Beware Of GOPers Bearing Social Security Gifts

     From the New York Times:

Paid leave for new parents, long a Democratic cause, has become a Republican one, too. But policymakers don’t agree on what a leave plan should look like. Now some Republicans have a new idea: Let people collect Social Security benefits early to pay for time off after they have a baby.

Unlike some other proposals, this would require no new taxes. There’s a catch, though: Parents would have their Social Security benefits delayed when they retire to offset the costs. ...

Ms. Lukas [a proponent] has said that she hoped the proposal would “encourage an important mental shift” in the way people think about Social Security. If individuals view it as “property,” she reasons, it could lead to the embrace of personal accounts.

That reasoning is why some experts view the proposal as a backdoor way to try to curb the scale and cost of Social Security. They also said it could put women in a more precarious position in retirement, adding yet another financial penalty to the list that women pay when they become mothers. ...

     My opinion is that there is essentially a 0% chance this gets enacted as proposed. It's not happening without Democratic support and that isn't going to happen, not now, not ever. Find a way to give government-paid parental leave without reducing retirement benefits, sure, but not this. The GOP has been pursuing ways to undermine Social Security since the 1930s. The party has no credibility when it comes to Social Security. 

Any New York Attorney Who Can Help Me?

     Here's the situation. Person with a Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claim moves from New York to North Carolina, where I am. While in New York he was receiving an interim disability benefit either from NY state or New York City. He's now been approved. His SSI benefits are supposed to be reduced by what's called an interim assistance offset. The money offset is supposed to be paid to the governmental entity that was paying the interim assistance. However, by statute, the amount of the attorney fee is supposed to be based upon the gross amount of the back benefits rather than the net amount after the interim assistance offset. In this person's case, if you take the interim assistance offset and combine it with the computed attorney fee, it comes to more than the past due benefits. Social Security has paid NY its full amount but reduced the attorney fee by the excess.

     Can they do that? I couldn't find this question addressed in Social Security's POMS manual. Since I'm in North Carolina, which has no form of interim assistance, rather than NY, I'm not familiar with what Social Security has been doing in these cases.

     If they can do this, is there any way of getting reimbursement from NY for the attorney fee that wasn't paid? I recall hearing that NY did this before Congress changed the statute to base the attorney fee on the gross SSI benefit.

Waiting In North Carolina

     The Raleigh News and Observer is reporting on the horrendous hearing backlog at Social Security. I have to salute Allsup's efforts to get these stories in local newspapers all over the country.

Musculoskeletal Listings Changes Move Forward

     After almost six months of review, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has approved proposed amendments to Social Security's Listings for musculoskeletal disorders. Expect this proposal to appear in the Federal Register in the near future. Remember, this is only a proposal. The public has a right to comment on the proposal. Social Security will then carefully consider the comments before ignoring any that hinge on anything other than minor issues of wording. This process is likely to extend well past the election this November. If there's anything really terrible in the proposal -- and I wouldn't be surprised if there was -- a change in control of the House of Representatives or Senate could have an effect on the process.

Waiting In The Bronx

     From the Norwood News (a biweekly newspaper serving parts of the Bronx):

... A lengthy wait for a [Social Security disability] hearing is not unusual in the Bronx. Data kept by the Social Security Administration (SSA) shows residents who have filed a disability claim at their local Social Security office wait an average of 779 days, over two years, for their case to be reviewed at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) at 226 E. 161st St. This is the longest wait time in the nation, higher than the national average of 593 days, and there are 6,457 cases pending in the Bronx now. On top of that, only 45 percent of those who are granted a hearing will receive disability benefits

How Did This Become Social Security's Responsibility?

     From the Ripon Advance:

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, teamed up with a bipartisan group of colleagues to urge the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to better protect Americans from identity fraud and theft in an era of rapid financial transactions.

Along with U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Gary Peters (D-MI), Cassidy raised concerns with the SSA over the practice of synthetic identity theft, which they noted involves creating a false identity by combining several persons’ actual data and made-up information. ...

The senators requested that SSA modernize its Consent-Based Social Security Number Verification system (CBSV) to combat the problem while securely enabling businesses to quickly process consumer transactions. The CBSV program requires the private sector to obtain an individual’s consent to verify if a given name, date of birth and Social Security number (SSN) match a government-issued source, according to the letter.

However, the CBSV has been hindered by its requirement that users of the program obtain a person’s actual written signature before using the database, an action the senators said “negates the utility of CBSV to combat synthetic identity fraud,” and slows down the ability of financial institutions to make rapid determinations on consumer financial products. ...

     By the way, I'm astonished to see that the Ripon Society still exists. It was founded to advance liberal ideas within the Republican party. Once upon a time there were liberal Republicans. They really did exist.

Is Social Security To Blame For Early Deaths?

     From Fox News:

Maria D. Fitzpatrick of Cornell University and Timothy J. Moore of the University of Melbourne said they analyzed the mortality rates in the U.S. and noticed that many older Americans – but disproportionally men who retire at 62 – are affected by sudden increased rates of death. ...

The numbers, according to the study, show that there is a two percent increase in male mortality at age 62 in the country. “Over the 34 years we studied, there were an additional 400 to 800 deaths per year beyond what we expected, or an additional 13,000 to 27,000 excess male deaths within 12 months of turning 62,” the professor said.

The researcher blames the increased mortality on the retirement as retirees tend to withdraw from life and no longer see the point in engaging. ...

     Many, many people apply for Social Security retirement benefits at age 62 not because they really want to retire but because they're too sick to keep working. They don't think of applying for disability benefits or they prefer to avoid the hassles of applying for disability benefits.

Man Indicted For Assault At Social Security Office

     From WHNS in Greenville, SC:

A 63-year-old was indicted by a grand jury after an assault at the Social Security Office in Greenville.

Kenneth David Sipple of Travelers Rest is charged with assaulting a federal employee in November.

According to the indictment filed on Wednesday, the victim, a contract employee of the Department of Homeland Security, was working as a guard at the office when Sipple struck him with "both open and closed hands."

The suspect is also accused of wrestling the guard, trying to take his firearm and then stabbing him in the earlobe with a ballpoint pen. ...

Eric Conn Disbarred

     Not that it really matters, but Eric Conn has officially been disbarred.

Preach!

     From Kathleen Romig of the Center on Budget and  Policy Priorities (CBPP):

The bipartisan agreement to raise the caps on discretionary spending in 2018 and 2019 reportedly calls for higher funding for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) operating budget, which is starved for resources after years of cuts, to improve customer service. SSA’s budget shrank by 11 percent between 2010 and 2017, after adjusting for inflation — even as SSA’s workload grew as baby boomers reached their peak years for retirement and disability. When lawmakers write agency funding bills based on the agreement, they need to fulfill their commitment and provide SSA with a significant increase to undo the damage from those cuts.

One consequence of the cuts is that over 1 million people await a final decision on their application for Social Security Disability Insurance — after paying into Social Security their entire career — or their application for Supplemental Security Income disability benefits. They wait an average of nearly two years for decisions on their appeals, a record delay. ...