,Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing

Mike McNulty, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee is not wasting any time. Below is an excerpt from a notice from the Subcommittee,but there is no mention of who will be testifying:

Congressman Michael R. McNulty (D-NY), Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the Social Security Administration (SSA) disability claims backlogs. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 2:00 p.m. ...

The workload of SSA has grown significantly in recent years due to the aging of the population and new workloads such as those resulting from the Medicare Modernization Act (P.L. 108-173) and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (P.L. 108-458). However, due to funding constraints affecting SSA’s administrative budget, these increasing workloads are not being effectively addressed. The agency has done much to employ scarce resources efficiently, re-engineering work processes and increasing overall productivity by more than 13 percent from 2001 to 2006. Even with these improvements, however, there is a growing concern about the effect of staffing declines and other resource shortages on service delivery to the American public.

Nowhere is the situation more grave than in the processing of applications for disability benefits. Due to large and increasing backlogs, severely disabled individuals can wait years to get the benefits they need for basic economic survival. At the end of fiscal year 2006, about 1.3 million people were awaiting a decision on their initial claim or appeal for Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits.

The President’s FY 2008 budget request would provide a modest funding increase. However, given rising fixed costs and other factors, this would not be sufficient to maintain current staffing levels, which had already declined by 8 percent from FY 2006 to FY 2007. Thus, the disability backlog is projected to increase under the President’s FY 2008 budget to almost 1.4 million cases.

This hearing will focus on the disability claims backlog, including how the delays impact individuals who have applied for disability benefits; the effect on other critical agency workloads, including program integrity activities; steps SSA has taken to date to resolve the backlogs; and options for addressing the problem.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman McNulty said, “The current delays in receiving disability benefits are completely unacceptable. Americans who have worked hard and paid into the system should not have to wait for years to get benefits they have earned and desperately need. SSA must have sufficient resources to give the American people the service they deserve.”

An Effect Of Privatization Effort -- Or Is It Service?

President Bush's push to privatize Social Security may have taken a toll on public perceptions of the Social Security Administration, or perhaps it is declining service at Social Security. A Harris poll asked about public perceptions of various federal agencies. Social Security got the lowest marks of the 13 agencies asked about, with only a 40% positive rating. Only 5% rated the job that Social Security does as excellent. Social Security's rating is down significantly from the last time such a poll was done, in 2004, when 51% gave the agency a positive rating. Younger Americans were the most negative on Social Security.

OIG Plans ALJ Caseload Performance Review For 2007

Social Security's Office of Inspector General has published its plans for reviews it intends to conduct in 2007. Many, many reviews are planned. Here is a description of one of them:

Administrative Law Judges’ Caseload Performance

Objective
To evaluate SSA’s oversight of ALJ caseload performance.

Background
Federal legislation prevents SSA from requiring that ALJs process a certain number of cases. However, SSA may set reasonable production goals for ALJs as long as the goals do not infringe on ALJs’ independent decision-making processes.

Federal legislation also prevents SSA from establishing a performance appraisal system for ALJs. However, disciplinary actions can be taken against ALJs if the Merit Systems Protection Board finds good cause. In two cases we reviewed, the Merit Systems Protection Board found that an ALJ may be disciplined for substandard production, but SSA did not provide sufficient evidence to compare ALJs’ caseloads. Therefore, the Board denied the request for action against the ALJs based on poor production.

In a prior review, we determined the number of cases processed by ALJs at one hearing office ranged from as few as 276 to as many as 1,892 in a 1-year period. This variance may have occurred because the ALJs were given the discretion to determine the number of cases they would process instead of SSA establishing the number and holding ALJs accountable for reasonable production goals.

Social Security Claim Leads To Arrest

From Fox23News.com:

A North Carolina man faced a Massachusetts judge today on sexual assault charges dating back to 1975. Police tell us they finally caught up with Richard Victor Clark when he tried to apply for Social Security benefits.

Social Security Workforce Dwindling

When considering what the budget for this fiscal year and the next will do to the Social Security Administration, one first needs to look at what has happened to Social Security over the last fiscal year. The federal Office of Personnel Management posts figures for employment at each agency by quarter. The figures are not yet available for the last calendar quarter of 2006 or any part of 2007, but they are available for the end of the 2005 fiscal year, which was September 2005, and for the entire 2006 fiscal year.

September 2005 66,147
December 2005 65,777
March 2006 64,297
June 2006 64,814
September 2006 63,647

This shows that the number of employees at Social Security decreased by 2,500 exactly in the 2006 fiscal year. This was a 3.8% decrease. This was without a hiring freeze and in the face of an increasing workload and at a time when Social Security already had huge backlogs.

By the way, if you are wondering why the workforce bumped up in June 2006, I think I can explain it. That was crunch time for the initial implementation of Medicare Part D. Social Security got some extra funding for that, although not much, since the bump in employment was so minor and the impact upon the agency so large.

The employment level proposed for Social Security in the President's 2008 fiscal year budget is 59,800, which is a 6% decrease from the level as of September 2006.

Basically, it appears that Social Security is being budgeted into a 3-4% staffing decrease per year, but, of course, there has been a change in control of Congress, so the result for the 2008 fiscal year budget may be different, although the difference for the 2007 fiscal year budget, which will be passed by a Congress controlled by Democrats, looks to be even worse, a hiring freeze.

Unless there is a turnaround in Social Security's operating budget, it is hard for me to see anything ahead over the next five to ten years other than a complete breakdown in Social Security's ability to get its work done, with it taking dozens of calls to get through on Social Security's 800 number, people lined up before dawn outside Social Security offices, months long backlogs at almost every stage of every process at Social Security and Social Security's hearings and appeals process breaking down to the point that it becomes almost worthless. If that sounds impossibly bleak, ask yourself how Social Security can cope with a 30-40% decrease in its staffing over the next ten years. Without a major turnaround, that is what is ahead.

President's Budget For SSA

Let me start by saying that I am no budget expert and it is very possible that I have misunderstood what is in the President's just released proposed budget for Social Security for 2008. As best I can read it, the proposal would increase Social Security's administrative budget to $9.637 billion, which would be a 4% increase, but the number of employees at Social Security would stay essentially the same, at 59,800 employees. Everyone should keep in mind that the President's proposed budget and what is actually passed by Congress are often very different.

I do see clearly a proposal in the President's budget to lower to 16 the age at which full-time school attendance would be required as a condition for receiving children's benefits under Social Security. That might actually pass.

Social Security's Operating Budget -- Is It Lockheed Martin Versus Having Enough Employees To Get The Work Done?

President Bush's budget for fiscal year (FY) 2008 is due out today. This may be a good time to look back at President Bush's budget for (FY) 2006, which was never enacted. It called for a 4.2% increase in Social Security's funding, which is above the rate of inflation, yet that budget called for a decrease in the number of full time equivalent (FTEs) employees at Social Security from 63,998 to 62,036, a 3% decrease. If Social Security was to get more money even after inflation, why would they have to cut the workforce significantly?

A possible explanation for a budget increase but a staff decrease might be the five year $124 million contract awarded to Lockheed Martin for scanning documents and the $525 million contract awarded to Lockheed Martin for information technology (IT) modernization, as well as contracts awarded to other corporations. If there is another explanation, I would be interested in hearing it.

The actual budget that Social Security is getting in FY 2007 is a good deal less than what the President had proposed, but that does not mean that the contractors get less. Apparently, it just means a greater reduction in staff for Social Security. That is why Social Security is in the midst of a year long hiring freeze and was under the threat of a staff furlough until recently.

I do not mean to suggest that Social Security did not computer system modernization. They did and still do, but if your trains are not running on time, in addition to looking at how your trains are scheduled, you have to look at the basic question of whether you have enough trains. Spending gobs of money on fancy software will not make your trains run on time if there are not enough trains to begin with.

In considering the FY 2008 budget, Congress will have to consider not merely the gross amount of Social Security's operating budget, but how that money is to be spent. This should include some serious hearings about the value added by outside contractors and how much staffing Social Security needs to get its work done.

Former Social Security Employee Sent To Prison For Social Security Fraud

The Detroit News reports that Bethann Shauntee, a former Social Security employee, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining $21,418.20 in Social Security benefits. Exactly how she did this is unclear. The newspaper article says only that while working for Social Security she diverted Social Security disability checks to a co-defendant.

Treasury Secretary Soldiers On

The last person in America who believes that there is a possibility for major "reform" in Social Security in the next two years may be Henry Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, but even he seems to be losing hope, as this excerpt from a Reuters article indicates:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conceded on Friday that chances were slim for agreeing on a way to reform Social Security financing but said he would keep trying to find bipartisan support for

"There's not a high degree of likelihood. I'm not naive, given how politically contentious this is, that we'll get this done," Paulson said in an interview on CNBC Television.

But note Paulson's tone in this article from Bloomberg.com, which suggests that he has not yet given up completely:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Republicans and Democrats aren't as far apart on overhauling Social Security as their public posturing might suggest, and insisted all options are on the table.

In public, some Republican lawmakers declare they won't accept any accord that would raise taxes and conservative groups threaten to unseat any legislator that considers doing so. At the same time, Democrats say they oppose President George W. Bush's proposal to set up private accounts.

``When I'm talking alone, there's no one that really pushes back hard,'' Paulson said in an interview yesterday in Washington. ``If it's going to be bipartisan, you've got to come together and everything is on the table.''

Maybe they are not pushing back hard because they do not want to waste their time on a pointless argument about something that is not going to happen.

Josh Marshall On Social Security

Josh Marshall runs the highly influential Talking Points Memo blog. He was recently interviewed by Frontline. He had some interesting things to say. Here is an excerpt about Social Security:

And you say that in the Social Security area, the mainstream press really doesn't care about it because they make too much money?

I think the fairly comfortable economic position of a lot of the lead reporters makes them relatively indifferent to the future of social security. Yeah, I think that's true.

Their class position influences how they cover things.

Yeah. Not in ways that they're dishonest. I think all sorts of facts about individual reporters go into the assumptions that they bring to the news. Yeah, I think that that's one of them.

In the case of Social Security, another thing that played into that is the conventional wisdom in Washington, and the conventional wisdom in Washington on Social Security leaned right. ...