Getting A Little Feisty

     From the testimony of  Robert Klopp, Deputy Commissioner of Systems and Chief Information Officer, Social Security Administration yesterday to the Subcommittee on Information Technology, House Committee on Oversight and Information Technology:

... In our last hearing, some Members voiced concerns about a lack of leadership on cybersecurity at the agency. I appreciate this concern, but I also think we need to be careful about assuming that any security weakness is the result of bad management. If the fact that there are vulnerabilities in our IT infrastructure reflects a lack of leadership, then I accept the responsibility for the lack of leadership. If the criteria is that, if DHS [Department of Homeland Security] finds anything wrong, this reflects a lack of leadership, then I accept the responsibility. But this also means that every agency that has a vulnerability, exploited or not, has a leadership issue - and that means every agency, not just SSA. ...

The SSA can shift funding from our IT budget for cyber, but soaking up any savings by spending it on cyber does not fund continuous improvement. It does not fund IT modernization. The idea that the SSA, or any agency, can do more in cyber while simultaneously rebuilding our IT infrastructure is no less a fantasy than the idea that the country can modernize any other infrastucture - our roads, our dams, our electric grid, our military - without an investment.

My testimony includes a request to modernize IT and to fund improvements in cyber defenses. Wishing for better IT from cost cutting will not help. Wishing for cost-cuts with no investment will not help. Passing legislation without providing funding is not enough. ...

Social Security's Workload Won't Level Off For A Long Time

From SSA OIG

Hearing Backlog Continues To Climb

From SSA OIG

I Don't Know

     People keep asking me what's going to happen at Social Security with Donald Trump as President. For the most part, I don't know. I'm pretty sure that the people on Trump's Social Security transition team have little idea. It would be too early in any transition and there are ample signs that this will be a more disorganized transition than usual.Much may depend upon Trump's pick for Social Security Commissioner but that may not come for six months or more and it may not matter that much anyway. In most administrations, the Social Security Commissioner seems mostly to be told to not make waves.

     The one thing that people worry about the most -- that Trump would try to privatize Social Security -- is out of the question. He's signaled that he opposes that. Few Congressional Republicans would have the heart for such a fight. Even Donald Trump can recognize that this is a fight he would lose badly. I wish he would try but he won't.

     While there are many, many frightening things that could happen at Social Security in a year or two or four, the only immediate threat is to the agency's operating budget. We're on a continuing resolution now which runs out in December, if I remember correctly. I expect that will get rolled over until the Spring. Over the past six years the House GOP has been demanding greater and greater cuts for all agencies, including Social Security, and damn the consequences. However, it's been noticeable in the past that the Congressional GOP has always seemed far more interested in budget austerity when there was a Democratic President than when there was a Republican President, not that Social Security fared well under President George W. Bush. We are at the point that the news media can already report on horrendous backlogs at Social Security, if they choose to. Do Republicans want to risk bad media coverage on this? Do they even recognize or care about that risk when they've just been able to elect a President who's been accused of, among other things, sexually abusing more than a dozen women?

Transition Team For Social Security?

     I'm not familiar with theintercept.com but they're reporting that Mike Korbey, former senior advisor to the principal deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration in George W. Bush’s administration; former Reagan Social Security Commissioner Dorcas Hardy; former Social Security Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll; and former Social Security General Counsel David Black have been appointed to Trump's transition team for the Social Security Administration. Korbey and Hardy have a history of supporting privatization of Social Security, although I strongly doubt that any such plan will be forthcoming in a Trump administration. I can say that O'Carroll was no fan of Social Security disability claimants when he was at Social Security. I'm not familiar with Black.

My Theory

     For at least the last four years attorneys who represent Social Security disability claimants have been asking each other why there has been little news media coverage of the human costs of the unprecedented backlogs of Social Security disability claims and the general harshness in adjudicating these claims. Large numbers of people are dying while waiting for action on their claims. Many disability claims are wrongly denied, particularly claims based upon mental illness. After all, smaller backlogs and less harsh policies had received extensive media coverage in years past. Why not now?

     My theory on why there has been so little coverage is that the think tanks and advocacy groups based in D.C. who ought to be initiating the media coverage were instead squelching it because they were afraid that a Democratic president would be blamed even though the fault, at least for the backlogs, clearly lies with the Republicans in Congress who have failed to give the Social Security Administration an adequate appropriation.

     If my theory is correct, expect lots of media attention next year to the backlogs. We could have used the attention to these problems over the last four years.

The Greatest Of All Tools

     I am reminded that a college friend once told me that the hammer is the greatest of all tools because if you can't fix it with a hammer by the time you're done with it, it can't be fixed.

ODAR Workload And Performance Summary -- FY 2016 -- Rapid Deterioration In Service And SSA Doesn't Care

     This was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter (which isn't available online). Click on the image to view it full size.

     Note that they were getting in an average of 2,798 new cases per workday in fiscal year 2016 but only disposing of 2,545 cases per day. That's a 9% shortfall. The backlog increased by 61,107 cases over the course of the fiscal year. Those are real people, most of whom will ultimately be found disabled.

     Note that Senior Attorney dispositions totaled only 1,187 cases over the entire fiscal year. Social Security, you can pretend to credulous members of Congress that you care about the backlogs but don't try telling that to me. It's simple. If you care about the backlogs, you take the brakes off and increase the number of Senior Attorney decisions dramatically. If you're not willing to do that, you just don't care about the backlogs. Senior Attorney decisions are an excellent way of doing something quickly about the backlogs. They don't ultimately do anything other than quickly approve cases that would ultimately be approved anyway.

SSA Doesn't Make News Just Before An Election So Here's An Interesting Picture

NC Museum Of Art Park 11/6/16

By International Standards U.S. Spends Little On Disability Benefits

How Donald Trump Fumbled Social Security Like No Republican Before Him

RCALJ Oliver Garmon In The News Again

     An Atlanta television station is running a piece on employment discrimination at Social Security, featuring Regional Chief Administrative Law Judge Oliver Garmon.

Social Security News Remains Slow Just Before The Election So Here's Another Picture

From an exhibition of art deco cars at the NC Museum of Art

Mass Killing By Social Security

     From The News Advance of Lynchburg, VA (emphasis added):

The Luedkes — husband George and wife Ann — had just returned from vacation in late August when they learned the unthinkable.

Ann Luedke was dead, and had been for 12 years, according to the Social Security Administration. Within days, tens of thousands of dollars would be withdrawn from their joint bank accounts by the U.S. Treasury Department — repayment, the federal government reasoned, for Social Security benefits paid to Ann for the three years in which she had been drawing benefits.

“I don’t remember dying,” Ann said, laughing. “I would have noticed.” ...

On Sept. 6, Ann visited the local Social Security Administration office on Timberlake Road and met with an employee who found that Ann was declared deceased. Ann recalled that her record was partially corrected.

The next day, George and Ann visited the local office together. Later the same day, Ann received a voicemail by an employee in the local office informing her that she was among several thousand people affected by a system input error and the Social Security Administration was working on the problem. ...

[Social Security spokesman Daniel O'Connor] said he could not comment on the Luedke case specifically, citing privacy laws.

When speaking of the assertion that several thousand people were erroneously declared deceased, O’Connor referenced an audit conducted by the Office of the Inspector General in 2015 that raised concerns about the accuracy of death records collected by the Social Security Administration.

 The Social Security Administration reached out to five states — including Virginia — to conduct a pilot by which the agency sought to obtain “historical death data” to “further explore filling potential gaps in our records,” O’Connor said. In August 2016, the Social Security Administration posted approximately 40,000 death records from Virginia and two other states in the pilot. While around half of those records reflected true deaths that matched records of the Social Security Administration, it was discovered that some of the remaining 19,000 matches were in error, O’Connor said. ...

     Are you kidding me? Why has there been no public announcement on this? Why no Emergency Message? Did Social Security think no one would notice? Having one's name wrongly added to the Death Master File causes massive problems.

Since We're So Close To An Election There's No Social Security News So Here's An Interesting Picture

From an exhibition at the NC Museum of Art

Clinton Plan Popular

     From Public Policy Polling:

Do you support or oppose increasing – not

cutting – Social Security benefits by asking

millionaires and billionaires to pay more into

the system?

72%

Support increasing – not cutting - Social

Security benefits by asking millionaires and

billionaires to pay more into the system

16%

Oppose increasing – not cutting - Social

Security benefits by asking millionaires and

billionaires to pay more into the system

12% 

     Even 51% of Republicans support increasing Social Security benefits while asking the wealthy to pay more.

All The COLA Adjustments

     Some excerpts from Social Security's notice of cost of living and other adjustments for 2017, which will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

• The maximum Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) monthly benefit amounts for 2017 under title XVI o f the Act will be $735 for an eligible individual, $1,103 for an eligible individual with an eligible spouse, and $368 for an essential person;
• The dollar fee limit for services performed as a representative payee remains at $41 per month ($78 per month in the case of a beneficiary who is disabled and has an alcoholism or drug addiction condition that leaves him or her incapable of managing benefits) in 2017;
• The dollar limit on the administrative-cost fee assessment charged to an appointed representative such as an attorney, agent, or other person who represents claimants remains at $91 beginning in December 2016;
• The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) contribution and benefit base will be $127,200 for remuneration paid in 2017 and self-employment income earned in taxable years beginning in 2017;
• The monthly exempt amounts under the OASDI retirement earnings test for taxable years ending in calendar year 2017 will be $1,410 for beneficiaries who will attain their Normal Retirement Age (NRA) ... after 2017 and $3,740 for those who attain NRA in 2017;
• The taxable earnings a person must have to be credited with a quarter of coverage in 2017 will be $1,300;
• The monthly amount deemed to constitute substantial gainful activity (SGA) for statutorily blind persons in 2017 will be $1,950. The corresponding amount for non-blind disabled persons will be $1,170;
• The earnings threshold establishing a month as a part of a trial work period will be $840 for 2017;
• The cost-of-living increase is 0.3 percent for benefits under titles II and XVI of the Act. Under title II, OASDI benefits will increase by 0.3 percent for individuals eligible for December 2016 benefits, payable in January 2017.

SSA Employee Indicted

     From a press release:

U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that MICHAELLE MARTINEZ, age 38, of Marrero, was indicted today for Theft of Government Funds.

According to the Superseding Indictment, MARTINEZ identified beneficiaries who were entitled to receive retroactive or back payments from the Social Security Administration (“SSA”).  MARTINEZ would change the recipient’s deposit information and would divert the SSA money bank accounts controlled by the defendant.  MARTINEZ then changed the deposit information back before the beneficiaries would notice a problem. ...

If convicted, MARTINEZ faces a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, followed by up to three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

One More Extension For DEA

     From today's Federal Register:

We are extending, until December 28, 2018, the expiration date of our disability examiner authority (DEA) rule, which authorizes State agency disability examiners to make fully favorable determinations without the approval of a State agency medical or psychological consultant in claims that we consider under our quick disability determination (QDD) and compassionate allowance (CAL) processes. This is our last extension of this rule because we will phase out the use of DEA during the extension period under section 832 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA). This extension provides us the time necessary to take all of the administrative actions we need to take in order to reinstate uniform use of medical and psychological consultants.