May 30, 2022
May 29, 2022
Not That Many Claimants Asking For Congressional Help
From a Social Security newsletter:
... Our Congressional Constituent Relations Staff (CCRS) expedites critical caseworkand special handling requests and inquiries from district, State, and Capitol Hill offices. ...
In FY 2021, CCRS assisted with over 6,600 congressional staff inquiries. This includes thework of our Congressional Liaison office, which took over 330 claims and post-entitlementactions, responded to almost 1,700 congressional and public inquiries, and handled over100 direct contacts with current and former Members of Congress. ...
Only 6,600 Congressional staff inquiries in a year for 535 Senators and Representatives? Considering the number of people having problems with Social Security that sounds quite low to me. Sounds like our members of Congress need to hear more from their constituents about the sorry state of service at Social Security.
May 28, 2022
Death And The Disability Insurance Benficiary
The mortality of DI [Disability Insurance] beneficiaries at any given age is highest during the first few years of benefit receipt and declines with the number of years on the DI rolls
In recent decades, mortality of DI beneficiaries during the first year of benefit receipt has declined at a faster rate, compared with the general population and DI beneficiaries at 10+ years of benefit receipt
Despite longevity gains, the mortality of DI beneficiaries in any time period, at any age, and at any benefit duration is substantially higher, relative to the general population.
May 27, 2022
What's It's All About
From the just issued Spring 2022 Semiannual Report to Congress by Social Security's Inspector General:
... Section 1129 of the Social Security Act, as amended, authorizes a [Civil Monetary Penalty] ... against anyone who: (1) makes a false or misleading statement to SSA to obtain or retain benefits or payments; (2) receives benefits or payments while withholding disclosure of a material fact; or (3) wrongfully converts a beneficiary’s payments while acting as a representative payee. We are authorized to impose penalties of up to $8,708 for each false or misleading statement, material omission, or conversion. Violators may also be subject to an assessment, in lieu of damages, of up to twice the amount of any resulting overpayment or conversion.
During this reporting period, we resolved 55 Section 1129 cases and imposed $2,860,957 in penalties and assessments resulting from Section 1129 violations. ...
If you've wondered why the Inspector General might have over penalized Social Security claimants who may have been less than truthful with Social Security, here's what it was all about. Pumping up this number to impress Congress. Doesn't seem worth it, does it?
May 26, 2022
What Do You Think?
From Bloomberg Opinion:
... Even if private-sector employers see benefits in allowing workers to maintain hybrid work arrangements, the standard for public servants is different. Remote work hobbles the ability of government officials to collaborate, respond nimbly to crises, and forge consensus on policy goals. Because taxpayer funds will be spent maintaining federal buildings regardless, it also wastes money and worsens voters’ cynicism about government. ...
May 25, 2022
Just The First Step
Jonathan Stein and Katherine Vengraitis have written an op ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer to explain why "Reopening Social Security offices is just the first step to serving those in need."
May 24, 2022
May 23, 2022
What A Disaster!
From Promoting Opportunity Demonstration: Final Evaluation Report, submitted to Social Security by Mathematica, a contractor:
... POD [Promoting Opportunity Demonstration] was a randomized controlled trial that included two treatments of a benefit offset. The two treatment groups had the same benefit offset but different termination rules. Treatment group 1 (T1) did not face termination, but treatment group 2 (T2) faced termination after 12 consecutive months of earnings above the full offset amount (the point at which benefits were reduced to zero). ...
The key features of POD implementation included benefits counseling services and support for processing earnings adjustments, led by the implementation team, and recruitment, led by the evaluation team. ...
Approximately 30 percent of treatment group members used the POD benefit offset, with a median monthly offset amount of $351. More than 80 percent of offset users experienced a work-related overpayment or underpayment, requiring a retroactive adjustment to reconcile the difference. ...
We did not observe any statistically significant differences in outcomes between the two treatment groups for overall offset usage or the impact estimates for the primary outcomes. ...
There were limited statistically significant differences in observed outcomes for the POD treatment and control groups. There were impacts on one primary outcome (annualized SGA) and several other employment-related measures. For example, we found positive impacts on job search and use of Vocational Rehabilitation services, which might contribute to longer-term outcomes. These impacts were notable because they indicate that impacts could still emerge beyond the two-year evaluation window. ...
POD had positive net benefits for beneficiaries and net costs to SSA. The net benefits for beneficiaries were driven by increases in earnings and fringe benefits, and SSDI benefit amounts. The new costs were driven primarily by the increased benefit payments and costs for counseling services. ...
Even with counseling, 80% of those using the offset ended up with an overpayment or underpayment! The experiment had only a limited effect on outcomes and ended up costing more money than it saved! Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
Why can't policymakers admit the obvious? Social Security disability recipients are, for the most part, really, really sick. Everything under the sun has been tried to get them back to jobs. Nothing has worked. Nothing. The work incentive schemes just get more difficult and expensive to administer. They end up with messy results for the disability recipients who do attempt to return to work because the offsets are too complicated The schemes always end up costing more money than they save. There's no possible work incentives that will get any significant number of disability recipients back to work because they're too sick.
Crappy experiments like this are likely to go on forever because policymakers are blinded by their own preconceptions that it's easy to get on Social Security disability benefits and that a lot of disability recipients could work if given the right incentives. They don't bother to study the pathetic history of work incentive failure. They get sold on new schemes by contractors like Mathematica who end up getting paid even though their schemes never work. Even after this disaster this 406 page report ends with ideas for new schemes that could be tried!
May 22, 2022
“Serious Concerns” About IG
From the Washington Post:
… The acting commissioner [of Social Security] “has very serious concerns about the issues raised by The Washington Post about the inspector general’s oversight of this program,” Scott Frey, chief of staff to Kilolo Kijakazi, said in an interview. Kijakazi has scheduled a meeting with her senior staff on Monday “to discuss how to proceed,” Frey said. …
A spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, which also has jurisdiction over Social Security, said the committee is “evaluating a number of steps” in response to the article. …
An extreme reduction in productivity has been signaling for months that something is wrong at OIG.
More On House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing
From the U.S. Sun, which is affiliated with a major British newspaper:
... [The Social Security Administration] has encountered some issues keeping up with the volume of beneficiaries.
One of the major ways that problem manifests is in a lack of customer service.
Getting through to the SSA over the phone is difficult, and callers experience long wait times before getting any help. ...
On May 19, Congress held a hearing to see how it could help alleviate the administration's issue.
“In my home district in Oklahoma, seniors are completely unable to reach the Social Security Administration by phone,” Representative Kevin Hern (R-OK) said at the hearing.
“As a result, my elderly constituents end up calling my staff after many failed attempts to call the office at the Social Security Administration,” he said. ...
I'd love to see some reporting on this from the NY Times and Washington Post.
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