White House To Propose 9.7% Appropriations Increase For SSA

      From an attachment to a letter from the Office of Management and Budget to the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is responsible for providing essential benefits to retirees, survivors, individuals with disabilities, and elderly Americans with limited income and resources. The 2022 discretionary request would improve the timely processing of disability claims, expand outreach to vulnerable populations, ensure that SSA makes the correct payments to those who qualify, and modernize information technology to increase the accessibility of benefits for seniors and people with disabilities. 

The President’s 2022 discretionary request includes $14.2 billion for SSA, a $1.3 billion or 9.7-percent increase from the 2021 enacted level. This includes appropriations for program integrity activities. It: 

• Strengthens SSA Services. Each year, SSA processes over six million retirement, survivors, and Medicare claims as well as more than two million disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims. The discretionary request provides $895 million in additional funding to provide better service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for the retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families who rely on the agency. The request would address operational challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing staff to process additional disability claims, to reduce the processing time for disability claims, and to answer calls from those seeking assistance. 
• Increases Outreach to Vulnerable Populations. The discretionary request invests an additional $75 million in outreach to ensure that SSI benefits reach the most vulnerable eligible individuals, including homeless individuals, children with disabilities, and those with mental and intellectual disabilities. As part of this work, the request would invest in efforts that simplify and expand access to the program. These efforts include partnering with community-based organizations that work with vulnerable populations and delivering targeted mailers to potential SSI claimants. 
• Promotes Program Integrity. The discretionary request includes $1.9 billion for dedicated program integrity activities, including a $283 million increase above the 2021enacted level. This amount would ensure responsible spending of Social Security funds, including by funding work to ensure SSA is providing the correct benefit amounts only to those who qualify. These funds also support actions to investigate and help prosecute fraud. 
• Improves Customer Service. The discretionary request fully supports SSA’s modernization plans to maintain and improve its information technology systems, which would reduce customer wait times, improve accessibility and make more services available online, and improve the efficiency of SSA’s operations.

     I'll talk about this more later but I'm concerned about how the current leadership at Social Security will choose to spend additional money. There's a history of Republicans using increased Social Security appropriations on contractors, especially on long term contracts that tie up agency funds for many years into the future, thereby avoiding hiring additional employees to get the work done. There needs to be a balance but it was clear in the past that Republicans were not trying to balance; their fixed pole was keeping the workforce down.

Remembering Field Reps

      Tom Margenau remembers the old days when Social Security had field representatives who, like actually, went outside their offices, to the field, to help people file claims and otherwise deal with the agency.

     The lousy service we have come to expect from Social Security isn’t inevitable. It’s based upon decisions made over many years by people who are indifferent to the level of service the agency provides, if not hostile to good service.  We deserve better.

It's A Start

      To comply with guidelines from the Office of Management and Budget, Social Security has released a COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plan. However, the plan contains almost nothing about how the agency will handle the general reopening of its offices to its employees and the public, much less when that might be.

Why Is David Black Still On The Job?

      David Black was nominated to be Associate Commissioner of Social Security by former President Trump and confirmed by a Republican controlled Senate. According to the statute, the Commissioner of Social Security is appointed to a six year term and can only be removed "pursuant to a finding by the President of neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." Whether that limitation on the President's powers is constitutional is another question but, unlike the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner enjoys no protection against being fired by the President for any reason or no reason. Why is David Black still on the job?

I Wish There Had Been More Of This

      Nancy Altman, the President of Social Security Works and a member of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), writes for The Hill on the harsh new musculoskeletal Listings that went into effect on April 2.  I wish there had been far more criticism of these rules, enough to have stopped them from going into effect. They just seem to technical to most people. That word "musculoskeletal" isn't in most people's vocabulary.

     By the way, there's still not been a public release of the study that supposedly showed that the new Listings won't affect the number of disability claims being released. I'd really like to see that.

Plan To Add $9,000 Covid Funeral Expense Benefit Administered By FEMA

      The Biden Administration plans to have the Federal Emergency Management Agency cut $9,000 checks to the survivors of Covid-19 deaths to pay funeral expenses. That's nice but I have a better idea. Why don't we do something about Social Security's absurdly low $255 death benefit? It's so low it probably costs more to administer than is paid in benefits. Covid survivors aren't the only ones facing difficulties paying funeral expenses. It's a common problem.

     Let me make it clear to any unsophisticated reader of this blog that it isn't the Social Security Administration's choice to pay only a $255 death benefit. That was passed by Congress many, many years ago and the agency has no authority to deviate from it. The $255 payments were inadequate at the time Congress added the benefit to Social Security and they were never indexed for inflation.

No Labor-Management Progress At SSA

      From Federal Computer Week:

The Social Security Administration is under fire from unions and congressional Democrats unhappy with the agency's pace in implementing the Biden administration's changes to labor-management relations, and many are seeking the ouster of the Trump-appointed agency leaders.

The American Federation of Government Employees wants a return to the bargaining table to renegotiate a contract that is based in part on limitations on union activity included in Trump administration executive orders that have since been repealed.

In rolling back those orders, President Joe Biden ordered agencies to bargain over a broader set of "permissive" topics.

"SSA is looking for any reason not to reopen the current contract," said Ralph DeJuliis, president of AFGE Council 220, which represents 29,000 SSA employees in field offices and telephone service centers. "SSA is, in our opinion, not following the Biden executive orders." ...

SSA is implementing Biden's executive order "responsively and responsibly," a SSA spokesperson told FCW. "Building collaborative working relationships with our union partners" is "critically important" to the agency.

SSA asked unions for input after receiving guidance sent out to agencies by the Office of Personnel Management. Agencies are required to review any collective bargaining agreement sections that implemented the rescinded Trump orders.

SSA's assessment should be done by April 23, the agency spokesperson said. ...

The agency and the union have made progress on official time -- the practice of permitting senior union officials to conduct union business on the job. Official time, which was nearly eliminated by the Trump executive order, has been temporarily reset to levels closer to those in the 2012 bargaining agreement, Bryant said. That temporary agreement changing that can last up to seven months. ...

     I don't understand the delay coming from Social Security. I'm sure management understands the need to reopen offices as soon as practical. They need union agreement to do so. Let's get moving. Actually, I could understand a little more trepidation about negotiations coming from union officials than management since I'm sure union members have a lot of concern about reopening.

     The current messaging from CDC to keep most things closed is confusing but temporary. Most of the population isn't yet fully vaccinated so we still need to keep things buttoned up. However, CDC's message will change as more of the population is vaccinated. That's happening rapidly. By the end of June, just about the only people who won't have been been vaccinated will be those who have deliberately refused it. I expect that the country will really start reopening by Independence Day and that just about everything will be open by Labor Day assuming there's no break through Covid-19 variant that makes current vaccines ineffective. We're not going to keep things closed just to protect fools who have refused the vaccine. Vaccine passports will help in the process. Those who refuse vaccines can yell all they want about discrimination against them because they lack vaccine passports. The vast majority of the population who have vaccine passports won't be listening. They're going to be enjoying getting back to their normal lives, not listening to cranks.

     It's going to be impossible to keep Social Security field offices closed once we get everyone vaccinated who is willing to be vaccinated. There's too much pent up demand for Social Security services. No, Social Security hasn't been getting all its work done with its offices closed. I'm on the receiving end of these services. Don't try to tell me that things have gone great with offices closed. I know better.

     Those who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 but remain frightened need to realize that to this point not a single person who has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 has ended up in the hospital much less died due to Covid-19. That's an incredible record of vaccine success. Unless something changes, once you're fully vaccinated against Covid-19, if you need to worry about any infectious disease, it should be our old friends influenza, salmonella, garden variety pneumonia, hepatitis, meningitis, etc, not Covid-19. We haven't significantly restricted our activities in the past due to these minor risks and there's no reason to do so in the future.

EM On New Musculoskeletal Listings

      Social Security has issued an Emergency Message on the new musculoskeletal Listings that went into effect last Friday. I would not say that these soften the blow much. 

     The new EM does speak to a question I had. What about claimants who use electric wheelchairs operated with one hand, as in Stephen Hawking (although his problem wasn't musculoskeletal). Since these wheelchairs don't require both hands to operate, can these claimants meet the Listings? The answer is yes, assuming the claimant couldn't get around with just one cane, for instance. Yes, these Listings are so bad that we need an answer to a question about whether someone as impaired as Stephen Hawking would meet them. 

     These Listings don't merely require that a claimant be unable to work. They require that it be immediately obvious to others that a claimant can't work. I guess people like Andrew Saul heard enough complaints from people about a neighbor or acquaintance who couldn't be "truly" disabled based solely upon limited lay observation. They wanted to make sure that disability is obvious and undeniable.

Happy Easter

 

A Poll

picture polls

Congressman Seeks To Overturn Rule Allowing AAJ Hearings

      From a press release:

Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John B. Larson (D-CT) and Worker and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Danny K. Davis (D IL) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn a harmful rule adopted by the Trump Administration. The rule, “Hearings Held by Administrative Appeals Judges of the Appeals Council” (85 Fed. Reg. 73138), changes the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) appeals hearings in ways that compromise claimants’ and beneficiaries’ due process, potentially limit their access to their earned benefits, and contradict the congressional intent of the law governing such proceedings. Specifically, the rule allows SSA to put unqualified agency attorneys in charge of appeals hearings, rather than independent Administrative Law Judges. ...

     I wish he'd try to undo the musculoskeletal Listings changes instead. The AAJ hearings seem pretty unlikely anyway. The Listings changes went into full effect today.

Stimulus Payments To Be Delivered Next Week

      There's been a delay in getting stimulus payments out to recipients of Social Security and SSI benefits The delay may or may not have involved foot dragging at Social Security. My guess is that there was no deliberate foot dragging but a lack of perceived urgency. In any case, the obstacles have been cleared out of the way and payments should be delivered to bank accounts by April 7.

FAQs On New Musculoskeletal Listings

      Social Security has released FAQs on the new musculoskeletal Listings due to go into effect on Good Friday. Here is an excerpt:

Q4: What percent of decisions do adjudicators make using these revised rules?

A4: We decide claims involving musculoskeletal impairments primarily at step 5 of the sequential evaluation process where we consider a claimant’s residual functional capacity (RFC), age, education, and work experience. Specifically, we make 90 percent of allowances due to a musculoskeletal impairment using the medical-vocational rules at step 5 of the sequential evaluation process, which have not changed. The remaining 10 percent of the people who apply for disability benefits and are found disabled after an initial review due to a musculoskeletal impairment meet (or medically equal) a musculoskeletal disorders listing. We do not expect this to change because of these final rules.

Q5: How do these changes affect vulnerable populations?

A5: Our Office of the Chief Actuary’s (OCACT) primary conclusion for these rules are that the net effect of the new listings will be very small for both Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and SSI. OCACT estimated that for SSI, there would be a very small net increase in SSI awards of roughly 180 annually. For SSDI, there would be a very small net reduction in disability awards of roughly 260 annually due to these listings.

OCACT estimated that implementation of these final rules will result in a net increase in SSI payments of $67 million over fiscal years 2021-2030, and a net reduction in scheduled Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits of $263 million over the same period, assuming implementation in January 2021. Our Office of Budget, Finance, and Management estimates administrative savings of less than 15 work years and $2 million annually.

It is important to note that while the estimated effects of changes from allowance to denial and from denial to allowance are largely offsetting, the actual net effect for either program, SSDI or SSI, could potentially be either a small cost or a small saving.

     Seriously, you're telling us these new Listings will make almost no difference in the number of claims approved? What was the point of the new Listings then? Social Security isn't claiming that these have anything to do with advances in medicine. 

    Why is the Chief Actuary's office trying to evaluate whether a change in the Listings will result in more or fewer claims being approved? It's outside their field of expertise. How is it even conceivable that these new Listings would increase the number of SSI claims approved, even in a small way? There's nothing to these new Listings other than a tightening of criteria across the board.

    Why hasn't the Chief Actuary released their study? There were repeated questions about this on a conference call I listened to yesterday and Social Security refused to answer the question, even though the Chief Actuary, Steve Goss, was on the call. Their partial answer to another question suggested that the Chief Actuary's office may have only looked at claimants age 50 and older. The largest effect of these new Listings, however, will be on claimants under the age of 50.  I guess the Actuary's projection is how they sold this to OMB and the Biden Administration, making it an important document. I think we ought to be able to see it.

    I will say this. If they start being more reasonable in determining Residual Function Capacity (RFC) at the Initial and Reconsideration levels it would be possible to offset the negative effects of these new Listings. However, prior experience tells me to expect the exact opposite. Again, there was never any point to the Listings changes other than to deny more claimants. Any other reasons Social Security has given for these changes have been nothing more than window dressing.

Sanctioned Representatives

      Social Security recently released lists of sanctioned claimants representatives. Below are the lists of those sanctioned from 2020.

Registered Representatives

LOFTUS, JOHN 

WEINTRAUB, MICHAEL 

WYSOLMERSKI, SIGISMUND 

LONG, RATHADY 

CHANDLER, ROBERT 

PAGAN, ERIC 

SWISCHER, COREY 

HOEGH, THOMAS 

 

Unregistered Representative

OEURN, SARATH

 

Disability Incidence Map

You'll have to go to the link to make it interactive.

      Mathematica has put together an interactive map showing the incidence of disability by county in the United States. Make of it what you will. I'd say it mostly shows that disability is more common in rural areas.

Social Security Employee Arrested In Syracuse

      From a press release:

Sean Okrzesik, age 34, of Syracuse, was arrested on March 23 on charges of theft of government property and Social Security fraud related to his diversion of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits into bank accounts he set up in the names of beneficiaries or their representative payees while he was employed in the Syracuse District Office of the Social Security Administration.

     I keep mentioning an ironic fact. In the wake of the Eric Conn fiasco Social Security purchased expensive software programs to spot data anomalies that might indicate fraud. They expected to find widespread fraud by claimants and their representatives but it wasn’t there. What they've found instead has been a modest amount of fraud by their own employees.

Field Offices Are Essential

      A few people who ought to know better think that there’s no need to ever reopen Social Security’s field offices to the public. The AARP gives you some of the reasons why those people are wrong.

I'd Like To Hear The Other Side Of This Story

      From a press release issued by Andrew Saul:

"I want to provide an important update about the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) processing of Economic Impact Payments (EIPs) under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act.

At each turn over the last 12 months, immediate delivery of EIPs has been, and remains, a top priority for this agency. ...

Since the time that discussions began regarding issuance of EIPs in the ARP Act, weeks before passage, we have worked tirelessly with our counterparts at IRS to provide to them the information they need to issue payments to our beneficiaries. Despite the fact that Congress did not directly provide SSA funding to support our work on EIPs, we have provided countless hours of assistance to IRS consistent with the laws that establish how we may use the Trust Funds that every American counts on us to protect. ...

SSA discussed with Treasury and IRS, both before passage and after enactment of the ARP Act, that the Social Security Act does not allow the agency to use our administrative appropriation to conduct work on any non-mission provision or program. Accordingly, we were not authorized to substantively engage Treasury or IRS prior to the ARP’s passage. Instead, upon passage, we were required to pursue a reimbursable agreement with IRS because we received no direct appropriation through the ARP Act. From the outset of discussions, we kept congressional staff apprised of the hurdles this approach would create for SSA, and we have continued to update them on our progress with IRS as we completed the required interagency agreements.

Once we were free to move forward, we aggressively worked with Treasury and IRS to issue payments. As a result of our efforts, we successfully signed the reimbursable agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) less than one week after passage, on March 17. That process often takes weeks or months to complete, but we got the job done in a matter of days. A few days later, on Monday, March 22, SSA sent initial test files to IRS. IRS confirmed testing success on Wednesday, March 24. Production files were delivered to IRS before 9 AM on Thursday, March 25 – more than a week sooner than we were able to provide a similar file to IRS during the first round of EIPs. ...

     Doing it a little faster than last time doesn't sound like an achievement to me. Of course, it's faster this time because you have the experience of having done it before. I don't understand the statement that "we were not authorized to substantively engage Treasury or IRS prior to the ARP’s passage." Really, why not? Social Security cooperates with many other agencies all the time. What is this obsession with not using appropriations for non-mission programs? That doesn't seem to have prevented a ton of other data matches. Also, why was the agency having active discussions with Treasury and the IRS at a time when it supposedly wasn't allowed to "substantively engage" with them? That doesn't make sense. Why couldn't the MOU have been negotiated prior to passage of the bill and signed immediately after passage? Passage of the bill wasn't a cliffhanger. Why would it take even a week to negotiate a new MOU anyway? This had been done before. Just dust off the MOU you used previously and use essentially the same language. You don't have to re-invent the wheel.

     I'd like to hear the IRS and Treasury side of what happened.

One Week Until New Musculoskeletal Listings Take Effect

      Unless something happens in the meantime to delay or prevent it, Social Security's new musculoskeletal Listings go into effect a week from today. If you haven't read them, they're more extreme than you can probably imagine. I've reproduced the Listings changes below -- just the Listings without the lengthy preambles. Judge for yourself. My opinion is that the public isn't going to be happy with these and that the current Presidential Administration will be blamed, which is exactly what was planned, I imagine. These certainly weren't rushed out while there was a Republican President. Click on each thumbnail to view full size.

Biden's Suggestive History On SSI For U.S. Territories

      I just became aware of President Biden's history with  U.S. v. Vaello-Madero, the case to be heard by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of denying SSI benefits to U.S. citizens who reside in Puerto Rico. On September 6, 2020, a reporter for a Puerto Rican newspaper posted a story about the Trump Administration requesting that the Supreme Court hear U.S. v. Vaello-Madero and then tweeted about the story. Then candidate Joe Biden tweeted the following in response:

Time and again, the president has refused to provide Puerto Rico with much-needed resources. He’s repeatedly insulted Puerto Ricans and this latest action is another example of his disrespect for the island. 

This ends when I’m elected president.

     This isn't exactly a promise to withdraw the request that the Supreme Court hear  U.S. v. Vaello-Madero, although it can be interpreted that way. This twitter history is drawing attention and some are expressing disappointment that Biden hasn't already changed the government's position on the case. Biden's press secretary has said that Biden supports legislation to extend SSI to U.S. territories.

     Biden hasn't yet nominated a Solicitor General, the official who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court. Once he does, I hope that the Biden Administration's position on U.S. v. Vaello-Madero comes up in the confirmation hearing.