Social Security Hiring Freeze: Lazy And Stupid And Insulting

     From Federal News Network:

The Social Security Administration has implemented a hiring freeze across much of the agency’s headquarters. 

SSA Commissioner Andrew Saul announced the hiring freeze, effective July 31, in a memo to senior staff, which Federal News Network obtained. 

An SSA spokesman confirmed the hiring freeze and said it was implemented to ensure agency resources are directly focused on customer service priorities. 

“This freeze applies to all headquarters components and their respective regional offices,” the spokesman said. “Direct public service and workload positions and workload positions in the teleservice centers, processing centers, area and local field offices and state disability determination services are exempt from the hiring freeze.” ... 

SSA headquarters and component offices impacted by the hiring freeze can’t establish new positions or post new external or internal vacancy announcements, according to the agency guidance. 

New appointments for administrative law judges, senior administrative law judges and administrative appeals judges are also prohibited. ... 

In addition, the hiring freeze blocks permanent and temporary promotions for SSA employees, with the exception of career ladder promotions, according to Saul’s memo. ...

     I regard hiring freezes as lazy and stupid and inherently demeaning to civil servants. Even with as many exceptions as this one, hiring freezes inevitably cause dislocations because the vast majority of federal employees do important work for the American people. As these hiring freezes go on exceptions keep getting more and more extensive as it becomes more and more obvious that the work can’t get done without replacing  departing employees. The problems get worse and worse until the hiring freeze is quietly lifted. No significantly money is ever saved. If you really think there are vacancies that shouldn’t be filled, go to the trouble of specifying them. Don’t casually insult federal employees by implying that there is some advantage to the American people in failing to fill vacancies that occur randomly across a large agency.

Not Just Retirement

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Former Social Security Employee Sentenced To 12 Months Behind Bars

     From WSOC-TV in Charlotte:

Oliver Montgomery has already served more than four months behind bars, but on Tuesday a federal judge ruled that he’ll spend eight more months in prison.

Montgomery is a former Social Security representative in Charlotte who abused his power. He was sentenced Tuesday for a crime that victimized at least two people, including an inmate.

From January 2017 to July 2017, Montgomery meddled with their accounts.

Last year, Channel 9 reported that Montgomery changed information on an inmate's paperwork in order to divert $27,000 to himself instead of to a beneficiary.

In another case, Montgomery used a beneficiary's personal identity information. That time he took more than $12,000, officials said. ...

Can We Just Quit Wasting Money On Such UnPROMISING Research?

     The Social Security Administration, along with the Departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services have worked together to create a plan to help young people receiving Supplemental Security Income improve their lives and, more to the point, move off government benefits. This plan, called PROMISE for Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI, was tested in six states. PROMISE has the following components:

• Formal partnerships between state agencies that provide the following services: vocational rehabilitation (VR) services, special education and related services, workforce development services, Medicaid services, income assistance from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and services provided by federally funded state developmental disability and mental health services programs
• Case management to ensure that PROMISE services would be appropriately planned and coordinated, help participants navigate the broader service delivery system, and help with transition planning for post-school goals and services
• Benefits counseling and financial education for youth and their families on SSA work incentives, eligibility requirements of various programs, rules governing earnings and assets, and topics promoting families’ financial stability
• Career and work-based learning experiences, including paid and unpaid work experiences in an integrated setting while they were in high school
• Parent training and information in two areas: (1) the parents’ or guardians’ role in supporting and advocating for their youth to help them achieve their education and employment goals, and (2) resources for improving the education and employment outcomes of the parents or guardians and the economic self-sufficiency. ...

     Our old friend, the beltway bandit, Mathematica Policy Research, has done an evaluation of PROMISE. The bottom line is that PROMISE is quite unpromising. As the report says, "By 18 months after enrollment, none of the programs had a desirable impact on youth’s self-determination and expectations or youth’s reliance on Medicaid, nor on parents’ total income." 

     This sort of research is not harmless. This study cost $230 million. That money could have been better spent preventing further degradation of service at Social Security. 

     Can we just give up on the illusion that there's some crafty scheme that will put disabled people to work? We've tried these schemes for more than 50 years, often at great expense, and they never work. Never.

Representation At Hearing Level Continues To Decline

     Below are reports on representation at the initial, reconsideration and hearing levels over the time period 2008-18. These were obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members. 

     Note that Social Security is careful to say that their systems were not set up to capture this information at the initial and reconsideration levels, requiring them to rely upon "proxies." The numbers at the hearing level were captured from a system that was set up to capture this information. I regard the initial and reconsideration numbers as suspect. I doubt that there were increases in initial and reconsideration representation over this ten year period to this extent, particularly the increase indicated at the initial level.
     The more reliable numbers at the hearing level show what I expected, a decrease, largely related to the failure to increase the cap on fees that may be charged Social Security claimants. Social Security claimants are being so well protected against greedy attorneys that many of them cannot find an attorney to represent them, especially if they have an SSI claim.

     Click on the images to view full size.

Why Education Matters

https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/chart-book-social-security-disability-insurance

Pushback Against Social Security 2100 Act

     Predictably, Republicans are pushing back against the Social Security 2100 Act which would secure Social Security financing for at least the rest of the century as well as increase benefits. The bill, of course, would also raise taxes.

     As I've said before, let's see the Republican bill.

OHO Dispositions Continue To Far Outstrip Receipts Even Though Number Of ALJs On Duty Continues To Decline

     This is a report obtained from the Social Security Administration by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members.

Click on image to view full size

Will ALJs Be Restored To The Competitive Service?

     From Government Executive:

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday reintroduced a bill that would place administrative law judges back in the competitive service, effectively overriding a 2018 executive order.

In July 2018, President Trump signed an executive order moving administrative law judges from the competitive service to the excepted service. At the time, the White House claimed it was necessary to comply with the Lucia v. SEC Supreme Court decision, which found that administrative law judges are “inferior officers” under the Constitution, limiting their authority.

The order shifted the method for hiring new administrative law judges. Previously, candidates' qualifications were vetted by the Office of Personnel Management before they were forwarded to agencies for final selection, but the order changed their selection to a more traditional presidential appointment process. ...

On Wednesday, Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, reintroduced the ALJ Competitive Service Restoration Act (S. 2348) to reverse the Trump administration’s executive order and restore administrative law judges to the competitive service. The lawmakers first introduced the bill in August 2018, but Congress did not act on the measure. ...

In The Olden Days

     I was looking through some old things the other day and came across some yellowed issues of the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC) Informational Mailings. In the olden days, before so much information became available over the internet, those of us interested in Social Security issues had much less access to information. We relied upon the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and, if we really wanted to get into the weeds, on the NSCLC Informational Mailings. Below is an issue of an Informational Mailing from 2001. Click on each page to view full size if you'd like to take a look.