Some Technical Questions

     At one time if a document was scanned in color and submitted to Social Security's Electronic Records Express (ERE) system the document would remain in color in ERE. When medical records arrive in my office in a fuzzy state I have been scanning them in color not because the documents were in color but to try to make them more legible once uploaded to ERE. Documents scanned in color have a higher resolution than documents scanned in black and white. Does ERE still retain documents scanned in color in their native format or does it now degrade them to black and white? 

     While I'm at it, has the resolution ERE is using changed? Maybe it's my eyes but it seems like ERE records have gotten more difficult to read. I'm wondering if documents I'm uploading in a normal black and white resolution are being degraded to a lower resolution. 

     You might ask why Social Security would intentionally degrade documents uploaded to ERE. The answer is that higher resolution documents take up more storage space. When they're transmitted they take up more bandwidth. Storage space and bandwidth are important to network managers. Document legibility isn't of so much concern to them since they don't have to read the documents.

It's Only Fiction

     A recent Orange Is The New Black episode featured a misleading segment touching on Supplemental Security Income for children. I've been around long enough to know that it was never easy to get a child on benefits due to Attention Deficit Disorder-Hyperactivity (ADHD). It's now impossible. Sure, there are children with ADHD who get on benefits now but they're not getting on due to ADHD. They're getting on due to other problems.

IRS Proposes ABLE Regulations

     The Internal Revenue Service has issued a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) on ABLE accounts. ABLE accounts will allow contributions to accounts to help disabled individuals drawing Supplemental Security Income, which is administered by the Social Security Administration. These regulations as well as new state statutes are needed so that ABLE accounts can be established.

Isn't This Michael Astrue's Fault?

     From Fox News:

On paper, it sounded like a true government success story: The Social Security Administration in September opened a "state-of-the-art" data center in Maryland, housing wage and benefit information on almost every American, "on time and under budget." 

However, six years after Congress approved a half-billion dollars for the project -- the largest building project funded by the 2009 stimulus -- a whistleblower says the center was built on a lie. 

"We misled Congress," Michael Keegan, a former associate commissioner who worked on the project, told FoxNews.com. 

Officials originally claimed they needed the $500 million to replace their entire, 30-year-old National Computer Center located at agency headquarters in Woodlawn, Md. But Keegan says they overstated their case -- the agency has no plans to replace the center, and only moved a fraction of the NCC to the new site.  ...

Keegan maintains the agency didn't have to move anybody out of the NCC, and could have simply renovated the floor holding the old data center. 

"The data center occupies one half of one floor in a four-story building," he told FoxNews.com. "We didn't need to build [the new center] to begin with." ...

Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin said in a deposition she "did not" know of any plan to abandon the NCC or move all its workers to another site. Other officials echoed this statement. ...

Former SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue, who led the agency under President George W. Bush and for several years under President Obama, also said he's not sure why the building isn't being replaced entirely. 

Astrue said he made the original decision to replace the NCC, toward the end of the Bush administration. He said the building was "antiquated and fraying," and was worried a disruption in payments could send "the entire economy into recession." A backup SSA center in North Carolina, he said, was not enough. 

Astrue said his intention was to replace and phase out the NCC entirely, and disputed Keegan's claims that Congress was misled. He maintains the proposal was the "correct decision." 

But he said he was "surprised" to learn the NCC is still in operation. He doesn't know why. ...

When the Office of the Inspector General reviewed Keegan's complaints, it concluded the SSA "did not mislead" Congress to believe the NCC wouldn't be needed. At the same time, the OIG acknowledged SSA talked about "replacing" the center and "did not implicitly state" it would stay in use. (Further, while IG Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr., oversaw the spending, he also was among those making the case for the project, telling Congress in 2009 the NCC was "rapidly approaching obsolescence.") 

Like the OIG, the Office of Special Counsel last year also said they could not determine whether agency leaders misled Congress. Keegan disputes these findings.

     So what did Carolyn Colvin do wrong? She didn't order employees to make an unnecessary move to an unnecessary new building which was built at the insistence of her predecessor. If there's fault here, it's on Michael Astrue who insisted on building this expensive new structure instead of using stimulus money to hire additional personnel to work down the agency's backlogs. Much fault should also be laid at the door of the many members of Congress who were active cheerleaders for building the new National Data Center. My recollection is that Republican members of Congress were the biggest supporters of the new building. They always prefer spending money on contractors to spending money on hiring needed personnel.

Representation Crisis In Kentucky

     If you thought all those former clients of Eric Conn whose Social Security disability benefits are being cut off can just go to Legal Aid for representation, think again. Legal Aid doesn't have anything like the resources. It might be interesting if hundreds of law students were turned loose on these cases.

At Least They Admit There's A Problem

     I just received this message from Social Security: "For 6/19/15, the Social Security Administration Electronic Records Express (ERE) Website is experiencing intermittent slowness and/or degraded service. Systems is working to resolve the issue. We will provide updates as available."

Shouldn't This Be Taught In School?

     From a press release:

 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) today announced the results of a survey aimed to better understand how much Americans know about Social Security retirement benefits.  The results of the survey, which included a true/false quiz about Social Security facts, were concerning: only 28 percent of those surveyed received a passing grade when asked basic questions about Social Security retirement benefits. ...

To test your Social Security IQ, take the MassMutual quiz. ...

According to the research, Americans remain optimistic about the future of Social Security. More than three out of five surveyed (63 percent) believe Social Security will be available to them when they retire, with a quarter of those surveyed strongly holding that belief.  However, less than half (45 percent) think the program will have sufficient funding when they retire. This may be why only 39 percent expect to rely more on Social Security than their personal savings or income in retirement, with just 15 percent expecting to rely solely on Social Security.

ERE Seems To Be Working

     In fairness to Social Security, I should note that the agency's ERE system that allows attorneys representing Social Security claimants to electronically access their clients' files appears to have been working today. At least, I was able to use it and, unlike yesterday, I haven't been hearing complaints from others today about ERE.

What's The Alternative To Social Security?

     From Eduardo Porter's column in the New York Times:

... Consider the following calculation by James Poterba, a professor of economics at M.I.T.

If inflation-adjusted investment returns averaged 2 percent a year — not an unreasonable assumption given low interest rates and a stock market likely to deliver subpar returns over the next decade or so — a worker would have to save almost 15 percent of each paycheck for 40 years to get an annuity stream equal to half of final earnings at retirement, assuming a 2 percent risk-free rate of return. A late starter who saved for only 20 years would need to set aside a full third of earnings.

Matters would be easier if investments yielded 4 percent: With a 4 percent risk-free rate, affording an annuity equal to half the last paycheck upon retirement would require saving less than 10 percent for 40 years, or just over 25 percent for 20.

How does that compare with what workers actually save? From 1990 to 2010, the typical contribution to 401(k) accounts ranged from 4.7 to 5.2 percent of earnings. ...

ERE Almost Completely Non-Functional

     By this point, Social Security's Electronic Records Express (ERE) system which is supposed to allow attorneys to access their clients' Social Security records, is almost completely non-functional. This will cause hearings to be delayed. Attorneys will have to start mailing in copies of new medical records instead of uploading them. And, still, as best I can tell, there's nothing on any Social Security website acknowledging that there's a problem. If you e-mail them, you get a form reply back indicating that they're working on the problem but, so far, they keep acting like this is a minor matter. I would say this is the worst problem with ERE since its earliest days.

This Is How You Encourage Return To Work?

     Yesterday's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee featured testimony from David Weaver, Social Security's Associate Commissioner for the Office of Research, Demonstration, and Employment Support and from Daniel Bertoni of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Here are a couple of charts from Weaver's testimony showing the complexity of Social Security's work incentives.

     Bertoni testified that GAO had "identified a number of situations where beneficiaries report work or earnings, but staff may not enter information into the system, which is inconsistent with federal internal control standards, or may not provide a receipt, as mandated by law." (footnotes omitted).

     By the way, the House Ways and Means Committee has redone its website recently. It's a real mess. It's hard to find anything on it. I think that Paul Ryan needs to show some leadership and get this fixed. It's a poor reflection on this venerable Committee.

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What's Going On With ERE?

     What's going on with Electronic Records Express (ERE), Social Security's online system which allows attorneys access to their clients' files? It's been barely functional all week. It hangs up, making it difficult or impossible to do anything. The website has a "What's New" feature but it's not been updated in a month. At least, you can admit there's a problem and say you're working on it. What? Did you think no one would notice?

     By the way, how's the system working for agency employees?

More Problems For Eric Conn's Former Clients

     The next problem for those 900 former clients of Eric Conn whose Social Security disability benefits are threatened: Few of them will be able to hire an attorney. Since they're now eligible for interim benefits as they appeal, there won't be any back benefits for an attorney to get a one quarter  fee out of. Of course, the local Social Security attorneys could drop everything else and represent all these folks pro bono but any attorney who did so would be bankrupt long before these cases are resolved.

     This is going to continue to be a mess for years into the future.

Insurance Companies Monitoring Social Security Disability Debate

     Companies which write Long Term Disability (LTD) insurance policies are paying attention to the debate over what to do about the impending shortfall in Social Security's Disability Insurance Trust Fund. LTD benefits are reduced, or offset, by the amount of Disability Insurance Benefits. Anything that reduces the Disability Insurance Benefits increases the amount paid by LTD insurance companies. The companies are making sure that the language in their policies protects them should there by any major change in Social Security disability benefits. Some insurance companies would like to make LTD insurance mandatory or, at least, make it an "opt out" for employees. Some companies would like to take over claims adjudication for Social Security.

An Early OASIS Cover

OASIS is Social Security's employee magazine. OASIS stands for Old Age and Survivors Insurance.

Helping To Implement The Social Security Act

A Whistleblower's Tale

     Michael James Keegan, who was formerly Social Security's Associate Commissioner for Facilities and Supply Management testified yesterday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Here are some excerpts from his written statement:

In January 2012, I was assigned as the Project Executive for the construction of a replacement data center in Urbana, MD. ... The center piece of the justification presented to Congress was that the National Computing Center building was beyond economical repair, in terrible condition and had to be replaced in totality. Additionally, SSA officials testified that it was legally required that the new data center be located at least 35 miles from the existing National Computing Center in Woodlawn, MD....

[In early 2013] I gave [my supervisor] a detailed briefing on serious issues that I believed included misleading Congress, waste and abuse. They included:

1. The case to replace the existing National Computing Center (NCC) was “overstated” and relied too heavily on the premise that the NCC was in “terrible condition” and could no longer support the agency mission.

2. The rationale and references used to justify relocating the new National Support Center (data center) 35 miles from the existing campus were very “broadly” interpreted at best and not applicable at all in my opinion.

3. Retention of the existing NCC building was absolutely essential to house the ~925 employees who must remain when the data center function was relocated.

4. In working with GSA [General Services Administration, which has jurisdiction over federal buildings], SSA [Social Security Administration] staff and reviewing historical files, I had discovered that SSA has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in poorly developed and in many cases, unneeded projects.

5. That prior to my arrival there had been no controls on travel and that many OFSM [Office of Facilites and Supply Management] employees have traveled widely across the United States to various SSA locations without adequate justification or business purpose.

6. My efforts at reducing overtime from ~60,000 hours in 2011 to ~25,000 hours in 2012 had revealed significant abuses and unsubstantiated use of overtime inconsistent with SSA policies. The impact of my work yielded a reduction in overtime expenditures from 2011 to 2012 of approximately $2,500,000. ...

On April 26, 2014 I was called by [my supervisor] and he instructed me as follows:

* I am to "forget" the issues that I brought to his attention.

* That "he" will handle this with no specifics what that meant.

* That I will no longer be required at the quarterly Congressional staff briefings before the House Ways & Means Committee, Subcommittee on Social Security. ...

[O]n May 2, 2013, I was summoned to a short notice meeting with [my supervisor]. He proceeded to tell me that I was being placed under formal investigation due to unspecified "complaints".

On May 21, 2013, [my supervisor] appeared in my office and informed me that I had been relieved of my duties and that I had 30 minutes to clear out my office. Additionally, I was given a direct order not to communicate with any of my employees. I was then directed to report to the Operations organization in a temporary assignment.

During the period from May 21st until early December, I was confined to an empty office with little or no work to do, no responsibilities and very little contact with other SSA employees. I made numerous requests for updates and status on the "investigation" however [my supervisor] did not respond to any of my inquiries. ...

The alleged genesis of the investigation SSA launched against me was done solely to retaliate against me. According to [my supervisor], the decision to have me investigated happened after he met with Cynthia Ennis, AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees] Union president at SSA, who provided him a number of written complaints against me.  ...

My job at SSA was not to be liked by employees. The American taxpayer didn't pay me to accomplish that goal. SSA is not a country club or someone's living room. It's an Agency tasked with administering benefits to the elderly and disabled. It's there to serve our citizens, rather than our citizens serving SSA management. ...

In summary, despite the fact that I had a flawless 44 year performance history including two superior performance reviews (2011 and 2012) at SSA, I was forced to retire in disgrace,dishonor and financial hardship due to the fact that I choose to do the right thing and report fraud, waste and abuse.

      Is he a whistleblower revealing serious problems at Social Security? Is he a crank? Is he some of both? That's the problem with whistleblowers. It's hard to know.

Effect Of Eliminating The F.I.C.A. Wage Base Cap

     If you've been looking for an actuarial study of the effect of eliminating the cap on wages covered by the F.I.C.A. tax and allowing those extra wages to be considered in determining Social Security benefit payments, Social Security's Chief Actuary has you what you need. See the table below but note that the proposal would also change Social Security's COLA to the CPI-E index. The "E" is for elderly. That change would increase the COLA. Eliminate consideration of the additional wage base in benefit computations and stick with the current COLA and the Trust Fund reserves stay in balance almost as far as can be computed.

Noah Didn't Need No Stinking Social Security!

     A quote from Greg Gianforte, Republican candidate for governor of Montana:

There's nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement. And yet it's been an accepted concept in our culture today. Nowhere does it say, "Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach." It doesn't say that anywhere.

The example I think of is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn't like, cashing Social Security checks, he wasn't hanging out, he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical.

Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing On Return To Work

     From a press release:

Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced that the subcommittee will hold a hearing on the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) management of earnings reports from disability beneficiaries trying to go back to work. The SSA faces difficulties processing earnings reports and adjusting benefits in a timely fashion, in part due to the complexity of the work incentives in the Disability Insurance program. These difficulties can cause large overpayments for disability beneficiaries trying to return to work. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, June 16, at 2:00 PM in room B-318 of the Rayburn House Building.

Upon the announcement, Chairman Johnson said, “There are two problems for the American taxpayer when Social Security can’t manage earnings reports: First, dollars go out that shouldn’t; Second, individuals who want to work are discouraged from doing so. It’s time Congress takes a look at what drives overpayments. The American people want, need, and deserve nothing less.”

     If this Subcommittee wants to do something truly useful and bipartisan, it should simplify Social Security's work incentives. There has been one piece of legislation after another over decades based upon the fantasy that just one more incentive will cause Social Security disability recipients to go back to work in droves. It hasn't happened. It's not going to happen. It's just too hard to get on Social Security disability benefits. Realistically, few recipients have the capacity to return to regular employment. The work incentives have been added onto so many times that they're a confusing mess which is almost impossible to administer. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Don't do it in the belief that simplification will return more people to work. Simplify so that the system of work incentives can be effectively administered.