A Retired Social Security Employee Speaks

By Carol Balderree in the Heber Springs, Arkansas Sun Times:

It was with both sadness and joy that I retired last month, after 32 years with the Social Security Administration. I always loved my job and was rewarded by the satisfaction of being able to help people through some of the most stressful times in their lives. In retirement I look forward to spending more time with friends and family and to volunteering with local charitable organizations that do so much to support the people of our community. Regrettably, I leave friends and co-workers who are faced with a staffing shortage, long hours and increased backlogs.

There are those who believe that government agencies are nothing but bloated bureaucracies staffed by stupid, lazy, overpaid workers. I can’t speak for all of government, but I can assure you that this is not true of those who work for the Social Security Administration. SSA employees are valiantly trying to cope with increasing workloads and reduced budget appropriations. ...

Since 1983, when I started working in Searcy, staffing has shrunk from 14 employees (handling the workload for 3 counties) down to 11 or fewer. When employees resign, retire or transfer to another office, they are often not replaced due to hiring freezes. When new employees are finally hired, they go through at least 4 months of classroom training and another 2 years of on-the-job training before they become journeymen.

The Searcy office has lost 17 employees in the last 7 years, leaving the office chronically understaffed. Of the 7 who have left in the past 2 years (including me), only 3 have been replaced. ...

One business model embraced early on by Social Security is the national toll-free teleservice center. Typical of banks, insurance companies and many other businesses, callers must first listen to a litany of options that provide pre-recorded messages, and if they wait long enough, may finally get a live person from just about anywhere in the country.

It is now difficult to speak to a local representative because when the call centers were opened, staffing was reallocated from local offices to the call centers. The Searcy office has only one incoming line and callers report that it is always busy.

With the explosion of computer technology, it is now possible for SSA management to track everything that an office or employee does, whether it is taking a claim, filing an appeal, changing an address or issuing a Social Security card. Employees and offices are rated on how many actionable items they can produce in a day/week/month and how fast they can complete these actions.

While this facilitates accountability, it also creates an incentive to curtail interviews and development, which could adversely affect either the client or the agency. It creates a disincentive to provide personal services that are not measurable: things like returning phone calls, taking the time to answer questions, and sometimes just listening to people who have suffered a loss of livelihood or loss of a spouse or parent.

OIG Promotes ALJ Production Standards

From a recently released report of Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We found that ODAR's ability to process projected hearing requests and address the growing backlog of cases will continue to be negatively impacted by the caseload performance of some ALJs if their status quo performance levels continue. To ensure claimants receive their hearing decisions as soon as possible and to be good stewards of the American taxpayer's funds, SSA must ensure that hearing requests are processed within acceptable timeframes and the backlog of cases is reduced to an appropriate level. To do so, SSA should establish a performance accountability process that allows ALJ performance to be addressed when it falls below an acceptable level. ...

[T]he APA does not prevent disciplinary actions against ALJs. In fact, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) stated in the Matter of Chocallo, "[t]he fact that an [ALJ] carries out his/her duties in a hearing room rather than an office does not provide an impenetrable shield from appraisal of performance." ...

It is imperative that ALJs process cases at an acceptable level to reduce the emotional and financial impact of long processing times for the thousands of claimants awaiting decisions on their appeals. To ensure claimants receive timely and accurate decisions, ODAR management must have Agency support to establish a performance accountability process that maintains ALJ qualified decisional independence but holds ALJs accountable for reasonable levels of performance. ...

The whole thrust of the report is that Social Security would have no backlog if the lowest producing Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) would just produce more decisions. Basically, the backlog is the fault of those lazy ALJs, not the fault of Congress or the White House or the Commissioner of Social Security. This is despite the fact that ALJ productivity has increased significantly over the years and despite the fact that the number of ALJs has not come close to keeping pace with the growth in the number of claimants requesting ALJ hearings.

Inevitably, there is a bell shaped curve of ALJ productivity. No matter how much the average increases, there are always going to be some ALJs who produce below the average and some who produce above the average. Essentially, this report is arguing that we must eliminate this bell shaped curve and force all ALJs to produce whatever number of decisions is convenient for Social Security management, whether that number is reasonable or unreasonable.

Plea For Change In Return To Work Provisions

From an op ed piece in the Cincinnati Dispatch (and read my comment at the end of this excerpt):

I've seen a lot of unpleasant press about the Social Security Administration in the past several weeks. Print and broadcast media have carried stories about people who have become disabled and can't tap into what was supposed to be disability insurance from all the years when that money for Social Security was taken out of their paychecks. ...

But there's another Social Security Disability Insurance problem that, while it is keeping people fed and sheltered, could, with some tweaking, lend a hefty boost to the slumping economy.

I'll give you an example. ...

M is a mother in her early forties who had a great job the first few years out of college. Then the compromised sight she always had suddenly became worse; she could no longer see the computer, spread sheets and reports that were integral to her employment. So she stopped working.

Fast-forward 14 years. M has been raising her two children and doing a great job of it. She also has gotten training in adaptive techniques, so that she can use a white cane, Braille, electronic magnifying devices and computer software that delivers information to her extra-wide monitor in huge letters -- and speaks it aloud, as well.

She's ready and eager to go back to work.

The dilemma is that if she does, she almost certainly will lose money.

The rules go like this: If you're blind and receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, you are allowed to work, but if you make more than $1,570 a month, you lose the benefits.

M gets $2,600 each month in benefits -- $1,600 for her and $500 for each of her children. Let's say she gets a job earning $10 an hour. Working at 40 hours a week, she'll earn $1,600 a month, which is $30 over the limit, and about $500 of that goes to taxes. Boom. Benefits vanish. ...

It doesn't have to be this way.

For people who reach full retirement, receive Social Security and return to work, the earning limit is $36,000 annually. If an American of full retirement age exceeds that (twice the amount a blind recipient is allowed), benefits are adjusted incrementally, $1 for each $2 additional earned.

Yes, I know that the author is confused about the special return to work provisions for the blind and that she has never heard of Social Security's concept of Impairment Related Work Expenses (IRWE), but she has just chosen a bad example for a good argument. Her mistake in framing the example also points to another argument for changing the return to work provisions. They need dramatic simplification. Few people understand them.

Court Finds Standing For AALJ Lawsuit

The Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ), several individual ALJs and several prospective ALJs brought a civil action against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over three actions of OPM:

1. Requiring ALJs to maintain active bar membership
2. New provisions on assignment of cases to ALJs in rotation
3. A new vacancy announcement for the ALJ position that allegedly gives unfair advantage to applicants already employed in federal service.

OPM moved to dismiss the entire lawsuit on the grounds of lack of standing. The Court has issued a memorandum opinion.

The Court is allowing the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to allege that individual ALJ plaintiffs have allowed their bar membership to lapse and are therefore in danger of losing their jobs as ALJs. Amending the complaint in this way could be embarrassing for the ALJs who would have to admit that they had allowed their bar membership to lapse. It might be difficult for them to continue to hold hearings and issue decisions with their right to be ALJs so obviously in question.

The Court dismissed the assignment of cases part of the complaint on the grounds that the issue was not ripe for adjudication.

Finally, the Court is allowing the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to allege that some of the plaintiffs would apply for ALJ positions if the application process were reopened.

Fraud In Missouri

From the Oberly, Missouri Monitor-Index:

Donald and Mary Hicks of Macon have been indicted on charges involving the theft of $86,534 of Social Security Disability benefits from a couple in their care says United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway and Macon Police Chief Steve Olinger.

According to the indictment, in September 1998, Donald Hicks was selected as a representative payee by the Social Security Administration for a disabled couple who were recipients of Social Security Disability benefits.

The indictment alleges that between September 1998 and continuing through February 2006, Donald Hicks endorsed their checks and the money was stolen by Donald and Mary Hicks.

Social Security Payments Via Debit Cards

From the News Journal of Delaware:

Starting this spring, Social Security recipients in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana will have the option of collecting benefits on a prepaid debit card instead.

The card will look and feel like a regular debit card, and could be used for ATM withdrawals, in-store purchases and online transactions. Delaware will get the "Direct Express" option sometime between June and September. But beware: Not every card transaction will be free.

Rochester Newspaper On "Dying For Help"

From the Rochester, NY City Newspaper:

More than two-million Americans apply to the federal government for SSDI benefits each year and more than 70 percent are denied. Applicants can appeal the denial, but as many as 85 percent of those first appeals are also denied. While thousands of people give up, there are those who continue appealing until they get a hearing with a Social Security Administration judge. There are currently 750,000 people waiting for their first hearing. Caught in a waiting game that is averaging two years to get a hearing that may not even lead to an approval for benefits, thousands of applicants spend their savings and pensions trying to stay afloat. Many file for bankruptcy and lose their homes in foreclosure. Cars are repossessed, while marriages dissolve and families fall apart. Many people have to manage their application process while their illnesses progress, until they become too sick to continue.

"It is simply outrageous that so many individuals who need Social Security Disability Insurance to survive are forced to wait years before they receive the benefits they deserve," says Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. ...

John Johnson is a disabled Army veteran. Even though a panel of medical examiners with the Veterans Administration reviewed his injuries and, he says, determined he was 100-percent disabled. Johnson's application was denied by the SSA.

"How can one federal agency tell you one thing, and another tell you something completely different?" says Johnson. "It doesn't make any sense. It's crazy. I was injured serving my country. I was doing what I was supposed to do. I don't know if they are doing what they're supposed to be doing, but that's the kind of bureaucracy that you're dealing with."

$31 Million In Extra Funding For SSA

The economic stimulus bill just passed by Congress contains an extra $31 million in appropriations for the Social Security Administration, apparently to pay for the Social Security Administration's costs associated with implementing the rebates. H.R. 5140 §101(e)(1)(B). It is nice to see Congress thinking about implementation costs, for a change.