Scare Tactics Work But Not Nearly Enough To Threaten Social Security's Existence

From a CNN/ORC poll:

Please tell me which of the following statements comes closest to your opinion about the Social Security program: (READ IN ORDER)

The Social Security program has no serious problems, certainly none that require changing the current system 4%

Social Security has minor problems that can be fixed with minor changes to the current system 28%

Social Security's problems are serious and can be fixed only with major changes to the current system 55%

Social Security's problems are so bad that the system should be replaced 12%

No opinion 1%

The Social Security system has been described as a "monstrous lie" and as a failure. Do you think those phrases are an accurate description of the Social Security system, or don't you think so?

Accurate 27%

Not accurate 72%

No opinion 1%

The Accuracy Is "Quite Good"

From the San Diego  Union-Tribune:

The two highest-earning state civil-service employees working in San Diego County made hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses last year reviewing Social Security disability claims.

Both of the psychiatrists work for the California Department of Social Services, which uses federal money to employ dozens of physical and mental health analysts who review claims for disability benefits.


Dr. Robert B. Paxton, 62, made $440,068 last year including $306,315 of bonus, making him the top-paid across California among the analysts in this field and the ninth-highest earner in the overall state workforce.


Dr. Kelly J. Loomis, 45, made $368,917, of which $237,168 was bonus.


The bonuses come from a program that pays them $27 for each case in excess of 18 that they review in a day.

Social Services officials would not say how many cases Paxton reviewed in 2010, what their outcome was or how many days he spent at work. When reached by telephone, Paxton said he was told not to comment for this story.


Assuming Paxton took all state holidays, 21 required furlough days and one week’s vacation, that left him 221 weekdays to work. He would have had to review about 70 cases per weekday, or more than 15,000 in a year, to earn the bonus he was paid. ...


A substantial number of the cases are hundreds of pages long, according to attorneys with decades of experience representing disability claimants. Those attorneys questioned the quality of the reviews. ...


According to Washington, the consultants’ cases are subjected to a quality review process performed by their supervisor, then by the state office, and finally by Social Security. For each review, a sampling of cases is checked for errors and any inaccurate cases are sent back for correction. Social Security spokesman Lowell Kepke said California’s performance is on par with that of other states.


“Generally, our reviews show that California’s accuracy is quite good, and better than 90 percent,” Kepke said.

Quiz Answer

     Question: Mr. C starts work after graduating from high school at age 18. He has regular, substantial earnings until he becomes a quadriplegic as a result of a car accident when he is 21. He goes to live with his healthy 59 year old mother who has no other children and who is not working. She was married to Mr. C's father who is now deceased. She has not remarried. Mr. C files claims for disability insurance benefits (DIB) and disabled adult child (DAC) benefits on the account of his late father. Both claims are approved. He receives only DIB since it is higher than the DAC. What Social Security benefits, if any, can the mother be paid, assuming she applies for them?

• Wife's benefits
• Mother's benefits
• Widow's benefits
• Aid and Attendance Benefits
• None

    Answer: Mother's benefits. Wife's benefits are not available since her husband is deceased. She is too young anyway.  She is too young for widow's benefits unless she is disabled and she is not. There is no Social Security "Aid and Attendance" benefit, although there is a VA benefit by this name. Even though no DAC benefits are being paid to Mr. C, he is technically entitled to DAC.  Since he is technically entitled to DAC, his mother has a child of the decedent in her care, making her eligible for mother's benefits. Although mother's benefits are normally available only until the youngest child turns 16, there is no such limit if the child is disabled.
     If you are wondering, this was a real case that I had. I dealt with people at the field office and payment center who were initially skeptical but also intrigued. They all eventually agreed that the woman in question was clearly eligible for mother's benefits. If you are familiar with the concept of technical entitlement, which Social Security unquestionably accepts, I think you have to come to the same conclusion.

How Long Until The Next New Hearing Office?

From KRCG:

COLUMBIA, MO. -- Social Security Officials dedicated a newly expanded hearing office in Columbia. Social Security staff at the office will help ease the backlog of disability cases that are waiting for hearings. When fully staffed, the Columbia hearing office will have 8 administrative law judges and 43 support staff. Staff members will serve clients in 12 Mid-Missouri counties ...

October 1 Is Rapidly Approaching

     The federal fiscal year ends on September 30, only 17 days from now. No appropriation for Social Security has passed Congress. There is an urgent need for a continuing resolution (CR). The House Appropriations Committee has announced in passing that it intends to take up a government-wide CR next week. There are a couple of potential problems. First, there is little doubt that the House of Representatives will add a number of "riders" to the CR with the most important riders aimed at preventing implementation of health care reform. This could make coming to an agreement difficult. Second, while the top line number for all appropriations has been fixed by the budget agreement, there is no agreement on what individual agencies get. The House of Representatives has passed a budget resolution that would require approximately 15% cuts in the Labor-HHS appropriations, which includes Social Security. If the CR contains an across the board 15% cut in the rate at which agencies covered by the Labor-HHS CR can spend money, Social Security is in immediate trouble with dramatic furloughs inevitable. I could see Social Security shutting down for one day a week. Social Security has to fare far better than other agencies covered by the Labor-HHS appropriation or thing will start to fall apart very quickly.

   Update: And here we go with signs that there may another round of brinksmanship on the CR.

Is This No More Than A Minor Technical Change?

From today's Federal Register:

We propose to give adjudicators the discretion to proceed to the fifth step of the sequential evaluation process for assessing disability when we have insufficient information about a claimant's past relevant work history to make the findings required for step 4. If an adjudicator finds at step 5 that a claimant may be unable to adjust to other work existing in the national economy, the adjudicator would return to the fourth step to develop the claimant's work history and make a finding about whether the claimant can perform his or her past relevant work. This proposed new process would not disadvantage any claimant or change the ultimate conclusion about whether a claimant is disabled, but it would promote administrative efficiency and help us make more timely disability determinations and decisions.

Quiz

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A Blow To Claimants Awaiting A Social Security Hearing

     While there has been a good deal of improvement in the backlog of Social Security claimants awaiting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), we should not think that the problem has been resolved. Claimants in places like Columbus, Dayton, Cleveland and Buffalo are still waiting for 17 months on average. Most claimants are still waiting almost a year.

     The lack of adequate administrative funding for Social Security may soon start to make these backlogs worse. Social Security ALJs have always been helped at hearings by personnel who work in the hearing room, taking care of a number of functions, such as operating the recording equipment. In years past, this was done by some regular hearing office employees as part of their job duties..Social Security began contracting out this work some years ago. "Hearing reporters" paid by the case replaced regular Social Security personnel. This freed up regular Social Security employees to do other vital work.

     I heard this past week that the two Social Security hearing offices that my firm deals with most often, Raleigh and Fayetteville, NC are doing away with the hearing reporters for hearings held at the main hearing office. I was sorry to hear this since the hearing reporters I know do a fantastic job. I hate to see them lose their jobs. The bigger problem is that they will be replaced by regular hearing office personnel. This would be satisfactory if Social Security were hiring more personnel to take up the slack but I know that is not going to happen.

     This amounts to a cut in staffing at these two hearing offices. I cannot say exactly what the percentage cut in staffing will be. Perhaps, a reader can tell us what the Social Security Administration is expecting. I will give a ballpark figure that this amounts to a 5% cut in staffing but that is no more than a somewhat informed guess. I also cannot say how widespread this change will be. There are reports that this is only being done on a pilot basis but the fact that two hearing offices in one state are affected suggests that this may be a widespread change.

     This will certainly cause bottlenecks and increase backlogs at hearing offices wherever it is implemented. This is not happening because Social Security management wants to create bottlenecks or increase backlogs but because the agency is facing a serious lack of funding.

September 11, 2001

A Rare Thing For Social Security: A New Idea -- And AARP Likes It

From Jed Graham, writing at Investors.com:

It’s not every day, one can safely assume, that AARP’s chief policy guru John Rother offers supportive words about a specific approach for cutting Social Security benefits.

So it was to my great surprise that I received an email from Rother recently with relative praise for a new approach to Social Security reform called Old-Age Risk-Sharing that has flown under the radar of policymakers....

Of all the options, reducing COLAs [Cost of Living Adjustments] is among the worst approaches because it could make retirement at 62 look like a better financial decision than it really is — before the Social Security safety net is gradually unwound by inflation over the next few decades in retirement. 

Here is a brief case for a new approach that works in the opposite way — providing the biggest cut, though in a progressive way, in the first year of retirement in order to avoid any benefit cuts in very old age...

[I]in Old-Age Risk-Sharing, ... the steepest benefit cuts would come in the first year of retirement; the cuts would be progressively smaller for lower earners; and they would gradually unwind over 20 years to provide robust support for retirees of all income levels in very old age, when almost everyone will depend on it.