A Resurrection

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

SPOKANE -- Eight years after a judge declared him dead, the Social Security Administration says Judy Sullivan's husband is alive, and it wants back more than $90,000 in survivor's benefits she has received.

But Sullivan doesn't think the person who applied for a new Social Security card and a driver's license in an unspecified Eastern state is Jack Sullivan, her husband of 25 years who disappeared without a trace in 1991. ...

Social Security officials have not responded to her requests to prove the person is not an identity thief, Weiser said. ...

"I can tell you it's devastating because I don't know now. I just can't believe that my husband is alive," she said. "I just can't believe he would do something this way. It's not him. He's just not this kind of a person." ...

Meanwhile, the legal clinic [representing Mrs. Sullivan] has asked for a waiver of the benefits "overpayment" until the matter can be resolved. Allen Gilbert, an official of the agency's Spokane office, told The Spokesman-Review the chances of the waiver being approved are good because Sullivan applied for and received the benefit money in good faith.

A Social Security Spokesman Accidentally Demonstrates The Source Of The Problem

From WSBT in South Bend, IN:

It's a problem facing more than 20,000 families in Indiana and nearly 50,000 in Michigan. People, who say they're unable to work, are appealing to the Social Security Administration for disability benefits; but they have to wait for years. ...

The Selners [who are waiting and waiting for a Social Security disability hearing] are in a very long line. They're among 24,000 Indiana families still waiting to appeal their case to an administrative law judge. In fact, Indiana has one of the biggest backlogs in the country.

Advocacy groups for the disabled ranked Indiana as seventh worst when it comes to delays in getting an appeal hearing. Michigan is fourth.

"I don't think I would characterize it is a crisis, but it is something we are extremely, extremely concerned about,” said Robert Walsh, spokesperson for the Social Security Administration.

Would this look like a crisis to Robert Walsh if it was his family?

New No-Match Rules

The U.S. Custom and Immigration Enforcement issued rules yesterday that will require employers to fire workers whose names and Social Security numbers do not match. The Social Security Administration has been sending no-match letters to employers for years, but there was no punishment for ignoring the letters. Now, there will be punishment if employers ignore the no-match letters. Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney, has posted in his blog a useful list of frequently asked questions about these new rules. For those interested in the effects of these new rules upon the Social Security Administration, the key points are that these new rules are effective on September 9, 2007 and that there are serious penalties if employers ignore no-match letters.

These new regulations add a new and unpredictable workload to Social Security's field offices, as many who have failed to notify the Social Security Administration of name changes are forced to contact Social Security.

SSA Seeks To Improve LTD Insurers Debt Collection

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act all federal agencies must publish notices in the Federal Register when they plan new systems that require or allow members of the public to provide information to the agency in a systematic way. Here is a quote from a notice published in the Federal Register today seeking comments:

SSA is in the planning stage of developing the Agency's second phase of the fee-based web service system which would provide private industry and other third party requesters with disability and retirement data (including insured status information, dates of entitlement, and benefit amounts). [The first phase was simple Social Security number verification.] This process, the Consent Based Benefit Information System (CBBI), would assist private insurance or pension benefit companies to determine private entitlements and coordinate entitlement to such benefits. These actions help the requesters to reduce and/or eliminate the overpayment of these benefits to their insured clients. Similar to the CBSV process, companies would be required to enter into a legal agreement with SSA, obtain written consent from the record holder, reimburse SSA, and follow SSA's established systems security and audit guidelines.

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OASDI Beneficiaries By State And County

Social Security's Office of Policy has released OASDI [Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance] Beneficiaries by State and County, 2006, which lists the number of persons receiving various types of Social Security benefits in each county in the United States.

Final Rules On SSI Withholding And Non-Attorney Withholding

The Social Security Administration has issued final rules on the extension of withholding of fees for representing Social Security claimants to SSI cases and to some non-attorney representatives of claimants. This replaces "interim final rules" that had published on April 5, 2007.

Senior Attorney Program Reinstated

Effective today, Social Security has reinstituted the Senior Attorney program. The announcement appeared in today's Federal Register. Here is a summary from the notice:

... we are permitting attorney advisors, under managerial oversight, to conduct certain prehearing proceedings to help develop claims, and issue fully favorable decisions in appropriate claims before a hearing is conducted. We expect that this change will help us reduce the very high number of pending cases at the hearing level by enhancing claims development before the hearing and by permitting attorney advisors to issue fully favorable decisions in appropriate claims.

The Senior Attorney program was in effect some years ago and was quite helpful in reducing a much smaller backlog at that time. The new regulations put a two year limit on the Senior Attorney program, although the regulation states that this time could be shortened or lengthened. It is most unlikely that Social Security will work off its hearing backlog in the next two years.

Federal Register Alert

Each day the Office of Federal Register posts brief summaries of items they have received for publication in the Federal Register the next day. Here are two interesting items from Social Security that just showed up on this list. I know no more than I can glean from this bare description, but the first one sounds like senior attorney decisions.

Social security benefits and supplemental security income:

Federal old age, survivors, and disability insurance and aged, blind, and disabled--

Attorney Advisory program; amendment, E7-15422 [SSA-2007-0036]

Social security benefits and supplementary security income:

Federal old age, survivors, and disability insurance and aged, blind, and disabled--

Attorney Fee Payment System extended, eligible non-attorney representatives fee withholding and payment procedures, and past-due benefits definition, E7-15242 [SSA-2006-0097]

No Match Storm Coming

The Social Security Administration is not ready for this. From the New York Times:

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers. ...

“We are tough and we are going to be even tougher,” said Russ Knocke, the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. “There are not going to be any more excuses for employers, and there will be serious consequences for those that choose to blatantly disregard the law.” ...

The new rules codify an uneasy partnership between the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces the immigration laws, and the Social Security Administration, which collects identity information from W-2 tax forms of about 250 million workers each year, including immigrants and Americans, so it can credit the earnings in its system.

Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for Social Security, said the agency expected to send out about 140,000 no-match letters to employers this year, covering more than eight million workers. After the rules are announced, the agency is anticipating a surge in requests from employers seeking to clarify workers’ information, he said. [emphasis added]