Doesn't "Program Integrity" Include Paying Benefits When Due?

      From an editorial by Mark Miller on Reuters:

Our worries about Social Security often focus on the program’s solvency issues, which threaten benefits if left unresolved. But right now, we face a more immediate challenge: how to fund the Social Security Administration (SSA) as it climbs out of the COVID-19 crisis so that it can serve the public efficiently and equitably.

Social Security’s customer service has suffered from more than a decade of budget cuts imposed by Congress, and its operating budget dropped 13% from 2010 to 2021, adjusted for inflation. Over that same period, the number of Social Security beneficiaries grew by 22%, SSA data shows. ...

Routine business, such as applications for retirement benefits and Medicare, have proceeded smoothly during the shutdown. But applications for disability benefits plunged over the past year at a time when in all likelihood the number of people eligible for benefits - and needing them - jumped. There also has been a sharp drop in applications for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a benefit program for low-income, disabled or older people.

The field office closures are the likely culprit. ...

Social Security also has a problem in an area known as “program integrity.” In Congress, lawmakers typically use the phrase to refer to fraudulent benefit claims - and they have pushed the SSA over the past decade to crack down by earmarking a significant portion of the agency’s budget to program integrity activities.

Much of this activity has focused on removing people from the disability benefit rolls based on an assessment of medical improvement. Last year, Congress earmarked $1.6 billion for disability and other reviews - a whopping 12% of its overall administrative budget.

Next year, the SSA plans to increase medical disability reviews by 36%, and the number of SSI redeterminations by 23%, notes David Weaver, a former associate commissioner in Social Security’s Office of Research, Demonstration and Employment Support.

But we need a broader definition of “integrity” that includes benefits that should be paid - and are not....

Show Us The Numbers

      Social Security's budget justification for the next fiscal year included numbers indicating a big productivity decline at its Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) during the pandemic. I would guess that the agency has productivity indices for other components. If there are such productivity indices, it seems to me that the agency should release them to the public. I think they would be crucial information which should be used in making decisions on when and how Social Security reopens its offices. If they don't show productivity declines, the continuation of extensive telework is justified. If they do show productivity declines, agency employees and their unions shouldn't make a fuss when telework goes back to pre-pandemic levels or, at least if they do, they shouldn't expect much sympathy from others. However, even if field office productivity indices show no decline as a result of telework (which I doubt), the field offices must reopen to to the public. It's abundantly clear that there is a strong public demand for this level of service. The Social Security Administration exists to serve the public.

Full Retirement Age Is Already Too Damned High

     From Are Older Workers Capable Of Working Longer?, a study by Laura D. Quinley and Gal Wettstein of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

The paper found that:

• The capacity to work to older ages is still increasing for high-education individuals and low-education Black women.
• However, no progress has been observed for low-education whites of all genders and Black men.
• As a result, large shares of those still working at age 62 will be incapable of working even two more years. 

The policy implications of the findings are:

• Raising Social Security eligibility ages may reduce the financial security of large segments of the population.
• These impacts will be particularly pronounced for Black men and low-education white individuals of all genders. 

How Much Should Be Done?

      From Fedweek:

An audit has illustrated issues that arose with the partial reopening of SSA field offices, including a lack of contact information on visitors and no guarantee that visitors who later learn they have the Coronavirus or have been exposed to it will report it back to the agency. ...

The audit found that on average, some 2,200 employees and some 1,600 visitors have been in the offices daily. However, the IG found that the agency “does not maintain contact information” for all visitors to those facilities nor for contractors such as security guards and cleaning staff. ...

     Does contact information matter if the employees coming to the field office are vaccinated? Aren't employees assuming the risk if they have refused vaccination? 

     I'm gotten to the point where I really don't care too much what happens to those who refuse vaccination except for that tiny number of people who have a genuine medical reason not to be vaccinated. There’s only so much we can do to protect people from their own folly.

Work Incentive Experiment Ended

      From an Emergency Message:

... This emergency message (EM) provides notification for field offices (FO), National 800 Number Network (N8NN), and processing service centers (PSC) that the Promoting Opportunity Demonstration (POD) will end for all participating beneficiaries on 06/30/2021. ... 

SSA began recruiting volunteers—who may be SSDI or concurrent beneficiaries—for the POD in January 2018. Recruitment continued through December 2018, resulting in a total enrollment count of 10,070 participants. The random assignment process placed POD participants into one of three groups: two treatment groups and one control group. Treatment group 1 and treatment group 2 members both received the $1 for $2 offset. Treatment group 2 members had their entitlement to benefits terminated if they experienced 12 consecutive months in full offset (that is, when their SSDI benefit is reduced to $0 for 12 consecutive months). Treatment group 1 members would not have their entitlement to benefits terminated even if they experienced 12 consecutive months in full offset. The control group did not receive the $1 for $2 offset. Control group member’s earnings were subject to current SSDI rules. ...

     No word on the results of this experiment although I think we'd have heard more about it if it had been a success. Really, how much success can one expect when you impose a 50% tax on gross earnings in addition to ordinary payroll taxes? There's just not much left for the worker. In any case, I don't think you could design an experiment that would work. You have to be so damned sick to get on Social Security disability benefits that we shouldn't be expecting any significant number of Social Security disability recipients to be returning to sustained work. The experiments are based on the fallacies that it's easy to get on Social Security disability benefits and that many on Social Security disability benefits get better over time.

     I'm not sure how this demonstration relates to the Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND).  If I remember correctly that was pretty much the same thing except it was supposed to run for ten years. It won't work either.

I See Dead People

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

... To identify and prevent payments after death, SSA established a program under which States can voluntarily contract with SSA to provide it death data to match against its records. Through Electronic Death Registration (EDR), States electronically submit death reports to SSA. If the decedent’s data match SSA records, SSA posts the State death information to its Numident file and terminates payments to deceased beneficiaries. In addition to EDR, SSA receives death information from other sources, such as family members and funeral directors.

We obtained data files that provided the personally identifiable information of approximately 7 million individuals Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois recorded as deceased between January 1978 and December 2018. We matched the data against SSA payment records and the Numident.

We estimate SSA issued approximately $79 million in payments after death to 1,127 beneficiaries and 4 representative payees who died in Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois between January 1978 and December 2018. Identifying and correcting these discrepancies will prevent approximately $14 million in additional improper payments after death over a 12-month period.

We also identified 53,486 non-beneficiaries who were deceased according to Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois records but whose death information was not in SSA’s Numident. Resolving these discrepancies will improve the accuracy and completeness of death information the Agency shares with other Federal benefit-paying agencies.

    I don't understand. Social Security is marking these people as dead when it receives notice from the states that they're dead but when OIG matches state death records with Social Security records, they find a number of people who are dead but who are not marked as dead in Social Security records. Social Security seems to be relying upon the same records as OIG but OIG finds more dead people. Is the problem at Social Security or is the problem with the data the states are providing Social Security? The report doesn't deal with this question although the answer seems to be crucial for preventing the problem from continuing.

     I'm sure that Social Security officials have asked themselves for years, "How did we get roped into the death master file business?" It's nothing but endless headaches. There's no obvious reason why Social Security should be doing this instead of some other agency. Many, many other agencies and private businesses rely on the death master file.

If You Want Social Security Service, Fly Off To The Caribbean!

      From a press release:

... A representative from the Federal Benefits Unit at the US Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic will be available at the Embassy in L’Anse Aux Epines, St George [Grenada] to discuss all social security matters, including non receipt of payments, direct deposits, social security applications, retirement applications and general inquiries, by appointment only from 29 June to 2 July. ...

     I think the Federal Benefits Units people are employed by State Department. In any case, it seems odd that a U.S. citizen can get an appointment to discuss Social Security matters with a federal employee at a U.S. Embassy overseas but the same U.S. citizen can't get a similar appointment with Social Security in the U.S.

More On Collins v. Yellen

      I don't know how I missed this from Justice Kagan's concurrence in Collins v. Yellen:

... Consider the hundreds of thousands of decisions that the Social Security Administration (SSA)makes each year. The SSA has a single head with for-cause removal protection; so a betting person might wager that the agency’s removal provision is next on the chopping block. ... But given the majority’s remedial analysis, I doubt the mass of SSA decisions—which would not concern the President at all—would need to be undone. That makes sense. ... When an agency decision would not capture a President’s attention, his removal authority could not make a difference—and so no injunction should issue. ...

     So, if Justice Kagan is correct, the Commissioner of Social Security should enjoy no protection from being discharged from his position by the President but it's going to be extremely difficult to come up with standing to bring a legal action to challenge the Commissioner's tenure in office. Perhaps a company that didn't get a major contract or a labor union that wishes to dispute a decision made directly by the Commissioner would have standing. Even then the Commissioner might say "But I cleared it with OMB."

Andrew Saul's Hold On Office Looking Even More Tenuous

      From the Supreme Court's opinion today in Collins v. Yellen:

... But the nature and breadth of an agency’s authority is not dispositive in determining whether Congress may limit the President’s power to remove its head. The President’s removal power serves vital purposes even when the officer subject to removal is not the head of one of the largest and most powerful agencies. The removal power helps the President maintain a degree of control over the subordinates he needs to carry out his duties as the head of the Executive Branch, and it works to ensure that these subordinates serve the people effectively and in accordance with the policies that the people presumably elected the President to promote. ...  

Courts are not well-suited to weigh the relative im-portance of the regulatory and enforcement authority of dis-parate agencies, and we do not think that the constitution-ality of removal restrictions hinges on such an inquiry.

 And from a footnote:

Amicus points to the Social Security Administration, the Office of Special Counsel, the Comptroller, “multi-member agencies for which the chair is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to a fixed term,” and the Civil Service. ... None of these agencies is before us, and we do not comment on the constitutionality of any removal restriction that applies to their officers.

     And from the concurrence of Justice Kagan:

... Without even mentioning Seila Law’s “significant executive power” framing, the majority announces that, actually, “the constitutionality of removal restrictions” does  not “hinge[]” on “the nature and breadth of an agency’s authority.” ... Any “agency led by a single Director,” no matter how much executive power it wields, now becomes subject to the requirement of at-will removal. ... And the majority’s broadening is gratuitous—unnecessary to resolve the dispute here....

    And from the concurrence of Justices Sotomayor and Breyer:

 Never before, however, has the Court forbidden simple for-cause tenure protection for an Executive Branch officer who neither exercises significant executive power nor regulates the affairs of private parties.

     I thought it was already clear that the President's inability to remove the Commissioner at will was unconstitutional. I think it's now quite clear where the Supreme Court is headed or, should I say, has gone. I see no reason why the President should tolerate Saul any longer. Any attempt he makes to stay in office isn't going to work.

Book Forthcoming On Labor Market And Socal Security Disability Determination

      From a notice of a book forthcoming in September:

... In Social Security Disability Law and the American Labor Market, Jon C. Dubin challenges the contemporary policies for determining disability benefits and work assessment. He posits the fundamental questions: where are the jobs for persons with significant medical and vocational challenges? And how does the administration misfire in its standards and processes for answering that question? Deploying his profound understanding of the Social Security Administration and Disability law and policy, he demystifies the system, showing us its complex inner mechanisms and flaws, its history and evolution, and how changes in the labor market have rendered some agency processes obsolete. Dubin lays out how those who advocate eviscerating program coverage and needed life support benefits in the guise of modernizing these procedures would reduce the capacity for the Social Security Administration to function properly and serve its intended beneficiaries, and argues that the disability system should instead be “mended, not ended.” 

Dubin argues that while it may seem counterintuitive, the transformation from an industrial economy to a twenty-first-century service economy in the information age, with increased automation, and resulting diminished demand for arduous physical labor, has not meaningfully reduced the relevance of, or need for, the disability benefits programs. Indeed, they have created new and different obstacles to work adjustments based on the need for other skills and capacities in the new economy—especially for the significant portion of persons with cognitive, psychiatric, neuro-psychological, or other mental impairments. Therefore, while the disability program is in dire need of empirically supported updating and measures to remedy identified deficiencies, obsolescence, inconsistencies in application, and racial, economic and other inequities, the program’s framework is sufficiently broad and enduring to remain relevant and faithful to the Act’s congressional beneficent purposes and aspirations.