Why The Concentration On CDRs When Basic Service Is Suffering?

      From David Weaver, writing for The Hill:

The Biden administration recently released its first official budget plan, which recommends a 9.7 percent increase in the administrative budget of the Social Security Administration (SSA). This increase in top-line funding would partially reverse the chronic underfunding of the agency by Congress (SSA's core operating budget, adjusted for inflation, fell 13 percent from 2010 to 2021, while the number of beneficiaries SSA serves grew by 22 percent). However, problems with SSA's administrative funding go beyond insufficient funding of top-line numbers.

Increasingly, Congress has directed funding away from service delivery to disability reviews that remove individuals from the rolls based on SSA's assessment of medical improvement. ...

SSA plans to increase the number of full medical disability reviews next year by 36 percent and increase the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations by 23 percent. ...

SSA plans to accelerate disability reviews next year so the agency can rapidly get back to being "current" on conducting the maximum number of reviews allowed by regulations. However, the agency shows no similar urgency on being "current" on other program integrity workloads. ...

Congress needs to pause increases in disability reviews and redeterminations until it can study — and possibly reform — the administrative process. That will also have the beneficial effect of allowing SSA to focus on service delivery as it begins to find its footing following the pandemic.

Why Is Social Security Still Using The DOT?

     From WBTV in Charlotte:

A WBTV Investigation into social security shows thousands of people are denied disability claims every year because of jobs that are out-of-date.

The Social Security Administration uses a guide called the Dictionary of Occupational Titles that hasn’t been updated since 1991, even as technological advancements have made many of the jobs described in the book obsolete.

The impact that it’s had can be felt by people like Gray Hogan. ...

Hogan applied for disability. He’s been unable to work a forty-hour week for years because of the pain.

But Hogan was denied twice. When social security denies a claimant, the person can often file an appeal in court with an administrative law judge. That process has numerous steps and the last one is for social security to determine if there are any jobs a claimant could work. That’s when Hogan was told there were jobs that were suited for him. But none of them were from the 21st Century.

“Document preparer, addresser and (envelope) stuffer,” Hogan said.

“Common sense would tell you that job doesn’t exist as it’s described,” attorney George Piemonte told WBTV. ...

“Over the millions of claims that they’re reviewing, you’re still talking about hundreds of thousands of people being denied based on these nonexistent jobs,” Piemonte said. ...

Work Without Worry Act

      From a press release:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., today introduced legislation to remove a Social Security work disincentive for Americans with disabilities. The Work Without Worry Act would allow Americans with disabilities to work to their full potential without causing them to lose out on higher Social Security benefits. ...

If an adult has a severe medical condition that began before age 22, they may be eligible for a Social Security benefit called the Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefit. Their benefits are based on their parent’s Social Security earnings, in the same way that benefits of a child under age 18 would be. However, under current law some of these young adults fear that if they try to work they will lose future DAC benefits, which are often higher than any benefit they may qualify on their own. This fear inhibits the ability of Americans with disabilities to explore their ability to work as they transition to adult life.

The Work Without Worry Act promotes financial security by ensuring that any earnings from work – no matter how much – will not prevent an individual from receiving a Social Security DAC benefit from their parent’s work history if they have an eligible medical condition that began before age 22. This bill treats all individuals with severe medical conditions that began before age 22 the same – no matter when their parents claim Social Security benefits. This change is estimated to increase Social Security benefits by $100 million and improve the lives of nearly 2,000 individuals with disabilities over the next 10 years.

Additional original co-sponsors include Senators Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., Pat Leahy, D-Vt., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Bob Casey, D-Pa. The House of Representatives introduced a companion bill today, led by Congressman John Larson, D-Conn.

     Why don't we get rid of the marriage penalty for DAC recipients while we're at it.

News Coverage For House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

      There's been little attention paid to the hearing held this week by the House Social Security Subcommittee. Here's one news article, however. Unless the Senate does something about the filibuster, it's impossible for any legislation of consequence to pass.

Normal Phone Service At Social Security

      Social Security says it's not answering its phones today because of the Juneteenth holiday. I guess that makes it about the same as any ordinary workday.

GAO Report On ALJ Productivity Expectations

 

      From Process Needed to Review Productivity Expectations for Administrative Law Judges by the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) administrative law judges review, process, and adjudicate requests for hearings on disability benefits. In 2007, the agency set an expectation—which SSA reported was based on trend data and some regional managers’ input—for judges to issue 500-700 dispositions(decisions and dismissals) each year, and the extent to which they have met this expectation has varied over time. SSA did not document the expectation-setting process in 2007, nor has it formally reviewed the expectation since. Judges in discussion groups held by GAO questioned the basis of the expectation and 87 percent of judges GAO surveyed (47 of 54) said the expectation was too high. ...  

Judges in selected hearing offices cited a variety of factors affecting their ability to meet the annual expectation. The top factor cited by judges GAO surveyed was the size of case files, which have increased five-fold on average since the expectation was established, according to SSA data. ...  

SSA monitors judges’ productivity and takes various actions when expectations are not met, ranging from informal conversations to formal discipline. In addition, judges in 11 of 13 discussion groups viewed telework restrictions as a consequence for not meeting expectations. Additionally, judges GAO surveyed reported feeling pressured to meet the expectations. For instance, 87 percent ofjudges surveyed (47 of 54) said that SSA placed too much emphasis on productivity, and some expressed concerns about their work quality and work-life balance. SSA officials said they do not formally seek feedback from judges onthe expectations. However, without feedback or other gauges of pressure, SSA lacks information that could help it appropriately balance timely case processing while maintaining high-quality work and employee morale. ...

      Social Security cannot continue to ignore the dramatic changes in disability claim files nor can they continue to blindly pressure ALJs to do the impossible.

     It's not just ALJs who are affected by the dramatic increase in the size of Social Security disability claim files. It's also the attorneys who represent the claimants. We not only have to read all those records but we have to obtain many of them. And we have to do this at a time when our fees have been effectively cut by the failure to increase the fee cap. If there is a dramatic increase in the number of Social Security disability claims filed next year, as seems likely, I'm not at all sure that there will be attorneys available to represent them. The pandemic plus the effective decrease in attorney fees have left Social Security attorneys in a seriously weakened financial position and unlikely to increase their staffing.

Last Minute Surprise: Tomorrow Is A Federal Holiday

      It's amazing that tomorrow, June 18, may or may not be a federal holiday. Congress has passed legislation that would make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Apparently, the President will sign the legislation at 3:30 this afternoon. If that happens, I don't know how tomorrow isn't a holiday since that's what the legislation requires and apparently the legislation is effective immediately.

     I'm happy that Juneteenth will be a holiday. However, adopting this new holiday without any lead time is bizarre. Just in Social Security terms, there are many thousands of individuals who have appointments scheduled with Social Security tomorrow. For that matter, many thousands of federal employees won't get word about this new holiday before tomorrow morning.

     Update: Now it's official. The Office of Personnel Management has tweeted that tomorrow will be a federal holiday.

Social Security Concedes That It Must Reopen Negotiations With ALJ Union

     From Government Executive:

The Social Security Administration on Tuesday announced that it would abide by an arbitrator’s decision ordering the agency to completely restart negotiations with a union representing its corps of administrative law judges.

Last month, Arbitrator John T. Nicholas found that management at the agency engaged in unfair labor practices, including illegally forcing matters to impasse and engaging in surface level bargaining, when negotiating five different articles of its contract with the Association of Administrative Law Judges. The decision marked the third instance where an independent arbitrator found evidence of malfeasance on the part of the agency’s negotiating team in relation to its negotiations with the judges union. ...

“The union was pleased to see that the agency has finally relented and will comply with the arbitration award,” McIntosh said. “For some time, Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black clung to the ill-gotten gains of the Trump-era union busting [impasses] panel order. This notification signals that they concede it is not possible to enforce it against us.” ...

Law Firm Lays Off 76

      Pond Lehocky Giordano, a Philadelphia law firm concentrating in workers compensation and Social Security, is permanently laying off 76 employees, apparently due to financial stresses brought about by Covid-19.

We Need Social Security Employees Back In Their Offices

      You can read many comments to this blog asserting that Social Security employees have been just as productive working from home as they were in the office. Some even assert they're more productive. This could be true of some components of the agency but I think it needs to be made clear that this is emphatically not the case when it comes to the agency's field offices and its payment centers where claims for Title II benefits are processed. 

     To assess how well these components have fared with employees mostly working from home you have to look first at workload. Workloads are down considerably. SSI claims, which are taken and implemented by the field offices, were down 29% for the time period July 2020 to April 2021. For that same time period, Title II disability claims, which are taken by the field offices and implemented at the payment centers, were down 17%. Yes, retirement claims haven't been down, but come on, we all know those take little time to process. It's the disability claims that take all the time. Despite this major downturn in workload, backlogs have soared at the field offices and payment centers. 

     The explanation given by some posting comments on this board for the soaring backlogs is that they can't get the work done because they normally get a lot of work done using overtime and there's been little overtime this fiscal year. While a lack of overtime certainly isn't helping, it doesn't explain the soaring backlogs. Total workyears, including overtime, for Social Security itself (not including the Disability Determination Services) were down from 64,056 in FY 2019 to 61,553 in FY 2020 and to 60,905 in FY 2021. That's a very significant 5% decline in workyears from FY 2019 to FY 2021. However, remember that workloads for the field offices and payment centers declined significantly over this time period. You should also know that the agency has been able to shift overtime hours from hearing offices to other components as hearing office backlogs have declined.

     Social Security employees and their unions can give whatever explanations they want but I'm on the receiving end of the agency's services. It's obvious to me that field office and payment center backlogs have soared during the pandemic even though workloads are down. I can't think of any rational explanation other than lower productivity caused by most employees being on 100% telework. 

     I'm not interested in hearing: 

• What about ventilation?
• What about variants?
• Telework is the future.
• Social Security can cut the office space it rents if employees can all work from home forever.
• Commuting is dangerous and difficult.
• Andrew Saul is a jerk.
• Lots of employees are going to quit if they're forced to return to the office.

     Enough already! The work isn't getting done. The current situation isn't sustainable. Allow employees some telework but Social Security employees need to get vaccinated and to get back to the office.