House Appropriations Bill Advances

      I posted yesterday about the draft report on the appropriations bill covering Social Security under consideration in the House Appropriations Committee. I emphasized that it was only a draft. Well, that draft advanced yesterday. It's now been reported out by the House Appropriations Committee. Of course, it still must be considered on the floor of the House and in the Senate but it's moving forward quite rapidly compared to what has happened in recent years. The current fiscal year ends on September 30, 2021.

Lots Of Interesting Language In Draft House Appropriations Committee Report

      The draft House Appropriations Committee report on the Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill, which includes administrative funding for the Social Security Administration, is out. This hasn't been voted on even in committee, much less on the floor of the House of Representatives or the Senate. The report contains language showing appropriation amounts, which, if adopted, would be mandatory but it also contains a good deal of what we may call recommendations. Agencies aren't under a legal obligation to act on those recommendations but they always have to pay attention to them and often act on them. There is more of this sort of language than I can ever recall seeing for Social Security. Here are some excerpts from this draft (emphasis added): 

... LIMITATION ON ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES 

Appropriation, fiscal year 2022      $11,219,945,000 

Budget request, fiscal year 2022    12,341,896,000 

Committee Recommendation        12,219,945,000 

Change from enacted level         +1,000,000,000 

Change from budget request       -121,951,000 ...

The Committee provides an increase of not less than $650,000,000 to support frontline operations in field offices, teleservice centers, and program service centers. In addition, the recommendation includes the increase requested in the budget to replace losses and build capacity at the State Dis-ability Determination Services (DDS) agencies that make disability determinations for SSA.Within the recommended funding level, the Committee provides $89,500,000 for SSA to mail paper statements to all contributors aged 25 and older not yet receiving benefits ...

 The Committee considers the Final Rule ‘‘Hearings Held by Administrative Appeals Judges of the Appeals Council’’ (85 Fed. Reg. 73138, December 16, 2020) to be an unjustified erosion of due process for individuals who are appealing a denial of Social Security or SSI benefits. ...In light of the harm that would be caused by this policy change, the Committee strongly urges SSA not to exercise this authority ...

The Committee continues to be deeply concerned about the impact of Presidential Executive Order 13843 (July 10, 2018) on the judicial independence of adminstrative law judges (ALJs). The Order eliminates the competitive hiring process for ALJs and has the potential impact of converting independent adjudicators to political appointees, undermining long-standing principles of fair and unbiased consideration of matters of vital importance to the American people. ALJs must be independent decision-makers and it is the Committee’s expectation that SSA maintain the highest standards for appointment of ALJs. ...

The Committee recognizes that the pandemic disrupted progress SSA made with its initial disability claims backlog, and remains concerned about the adverse impacts disability claim hearings backlogs have on an individual’s ability to access their Social Security benefits. Accordingly, the Committee urges the Commissioner to prioritize the hiring of additional administrative law judges and requisite staff to adjudicate backlogged claims. In addition, the Committee directs the Commissioner to continue to prioritize efforts to reduce wait time disparities across the country by directing resources and workload assistance, as necessary, and to provide the Committee annual reports on efforts to reduce the hearing backlog for Hearing Offices in the bottom twenty of national ranking by average processing time. ...

The Committee is concerned about the time it takes SSA to effectuate favorable SSI and/or SSDI disability determinations and directs SSA to submit a report to the Committee within 180 days of enactment of this Act, on SSA’s procedures for paying past-due and ongoing benefits after a claimant has been found disabled.  ... 

The Committee believes that quality representation in matters with SSA assists claimants and beneficiaries, and can also help SSA work more accurately and efficiently. The Committee continues to support direct payment of fees to representatives, encourages the Commissioner to raise and index the cap on fees payable via fee agreement, and requests that the Commissioner add a Performance Measure on timely and accurate payment of representative fees to the Fiscal Year 2022 and subsequent Annual Performance Plans. ...

The Committee reiterates its support for well-managed telework programs in the Federal workplace, which have demonstrated benefits for human capital as well as continuity of operations. The Committee expects SSA to implement telework policies that support these goals while also strengthening service to the American public, including in-person service in community-based field offices. The Committee directs SSA to submit a report within 90 days of enactment of this Act detailing the agency’s telework policies and identifying any positions for which telework has not been provided or has been reduced from pre-October 2019 levels,along with the reasons for any telework reductions. ...

The Committee understands that during the COVID–19 pandemic, SSA is providing claimants with the option of a video hearing, a telephone hearing, or a postponement if the individual would prefer to wait until an in-person hearing is available. The Committee expects that once the COVID–19 pandemic ends, SSA will resume in-person hearings.

Post Covid Disability

      Scientific American has a piece on the threat of chronic disability from Covid-19. It warns of the possibility of a million Americans with long Covid overwhelming agencies such as the Social Security Administration.

     This may well happen but I can't say that I'm seeing it or hearing about it from others representing Social Security claimants. I'll be happy if a big wave of post Covid disability never arrives. A few months ago I wrote about taking on one client disabled by Covid but I haven't taken on any more such cases since then and that client already had major health problems before Covid-19 came along. He could have easily been pushed over the edge into disability by any serious infection, such as non-Covid pneumonia. Maybe the post-Covid cases will show up later. It's hard for most people to admit even to themselves that they're disabled. People procrastinate even as all reasonable hope for recovery fades away.

Hoist With Their Own Petard And Getting No Sympathy From Me

      From the Washington Post:

Ousted Social Security commissioner Andrew Saul, the Trump appointee who declared Friday he would defy his firing by President Biden, on Monday found his access to agency computers cut off, even as his acting replacement moved to undo his policies.

“I’m here to do the job,” Saul said from his home in Katonah, N.Y., where he had led the agency since the coronavirus pandemic forced most operations to shift in March 2020 to remote work, “but I can’t do anything with the communications shut down.”

 Saul, 74, called his firing and that of his deputy David Black, in an email from the White House Personnel Office, a “palace coup” ...

“There will be more,” said Saul, a wealthy former women’s apparel executive and prominent Republican donor who had served on the board of a conservative think tank that has called for cuts to Social Security benefits. “Stay tuned.” ...

His acting successor, Biden appointee Kilolo Kijakazi, took the reins Monday and was briefed by her staff on the agency’s top priorities, advocates in touch with her office said, including much anticipated planning for the safe reopening of Social Security’s national network of 1,200 field offices. ...

Senate GOP aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss political strategy, said they plan floor speeches starting this week ... to express their dismay with the White House. ...

Republicans also said they are considering procedural actions to block any permanent Biden nominees to the agency on the Senate floor.

“It’s not like Saul was a blazing partisan,” said one Senate GOP aide. “Our view is that longer terms for agencies like this exist for a reason.” ...

     There's so much here! Saul calls his ouster a "palace coup." What? Did he think he was a king? A threat of litigation? I'm sure the President is quaking in fear. Read the recent opinions of the Supreme Court and see if you think whatever lawsuit Saul files is going to get anywhere. Dark threats of procedural actions to block a nomination? I'm pretty sure that's not possible under current Senate rules. Saul not a "blazing partisan"? Are you kidding me? I can't even imagine what they think a "blazing partisan" would look like at Social Security if Saul wasn't one. Now they think that longer terms exist for a reason. Republicans are the ones who came up with the unitary executive theory that blew up longer terms. Do they think they're the only ones who get to use the unitary executive theory? Hoist with their own petard and getting no sympathy from me.

Saul "Off-Boarded"

      From CNN Politics:

The Biden administration has worked to off-board the fired commissioner of the Social Security Administration who said he would report to work on Monday despite being terminated on Friday, an administration official said.

"As with any employment termination, the government has taken steps to off-board Andrew Saul as we would any other former employee," an administration official says. 

Those steps should essentially prevent Saul, who was a holdover from President Donald Trump's administration and refused to resign when requested last week, from accessing the agency's systems after his termination. Saul previously told the Washington Post that he still planned to report to work on Monday by signing in remotely from his home in New York. ...

Disablity Claims Continue To Decline

      Below is a chart from Social Security showing the number of claims for Disability Insurance Benefit taken, sent for adjudication and approved since 1996.  Note that everything declined during the pandemic but the decline seems to be part of a longer term decline that has been ongoing since about 2011. We do not have such a chart for SSI disability claims. There's no doubt, however, that an SSI chart would show a precipitous decline during the pandemic.

Click on image to view full size

 

Social Security Legislation Coming Next Year?

      From the New York Times:

… Mr. Biden campaigned on increasing Social Security benefits for many Americans and moving to shore up the program’s finances, funded by higher payroll taxes on workers who earn $400,000 or more.

But his $4 trillion agenda has thus far excluded those efforts, which were also excluded from his first formal budget request as president. Administration officials have suggested privately that Mr. Biden will wait to push Social Security changes later in his term, once he has completed work on infrastructure and other efforts to remake the American economy with a larger role for government.

Mr. Brady and Mr. Crapo [two Republican Senators] alluded to that proposal in their reaction to the firing. “We are concerned that this politicization of the Social Security Administration is just the beginning of efforts to raise payroll taxes,” they said, “and seriously undermines bipartisan efforts to save Social Security for future retirees.

     Do Republicans want to filibuster a bill that would increase Social Security benefits in an election year? Is opposing an increase in the FICA tax that would only apply to those with high incomes a political winner for the GOP?

An Interview With Acting Commissioner

      From a May interview with Kilolo Kijakazi, the new Acting Commissioner of Social Security:

… Less access to application support services from community-based caseworkers to help their clients with the disability application process, needed medical care, and the associated medical records are all potential barriers that research suggests are more likely in communities of color and can prevent people from applying for federal benefits, for which they are eligible. Other research has shown that access to local Social Security offices can affect applications. …

Don't Know What They Don't Know About Social Security

      From a survey done by Nationwide Insurance:

Click on image to view full size

President Fires Saul And Black

      With no fanfare, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice issued an opinion yesterday that the President may remove the Commissioner of Social Security from office notwithstanding the statutory provisions limiting removal from office. An opinion had been requested by the Deputy Counsel for the President.

     Update: Senator Grassley has tweeted that he's hearing that the President may oust Andrew Saul from his position as Commissioner. Senator McConnell has retweeted this saying "httI agree with @ChuckGrassley. This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration."

     Further update: I've received several reports that there was a blast e-mail to Social Security employees at 4:30 today from an Acting Commissioner of Social Security indicating that Saul and Black are gone.

     And another update: The Washington Post reports that Saul still believes he’s Commissioner and plans to report for work on Monday — remotely from his home in New York city. Who’s going to break it to him?

ps://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1413584718684168197?s=20

Paycheck Problem Affects 922 Social Security Employees.

      From Government Executive:

More than 900 Security Administration employees were left wondering Thursday how much of their regular paycheck they would receive at the end of the week, after a mishap caused their internal payroll software to report they would receive deposits of $0.00 for the pay period that ended July 2. ...

On Thursday, Social Security Administration spokesman Darren Lutz said the agency were still working with the Interior Business Center, which provides payroll services to around 150 federal agencies, on determining the cause, but that all 922 affected employees would receive at least a partial paycheck by Tuesday, SSA’s “official” pay day. ...

Not Such A Good Place To Work

     The Partnership for Public Service does an annual survey to determine the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The 2020 results are out and Social Security didn't do well at all. The agency came in as the 15th best place to work out of 17 large agencies.

    They also rated agency components.  Here are the rankings for Social Security's components, out of 411 total agency components:

• Deputy Commissioner for Analytics Review and Oversight -- 290

• Deputy Commissioner for Budget, Finance, Quality, Management -- 135

• Deputy Commissioner for Communications -- 256

• Deputy Commissioner for Hearing Operations -- 389

• Deputy Commissioner for Human Resources -- 252

• Deputy Commissioner for Operations -- 318

• Deputy Commissioner for Retirement & Disability Policy -- 267

• Deputy Commissioner for Systems -- 192

• Office of the General Counsel -- 101

• Office of the Inspector General -- 382
  

Tomorrow Is Deadline For Preliminary Reopening Plans

 

     I had earlier cited a Government Executive article saying that federal agencies were supposed to submit draft plans for return to new normal post-pandemic operations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by June 18 with final plans due by July 19. I had wondered why we had heard nothing about those draft plans. Now, there's a new Fedweek article saying the draft plans are actually due by tomorrow, July 9, with the final plans still due by July 19. Apparently, the deadline for draft plans was extended.

Balance Needed

      From Nancy Altman writing for The Hill:

“Program integrity” is the sort of technical term that sounds good. Who wouldn’t want to run Social Security with integrity? But unfortunately, in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Washington-speak, the phrase doesn’t mean what you think.

Administering Social Security with integrity sounds as if it means ensuring that the right payments go to the right people in the right amounts. You would think it means that the Social Security Administration (SSA) helps working families get the benefits that they have earned. Instead, it means the opposite.

“Program integrity” is insider-code for saving money. How is money saved? By going after people who have done nothing wrong. By going after people with serious disabilities who must prove over and over again that they are unable to support themselves. By going after people whose benefits SSA claims were wrongly paid out, often because of mistakes made by SSA itself. ...

SSA must return to its roots, to its core mission of helping everyone get the benefits for which they are eligible. It should devote at least as much effort to underpayments as it does to overpayments. It should focus more on educating the public about the benefits for which they are eligible and less on challenging previously-awarded benefits. ...

     It has become clear that Social Security advocates are working to improve Social Security's administrative budget difficulties by liberalizing what "program integrity" funds can be used for. At the moment, Social Security doesn't have enough money to answer its phones or to put people on benefits in a timely manner but it has abundant funding to cut people off benefits. We need balance.

Social Security Helps With Disaster Relief In Miami

      From a television station in Miami:

One of the agencies on site helping families affected by the condo collapse in Surfside is the Social Security Administration. ...

The agency is working with more than a dozen others to help families reestablish documents that they lost in last week’s collapse of the 12-story building. ...

I’ve spoken with the families while I do their paperwork and it’s awful,” said Maria Del Carmen Ortega with the Social Security Administration. “I get goosebumps. The stories are terrible, very sad, and these people have a very long road to recovery because the emotions are unbearable.” ...

Democratic Member Of Congress Calls For Field Offices To Reopen

      From some newspaper in Maine:

Social Security offices in Maine have been closed since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 ...

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, is calling for the SSA to open its doors.

“The current unavailability of most in-person services at SSA field offices … creates difficulty for people who lack broadband access, have certain disabilities, or are otherwise more comfortable with in-person service,” wrote Golden in a recent letter to the administration.

“In light of the public’s need to access SSA services in a timely and convenient way, I request that SSA expedite its OMB-mandated reentry planning to increase staffing at field offices to enable a wider set of in-person services, and to end the requirement for people to part with their original identification documents.” ...

     Social Security employees should not think that because the Democratic Party is friendly with their union that there will be no pressure to reopen the field offices from Democrats in Congress. There's going to be increasing bipartisan pressure to reopen. Representative Golden is just one of the early ones to chime in.

Who Could Have Predicted?

     From CBS Chicago:

Imagine this – you’re unemployed and you get a letter saying you owe thousands of dollars in back Social Security taxes.

That is the reality for some local U.S. Census managers. CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot spoke to one of them, who said the news was a shock. ...

In August of last year, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum allowing employers to defer certain workers’ Social Security taxes during the COVID-19 pandemic.  ...

“I never received any documentation – any communication – from my former employer indicating that my payroll, Social Security taxes would be deferred while I was working,” the Census manager said. ...

Happy Independence Day

 

     When I went to look for an image to post, I happened to come across images showing how India celebrates its Independence Day (also from the British but almost two centuries later) and I can't help posting one because, as much as I enjoy our Independence Day, Indian Independence Day sure looks like fun!

People Don't Want To Wait Until Age 70

      From Think Advisor:

Getting the largest possible Social Security check doesn’t appear to be incentive enough for 90% of non-retirees 45 and older to wait until age 70 to claim them, according to a new study from Schroders Investment Management. Indeed, 30% plan to begin taking benefits between age 62 and 65, before full retirement age. Fourteen percent plan on taking benefits between 66 and 69, while nearly half 46% aren’t sure when they will claim. 

Even those who are at or near retirement age — ages 60 to 67 — don’t seem interested in waiting until age 70: Only 13% said they plan to wait to age 70 to claim Social Security benefits while 28% are still unsure.

 Only 5% say they waited until age 70 to claim the benefits.

     If you follow Social Security affairs, you frequently notice statements made by supposed "experts” based upon the premise that people would wait until age 70 to start drawing Social Security retirement benefits if they only knew just how much more they'd receive if they waited. That's nuts. People already know in general terms how things work. They just don't want to wait. Accept the reality. Even those who now promote waiting to age 70 will themselves probably start drawing retirement benefits well before age 70 because their opinions will change as they get closer to retirement.

Preparations Underway

      I'm hearing that at least at one remote hearing site Social Security has brought in cough shields, hand sanitizer and wipes. I'm not suggesting that the resumption of in person hearings is imminent but what I've heard suggests that preparations are underway. 

     I hope that the agency doesn't try to give months of advance warning before resuming in person hearings. If they do that, many of my clients will decline telephone or video hearings, since they'll be able to get an in person hearing if they just wait a bit longer. I'm pretty sure there will be less chaos if attorneys with scheduled hearings are just notified by phone or e-mail to ask their clients with scheduled phone or video hearings if they want to come to the hearing office for an in person hearing.