. This is from 2020 so it's a bit out of date but take a look. I'm only posting the first page here. The whole thing which runs to 20 pages is linked above. The last page may surprise you a bit.

    Don't these rates seem a little low -- or maybe a lot low?

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Increase In Social Security Fraud

     From Newsweek:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has issued a warning for Americans regarding scams that are stealing benefits from thousands of recipients each year. ...

According to the SSA's Office of the Inspector General, there was a 61.7 percent increase of reported scams between Q3 of the financial year in 2022 and the same period in 2023. In the former, just over 13,000 scams were reported, rising to 21,080 in the latter. ...

[T]hose under 50 were most likely to fall for scams ...

Presentation On New Occupational Information System

    On March 18, 2023, Charis Clark and Karen Litschgi of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gave a presentation to the American Board of Vocational Experts (ABVE) on the Occupational Requirements Survey: Date and Upcoming Changes. By Freedom of Information Act request I have obtained the Powerpoint slide deck they used for the presentation. (I appreciate the Department of Labor's promptness in responding to my request.) I don't see any surprises in it but if you're interested in what's going on with Social Security's effort to have BLS create a new occupational information system for use in determining disability you should take a look. As boring as this may seem, it's vitally important to the future of Social Security disability determination. The seemingly never-ending process to develop a new system deserves close scrutiny. I don't trust Social Security on this. I'm not sure that anyone who knows much about this trusts Social Security.

    Below are links to the original Powerpoint version and to a version that I printed to PDF. If you're using the PDF version, you will see links in the upper left hand corner of the screens leading to notes apparently used by the presenters. Those notes were apparently not visible to the audience. If you use the Powerpoint version, those notes are visible at the bottom of the screen.

• Powerpoint version
• PDF version
  

    Update: You will have to ask permission to receive the file. I will approve these as quickly as I can. If you know of a better way of doing this sort of thing, I'd be interested.