Ways And Means Chairman Introduces WEP Legislation

     From a press release issued Friday:

Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal introduced the Public Servants Protection and Fairness Act, H.R. 4540, legislation to fix the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) for future retirees and provide meaningful relief to current WEP retirees. The bill ensures that public servants across the nation can retire with the security and dignity they deserve.

The legislation establishes a new, fairer formula that will pay Social Security benefits in proportion to the share of a worker’s earnings that were covered for Social Security purposes. This provision is coupled with a benefit guarantee ensuring no benefit cuts relative to current law for all current and future retirees. Current WEP retirees will receive $150 a month in relief payments. ...

“The WEP negatively affects nearly 2 million retired public servants across the country, including about 73,000 in Massachusetts,” said Chairman Neal. “Public employees like firefighters, teachers, and police officers should not miss out on the Social Security benefits they earned over decades of hard work. With this legislation, these valued members of our communities will have greater retirement security and peace of mind.”

Originally, the WEP was intended to equalize the Social Security benefit formula for workers with similar earnings histories, both inside and outside of the Social Security system. However, in practice, it unfairly penalizes many public employees. ...

my Social Security Fraud Coming Under Control?

     Social Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on direct deposit fraud, that is, cases where Social Security benefits were misdirected because of unauthorized bank account information changes made through "my Social Security". Below is a chart from the brief stub of the report that was issued to the public. Apparently, OIG regards this as too sensitive to release to the public because it discusses methods the agency is using to deter and detect fraud.

Click on image to view full size

A Moment Of Grace At A Social Security Office

     Kathryn Taylor writes about finding a moment of grace, of social security actually, at a Social Security field office.

A Chair Covered In Borax?

     From USA Today:

A Wisconsin woman is accused of hiding her mother's corpse to live off her Social Security money. ...

Officers arrived at [the mother's] home last Wednesday to do a welfare check after a neighbor called police. "She knew the lady and didn't see her for some time," ...

Officers found a note taped on Ruby's home that said, "Ruby has gone out of town to visit some friends of ours. Paula." Inside, they found a chair covered in Borax, as well as boxes of ammonia and bleach.

Days later, Paula Bergold confessed to her mother's death and that her body was in the home. Bergold said she found her mother dead in a chair — the one later covered in Borax — and didn't call authorities because she was worried about her finances. She told police she was living off her mother's Social Security income and investment.

When the body began to smell, Bergold placed her mother's body inside the tub. ...

Agency Failed To Cut Off Benefits For Some Aliens -- Also, What's RETAP?

     From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

... If a family member of a wage earner is eligible for OASDI [Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance] benefits and is not a U.S. citizen, he/she may need to meet a 5-year residency requirement. To fulfill the residency requirement, the beneficiary must establish a physical residence in the United States, while in a qualifying relationship with the wage earner, with the intent to reside for a cumulative period of at least 5 years. SSA uses the automated Regular Transcript Attainment and Selection Pass (RETAP) process to prompt benefit suspension for non-citizen beneficiaries who have not meet their 5-year residency requirement and have been outside the United States for longer than 6 consecutive months. ... 

Of the 200 non-citizen beneficiaries we reviewed, SSA did not properly suspend benefits to 26 (13 percent). SSA should have suspended these beneficiaries because they had not met their 5-year residency requirement and lived outside the United States for longer than 6 consecutive months. Of the 26 beneficiaries, 23 met the criteria for the RETAP process to prompt benefit suspension. However, RETAP did not identify these beneficiaries for suspension. According to SSA, a RETAP programming limitation prevented these beneficiaries from being identified for benefit suspension. SSA employees omitted information from the remaining three beneficiaries’ Master Beneficiary Records required for RETAP to prompt benefit suspensions. 

By not appropriately suspending benefits, SSA overpaid these 26 beneficiaries approximately $332,000. Accordingly, we project SSA overpaid nearly $29 million to approximately 2,300 non-citizen OASDI beneficiaries. ...

     Is RETAP a State Department database?

Black Confirmed As Deputy Commissioner

     David Black was confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Commissioner of Social Security yesterday. The vote was 68-26.

Social Security's Predictions Of Hearings Pending And Hearing Processing Time

 Click on images to view full size.

From a Social Security report to the White House

Two Listings Rolled Over

     Social Security has extended without change the expiration dates for its Listings for Respiratory and Genitourinary disorders.

Lots Of iClaims Fraud

     From a recently released report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

... SSA’s controls that identified potentially fraudulent iClaims were generally effective. However, the number of undetected fraudulent iClaims is unknown. Of the 70,173 potentially fraudulent iClaims OAFP [Office of Anti-Fraud Programs] identified, SSA determined 3,807 were fraudulent, 48,062 were likely fraudulent, 4,825 were not fraudulent, 11,289 were inconclusive, and 2,190 were pending. ...

     Almost 60,000 known cases where they can't tell for sure whether there was fraud or not. They admit that they have no idea how many unknown fraud cases there are. Still, they call that "generally effective"? What would ineffective look like? No, iClaims fraud is a big problem and Social Security doesn't have a handle on it.

OIG On Delays In Scheduling Remands

     From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

... Administrative law judges (ALJ) decided 49,579 Appeals Council remand decisions from Fiscal Years (FY) 2016 through 2018. Appeals Council remands represent the modification of a prior hearing decision often because the ALJ applied the wrong law, additional claimant or other witness testimony was needed, the claimant did not receive a fair hearing, or the ALJ decisional rationale was insufficient. 

SSA’s policy states that remands should be processed as a priority workload. Hearing offices are required to flag remands when they are docketed into the hearing office and assign them immediately to an ALJ for review. ...

Although remands should be processed as a priority workload, SSA does not define “priority” and does not have a processing time goal for this workload. Of the 49,579 remands processed in FYs 2016 through 2018,

• 22,144 were processed in fewer than 270 days,
• 10,043 took between 270 and 360 days,
• 5,191 took between 361 and 430 days,
• 7,179 took between 431 and 595 days,
• 4,717 took between 596 and 999 days, and
• 305 took 1,000 days or longer to process.  

Our sample analysis found some remands took longer to process because they were not always input immediately in the hearing offices’ master docket or the remands stalled in the Ready to Schedule, ALJ Review Pre-hearing, or ALJ Review Post-hearing stages. ...

     In my experience, this is definitely a problem. I've never understood what's going on behind the scenes but remands often take longer to schedule than new request for hearing cases.