The report shown below was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members. It contains basic operating statistics for Social Security's Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).
 |
| Click on image to view full size |
 |
| Senator Leahy |
As is normally the case, the draft report on the bill, an explanation of the bill which isn't officially enacted, contains recommendations for the Social Security Administration. These aren't binding but agencies take them seriously. Here's what's in the draft Senate bill for Social Security:
Delayed Disability Payments.—The delayed payment of Social Security Disability Insurance claims can create a significant burden on claimants. The Committee requests a briefing within 90 days of enactment on the issues that can result in delayed payments, and the polices SSA has implemented, or has considered, to streamline the disability payments’ process.
Disability Hearing and Initial Claims Backlogs.—The Committee commends SSA for the progress it has made reducing the average disability hearing processing time and the disability hearing backlog. The Committee recommendation combined with investments in recent years will help SSA stay on schedule to eliminate the backlog in fiscal year 2022 and further reduce the average disability hearing processing time. At the same time COVID–19 has created significant challenges for SSA, and has contributed to a growing backlog of initial disability claims. The Committee recommendation will support additional hires for Disability Determination Services to help address the growing backlog and an estimated increase in initial claims. The Committee requests a briefing within 60 days of enactment, and quarterly thereafter, on its progress towards reducing initial disability claim and hearings processing times and backlogs.
Field Offices Closures.—The Committee remains concerned about decisions to permanently close field offices and the impact on the public. The Committee encourages SSA to find an appropriate balance between in-person field office services and online services for beneficiaries. While the SSA’s Inspector General reviews decisions to close field offices, the Committee directs SSA to take every action possible to maintain operations at the offices under review.
Occupational Information System [OIS].—The Committee is aware that SSA continues to operationalize OIS using BLS ORA data, O*NET, and other DOL-derived occupational statistics. The Committee commends SSA’s progress in implementing OIS, and directs SSA to provide an update in writing to the Committees on Appropriations and Finance within 60 days of enactment detailing the status of implementation, to what extent OIS is fully operational, a timeline for moving from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles entirely to OIS, and an action plan to accomplish said timeline.
This is almost completely different from the House version which discusses the regulations allowing Administrative Appeals Judges to hold hearings, judicial independence of ALJs, backlogged claims processing, the attorney fee cap, telework and telephone hearings. The differences between the two draft reports will be sorted out in the legislative process so there will be one final report on the bill.
The current continuing resolution that keeps Social Security and other agencies running ends in early December. I don't think that appropriations have been as contentious this year as most. I hope we can get something passed by that early December deadline.
Some of the President’s commitments are very affordable: increasing the income disregards is only $60 billion over ten years, eliminating the rules prohibiting help from family and friends is only $31 billion, and updating the resource limits is only $8 billion. Other smaller changes we have long supported have negligible costs of under $500 million over ten years (including expanding SSI to the territories, excluding retirement accounts from resources, eliminating dedicated accounts, and other technical changes from the SSI Restoration Act).
A tweet from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:
Today is #EndPovertyDay. Without #SocialSecurity, a typical white household has 5 to 7 times the wealth of a minority household, but adding in Social Security reduces the gap to 2 to 3. Learn more: bit.ly/36aJ6EV #EndPoverty #PovertyEradication #RDRCResearch
Wednesday’s argument in Babcock v Kijakazi displayed a bench still uncertain about how to resolve a problem about the Social Security benefits available to a small group of National Guard workers.
The case involves a special rule that protects certain members of the “uniformed services” from a rule that limits Social Security benefits for people with irregular work histories over the course of their lifetime. … The case involves a group of about 50,000 people still living who worked before 1984 as a “dual-status military technician.” Although paid as civilians, those technicians provide a variety of services involving the National Guard and are obligated to maintain membership with an appropriate rank in the National Guard and to wear the corresponding uniform while on duty. At bottom, the question is whether the pay they receive for that work is “wholly” based on service “as” a member of a uniformed service, even though much of it is civilian rather than military work.
None of the justices seemed to approach the case with certainty. Two main threads of analysis dominated the argument. For Chief Justice John Roberts, it seemed obvious that some of the pay was for the serviceman’s work “as” a member of the National Guard, but much of it was for the various civilian duties of his technician status. …
Justice Elena Kagan – the only justice who seemed to state a settled view during the argument – seconded Roberts’ perspective, commenting “that we can sort of make this simpler” by following his lead, “and this is the way I read the language too.”
Conversely, Justice Neil Gorsuch found most relevant the statutory requirement that dual technicians must be members of the National Guard. In a colloquy with Nicole Reaves (appearing on behalf of the government), Gorsuch commented that “the work may be civilian for a bunch of other purposes, but it can only be performed by someone who is serving in the capacity of a National Guardsman.” …
A group representing employees of the Social Security Administration’s office of inspector general is calling on lawmakers and President Biden to take action against the watchdog office’s leadership, saying the leaders have lost the confidence of their employees.
The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association’s promise to take its complaints directly to Capitol Hill and the White House follows a vote in which 98% of responding employees represented by the professional association said they no longer had faith in SSA Inspector General Gail Ennis. The inspector general has ignored employee complaints and defied efforts to engage with workers, the group said in a recent letter to Ennis. The association represents 90% of the IG’s agents.
Employee satisfaction has declined since Ennis took office in early 2019 and took a significant hit this summer when the IG told employees the agency had begun conducting surveys of employee computer logs and telephone records to ensure its largely remote workforce was engaging in work activities at the proper times. Ennis said the agency was weighing disciplinary actions for those employees who were allegedly slacking off during their telework hours.
After the law enforcement association raised concerns about those practices and other managerial decisions, asking Ennis to meet with labor representatives to discuss concerns, the IG responded directly to the workforce with a letter rejecting the group’s concerns.
FLEOA suggested the total number of OIG special agents—plain-clothed federal law enforcement personnel who conduct investigations—has dropped by 37% in the last 18 months, though Ennis said the overall office of investigations was down just 7% since the pandemic began. She also vowed to oversee a workforce increase in the coming months as the agency fills vacancies. ...
The IG’s office was ranked 382 out of 411 agency subcomponents on the Partnership for Public Service’s most recent best places to work rankings, which is compiled from the government’s annual Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey data. The office’s engagement score has fallen by 22% in the last two years.
From Scotusblog:
Wednesday’s argument in Babcock v Kijakazi will take the justices deep into the intersection of the Social Security Act and a host of statutes defining the obligations and compensation of National Guard workers. This will definitely not be the most closely watched case of the month — but the court’s resolution of the arcane question in the case may determine how much money certain veterans can receive in retirement benefits.
At the highest level of generality, the case involves an exception from a “windfall elimination provision” of the Social Security Act. To understand the issues before the justices, it is enough to know that Congress has adopted a statute designed to eliminate what it regards as “windfalls” that some workers would receive – unjustly large Social Security awards that would flow to workers who spent a substantial share of their working years in jobs not covered by Social Security. The exception to the windfall-elimination provision describes some payments to which that provision doesn’t apply – employees for whom Congress would tolerate what it generally would regard as a windfall. Specifically, the exception protects any “payment based wholly on service as a member of a uniformed service,” a defined term that includes among other things the Army National Guard of the United States. To put that another way, the “uniformed-services exception” at issue here allows members of uniformed services a windfall Social Security payment that is barred for members of the general public.
The question before the court is whether the benevolence of that uniformed-services exception reaches dual-status military technicians who serve in the National Guard. Those technicians provide a variety of services involving the equipment and supplies of the National Guard. Although they are paid as civilian employees, they routinely wear military uniforms and are obligated to maintain membership with an appropriate rank in the state National Guard where they are located, which carries with it (by law) membership in the Army National Guard of the United States. …
… America’s retirement system is stacked against mothers. Women are more likely than men to reduce their hours or drop out of the workforce to raise children and, as a result, are likelier to face poverty in old age. America’s primary safety net for the elderly—Social Security—rewards long careers and high pay, all but guaranteeing that parents who focus on the work of child-rearing receive the smallest payouts. …
I don’t know about numbers on the backs of Social Security cards. The only number on the back of my Social Security card is the form number — but I still have the original card I received at age 16 many years ago. Things have surely changed.
From the Associated Press:
As disbarred lawyer Eric Conn sits in a federal prison, hundreds of people in one of America’s poorest regions remain mired in the legal mess he caused by running a $600 million fraud, the largest Social Security scam in U.S. history.
Many of Conn’s former clients in eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian mountains, who counted on him for help getting their disability benefits, could again lose their monthly support.
About 1,700 people already went through hearings to prove their disabilities after his fraud was exposed about six years ago, and roughly half lost their benefits as a result. Some 230 of these recipients managed to get their benefits restored years later by court orders, only to learn they may have to prove it all over again.
That’s the situation confronting Mary Sexton, who suffers from scoliosis and has had two brain surgeries, plus spinal surgery to fuse vertebrae in her neck. Her maladies have left her with a limp and other chronic symptoms including headaches, kidney problems and an inability to concentrate that forced her to quit college.
A court order restored her $1,100-a-month disability benefit in November. But two months later, she received a letter from the Social Security Administration telling her she would have to appear before an administrative judge to prove she is legally entitled to them. ...
In a statement to The Associated Press, the Social Security Administration said it is bound by law to “conduct redeterminations of entitlement when there is a reason to believe fraud or similar fault was involved in a person’s benefit application.” The statement said Conn’s fraud, exposed by two agency employees in a whistleblower suit, is “well-documented.” ...
In a letter to the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Rep. Hal Rogers said the agency has spent millions to deny relatively small sums to unwitting victims of a con job. “These individuals are the victims of fraud, not the perpetrators, and it’s time for their uncertainty and anxiety to end,” the Kentucky Republican wrote, arguing for a process that would keep them out of court.
A Saint Pauls, North Carolina woman, Stephanie Chavis, was sentenced today to 65 months in prison and three years of supervised release for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Chavis was also ordered to pay $760,966 in restitution to the Social Security Administration. On April 16, 2019, Chavis pled guilty to the charges.
According to court documents and other information presented in court, Chavis was an Operations Supervisor at the Fayetteville offices of the Social Security Administration (SSA). SSA administers monetary aid to the public through federally funded programs, including the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI), which authorizes monthly payments to qualifying individuals who are 65 years or older, blind, or disabled, and who meet certain income and resource criteria.
In her capacity as an Operations Supervisor, Chavis had access to SSA beneficiary accounts and associated personal identifying information (PII). Between approximately August 2010 and April 2018, Chavis caused over $760,000 in SSI benefits to be electronically deposited into nine different bank accounts held in her name, and in the names of various family members, by making false and fraudulent representations to fellow SSA employees, including claims representatives and other supervisors. ...
Overall, SSI claimants and recipients have fared horribly during the pandemic. Regardless of the merits of this lawsuit, they deserve much better.
Objective
To determine the effectiveness of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) controls for resolving high-priority requests sent via the modernized development worksheet (MDW) process.
Background
Because SSA’s processing centers (PC), teleservice centers, and field offices have different processing roles and systems access, SSA employees are often required to contact other offices to request case processing assistance. Employees use MDWs, manually designated as either routine or high priority, to send requests for action to other field offices or PCs. Per SSA policy, high-priority MDW requests should be limited to situations that involve awards and disallowance of claims; start- and stop- payment actions; appeals; congressional inquiries; and public-relations issues. According to SSA’s policy, employees should follow up on unresolved high-priority requests after 20 calendar days.
From SSA’s Processing Center Action Control System, we identified 121,376 benefit records with high- priority MDWs pending at PCs as of January 28, 2020. Of these, 82,439 (68 percent) had MDWs that were pending for at least 60 days. We reviewed a random sample of 100 benefit records with high-priority MDWs pending at least 60 days.
Findings
SSA does not have effective controls for resolving high-priority requests sent via the MDW process. As a result, SSA made improper or delayed payments and inflated PC backlogs, which impeded efforts to improve customer service. For 51 of the 100 sampled benefit records, SSA did not resolve the high-priority MDWs or resolved them longer than 60 days after field office and teleservice center employees sent them to the PCs. ...
For the remaining 49 benefit records, employees (1) resolved the high-priority MDWs but did not clear them or (2) made incorrect inputs on MDW requests. We estimate SSA’s management information was inflated by over 40,000 high-priority MDWs, which further decreased the effectiveness of the MDW process. ...
So much to unpack here. Note that the systems used by the payment centers, teleservice centers and field offices don't really talk with each other very well so Social Security had to come up with the MDW process but that's not really working so well. It sounds like the system has almost completely broken down if it ever worked to begin with. Even when the MDWs are "resolved", often there are errors in the "resolution." And, oh yes, note the special treatment for "public relations issues."
This isn't a video game. Real people suffer lengthy delays in the payment of benefits owed them. Many of these problems never get resolved without frequent external pressure from attorneys representing claimants.
How did a "working paper" this shoddy get published? Was this nonsense peer reviewed by anyone?
