Appropriations Bill Covering SSA Delayed Until At Least March 22

     Since the beginning of the federal Fiscal Year (FY) on October 1, 2023 the Social Security Administration has been operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that allows the agency to spend money at the rate they spent it in the prior FY. This is because Congress, or to be more accurate, the House of Representatives, or to be more accurate still, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives can't agree on what they want in several FY 2024 appropriation bills, including the Labor-HHS bill that includes Social Security's administrative budget. Congress is now kicking the can down the road with a new CR on the Labor-HHS bill that goes to March 22. There's a solemn promise from Congressional leaders, including Republican leaders, that they'll get it done by March 22 but don't count on that holding. It's impossible to overestimate the dysfunction within the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. A sizable number of them would never vote yes on any Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Even if they got everything they wanted, they'd still vote "no" since they'd believe they didn't ask for enough!

EM On Overpayments During Covid

     From Emergency Message EM-24005:

... On January 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement agreement in Campos v. Kijakazi, No. 21-cv-05143. The case involved Title XVI overpayments incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 through April 2023.

C. FO [Field Office] instructions

Effective immediately, when making a fault determination on a waiver request for an overpayment incurred in any month since March 2020, technicians must consider any circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that an overpaid individual alleges prevented the individual from reporting changes. When COVID-19 circumstances are alleged, technicians must also document the individual’s allegations of COVID-19 circumstances that prevented the individual from reporting changes in the file. ...

Examples of circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that may have prevented an individual from complying with Title II or Title XVI reporting requirements include, but are not limited to, the following scenarios:

The overpaid individual:

• attempted to contact us but was unable to visit a FO, mail us information, reach us by phone, or get transportation because of the COVID-19 pandemic;
• was unable to contact us because of government-imposed COVID-19 travel restrictions;
• was unable to contact us because of child-care or family-care changes due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders or school-at-home requirements;
•  was unable to contact us because of the overpaid individual’s COVID-19 illness or related serious illness; 
•  was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s representative payee died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or serious illness related to COVID-19; or
•  was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s immediate family member died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or related serious illness.

NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. ...

Equite Action Plan Report

     The Social Security Administration has recently issued its Equity Action Plan: 2023 Update. It sounds like they're about a year behind in getting this out. It's full of vague, largely unmeasurable goals. Look at it yourself but what I've pulled  out below is all the content that I can find that seems vaguely interesting to me, at least:

• ... In FY 2023, to restore SSI applications closer to pre-pandemic levels, we launched a new SSI “Basic Needs” campaign in support of our FYs 2022-2023 Agency Priority Goal (APG) to increase SSI applications nationwide by 15 percent and increase applications from underserved communities by 25 percent, 1,758,656 and 127,749 applications, respectively. We have seen an increase in the overall number of SSI applications, nationally and in underserved communities. Since the campaign launched:

a. Our digital marketing tactics generated 1.81 million referrals from our SSI website to the online SSI Protective Filing tool, yielding 345,000 SSI applications through September 3, 2023. The tool allows individuals and third-party helpers to establish a protective filing10 online and request an appointment to file for benefits.

b. Our marketing generated more than 1.9 billion impressions across all tactics and over 2.7 million website visits.

c. Through September 29, 2023, we exceeded our APG target for SSI applications in underserved communities relative to the 2021 baseline by receiving nearly 135,000 applications. ...


• In May 2023, we established the Office of Transformation (OT), which includes our Customer Experience (CX) team. The OT’s mission is to facilitate the most critical business enhancements that serve the public and support our frontline employees. ...
• As of August 23, 2023, there were about 220,000 pending [SSI] underpayments, of which more than 140,000 underpayments (with corresponding alerts) have been pending for a year or more or are priority cases. ...
  

    I can be critical of the vagueness of the report but in an organization as large as the Social Security Administration a 1% improvement in service which might seem trivial to me could still improve the lives of a not insignificant number of people. We'd all love to see transformative changes but with current levels of funding all that's possible are the tiniest baby steps.

News?

     When you look online now for news about Social Security, you mostly come across clickbait and "listicles" like those shown below. These pieces have little or no value to people who work in the field but they're indicative of what the public reads:

• Social Security update: Third round of February payments worth $4,873 goes out in five days
• 3 Things To Know About Social Security Payments If You’ve Ever Been on a Payroll
• Social Security Benefits for Spouses: 4 Things Retired Couples Need to Know
• Social Security update: March direct payment worth $943 goes out in seven days
• Social Security Recipients: Will You Get a March Check if the Government Shuts Down? 
• Goodbye to the $1,900 Social Security check: retirees will earn less money as of this date

New SSI Regs In The Pipeline

     The description of a packet of proposed regulations that the Social Security Administration has asked the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to approve for publication in the Federal Register:

We propose expanding the rental subsidy exception beyond the 7 states to which it already applies so that it applies nationwide. Accordingly, our nationwide policy would be that a business arrangement exists when the amount of monthly rent required to be paid equals or exceeds the presumed maximum value or the current market value, whichever is less. We expect that the proposed change would improve service delivery by making our policy uniform throughout the country and reducing administrative burdens for individuals seeking access to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

Final Rules Approved To Omit Food From SSI Support And Maintenance Calculations

    The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has approved publication of final rules to omit food from SSI support and maintenance calculations. Expect to see it in the Federal Register in the near future.

A Poll

 

online polls

A Sunday Medley

     Social Security news has been scarce. Below are some links to recent media articles. I wouldn’t normally post them but you may find one of interest:

• ‘I cannot understand how they can do this to people’: Social Security admits to overpaying a North Texas widow by $41K — and now demands she pay the money back. How did this happen?
• Opinion: Hey, Donald Trump, where’s your plan to save Social Security?
• Divorced? Here's How to Tell If You Qualify for Spousal Social Security Benefits
• Security Administration sends new checks to retirees born between the 11 – 20
• Those Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Social Security Add Up Quickly
• Divorced? Here's How to Tell If You Qualify for Spousal Social Security Benefits

Wyden Praises O'Malley

     The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has saluted the new Commissioner of Social Security for going forward with proposed rules to allow use of electronic wage reporting to reduce overpayments.

ERAP -- What Are We Doing?

     Social Security management has a strong lean in the direction of centralizing anything that can be centralized and some that can't. One of the things that they have centralized is the scheduling of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings. It's called ERAP -- Enhanced Representative Availability Process -- at least insofar as it applies to people like me who represent claimants. I cannot even imagine a sensible reason for ERAP. Let me set out some problems I have encountered with ERAP:

• It's now February. ERAP is demanding that I tell them when I've available for hearings in August! Do you know what your plans are for August? They have just started scheduling for June. I don't know why we need to schedule this far in advance anyway but why do I have to submit my availability well beyond what they need now.  How is this helping anyone. 
• I have been told verbally that if I fail to meet Social Security's deadline that I am considered available for the entire month even if I tell them well before scheduling actually begins for the month in question. Gotcha! Is there any rational reason for this?
• I have been informed that once I submit my availability that I cannot later change it to say that I am unavailable certain days even though Social Security hasn't started scheduling even for the month before the month we're talking about. Gotcha! Not only must I submit availability six months in advance, I'm not allowed to make changes even if the changes don't inconvenience Social Security in the slightest. Do your plans six months out never change?
  
• Despite providing dates that I'm available six months in advance, Social Security still schedules hearings on days I've told them I was unavailable and they still schedule two hearings at the same time. As best I can tell, they don't even consult the dates I've given them. The burden is on me to catch this and get it corrected. When this happens there is usually a significant delay in rescheduling a case.
  
• Attorney who have clients in two of Social Security's regions have impossible problems since those regions can't coordinate scheduling with each other. Somehow we're supposed to solve this problem for the agency.

     What are we doing here? This is an unworkable system for attorneys. My guess is that it may not be much better for ALJs.

    The old system, which involved hearing offices calling attorneys about each hearing was workable. With all the reschedulings because of errors, I don't know that ERAP actually saves time for the agency. The agency is supposed to be serving the public. ERAP is lousy public service.