AARP Calls For Better Service

    From a letter sent by the AARP to the leadership of the House Social Security Subcommittee:

... AARP continues to be concerned about extraordinary delays within the Social Security disability process. ...

 SSA needs to do better and should continue to prioritize the reduction of disability wait times as a key objective of the agency. In order to help SSA make improvements to the disability process, it is imperative that Congress provide the agency with the funding it needs. Social Security has a responsibility and a duty to provide timely and quality service to the public, and Congress has an obligation to ensure the agency has the resources, staffing and oversight necessary to fulfill its mission. For too long, Congress has underfunded SSA, leading to increased customer service deficiencies that have become far too common.

AARP continues to urge Congress to approve $15.5 billion for SSA administrative expenses for FY 2024. ...

    I hope AARP knows that the Social Security Subcommittee can do nothing about Social Security's appropriation. That's the responsibility of the Appropriations Committee.

Senate Hearing On O'Malley Nomination

   

     I listened to yesterday's Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Martin O'Malley to become Commissioner of Social Security. There seemed to be only limited Republican opposition. When a Republican Senator mentioned that he didn't like the firing of Andrew Saul, the Chairman of the Committee was prepared to politely mention that Republicans were hoist on their own petard. They were the ones who brought the lawsuits that led to the President's ability to fire people like Saul -- who richly deserved it!

    I liked one thing that O'Malley did. Whenever a Republican Senator complained about backlogs and delays and poor service generally, O'Malley had the numbers and could talk about the staffing cuts in the Senator's home state, which were in the 20-30% range for the field offices and DDS. That seemed to mute the complaints. Don't let them "cut it until it bleeds and then complain about the bloodstains."

 

Update: Another take on the nomination hearing.

   

O'Malley Nomination Hearing Today

    The Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Martin O'Malley to become the Commissioner of Social Security is scheduled for 10:00 Eastern today. You can watch it online.

Grassley Undecided On O'Malley Nomination

     From Radio Iowa:

The Democrat who finished third in the 2016 Iowa Caucuses is now being considered for the post of commissioner of Social Security. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley will go before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee this week for his nomination hearing, and Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley will be among the lawmakers asking him questions.

“I did meet with him in my office a month ago and I thought it was a very worthwhile meeting,” Grassley says. “I think his heart is in the right place, but I’m going to wait until the hearing’s over to decide whether to vote for him.”

The long-term viability of Social Security is the subject of much concern, but Grassley says they likely won’t be talking with O’Malley about that topic during the hearing on Thursday.

“I think we’re going to be more concerned about how he runs the Social Security Administration,” Grassley says, “and is he going to get people from remote work back into the offices around the country so they can serve the people better?” ...

OIG Chief Counsel Files Personal Suit Alleging Defamation, Tortious Interference, and False Light Invasion Of Privacy

     Michelle Murray, Chief Counsel of Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG), has filed suit on her own behalf pro se (meaning she is representing herself) in federal court in Pennsylvania against Debbie Shaw (Supervisory Attorney at the Office of the Counsel for Investigations and Enforcement -- or OCIE -- at OIG), Joscelyn Funnie (Senior Executive at OCIE), Lisa Rein (a reporter at the Washington Post), WP Company (which owns the Washington Post -- identified in the complaint as "left-centered"), Faith Williams (Director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight) and the Project on Government Oversight. The complaint alleges defamation, tortious interference, and false light invasion of privacy. My name is mentioned but not as a defendant.

    There's probably a better way I don't know about but if you want to download this complaint you'll have to wait until I approve your request. I'll approve every request but I can't do it instantly.

    I'll say that as a general matter this sort of suit is difficult to win. I'd also say that if you're going to bring this sort of action your hands better be squeaky clean.

    Query: Do Debbie Shaw and Joscelyn Funnie qualify for government legal representation? I'd think so but I don't know the rules on this sort of thing.

Happy Halloween

 

ERE Only Partially Functional

     Social Security's ERE system that attorneys use to access their clients' files is only partially functional this morning.

    Does this also affect Social Security's internal systems?

Children Being Raised By Their Grandparents Poorly Served By Social Security

     From How Can Social Security Children's Benefits Help Grandparents Raise Grandchildren?, by Liu, Siyan, and Laura D. Quinby of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

In 2020, around two million grandparents were responsible for the basic needs of their grandchildren, with grandparent care concentrated in historically disadvantaged communities. Despite being particularly vulnerable to financial insecurity, most grandparents are ineligible for formal support -- such as subsidies for foster parents, housing assistance, and Social Security dependent child benefits -- because they raise their grandchildren outside of the foster care system. Using the Health and Retirement Study and American Community Survey, this study documents how grandparent caregivers differ from typical grandparents in terms of time and money spent on grandchildren, demographic characteristics, and economic resources. It then evaluates how their finances would improve if eligibility for child benefits were aligned with the more lenient tax criteria for claiming a dependent grandchild.

    Being "outside of the foster care system" is definitely a problem but the Social Security aspect of it is that if you're on retirement benefits from Social Security, only your minor children and adult children who became disabled before age 22 can obtain child's benefits on your account. Your grandchildren are only eligible for these child benefits under very limited circumstances. 

    The children could get benefits if the grandparents adopted them but the grandparents are generally scared to try. The problem is that usually the children come to live with their grandparents because the parents have serious problems with substance abuse, other mental illness or are abusive. The grandparents are scared to rock the boat with an adoption petition. The parents may take the children back to a disordered, dangerous environment.

    The Social Security Act could be altered to give children's benefits to grandchildren in the custody of their grandparents. A change along these lines would certainly be family friendly but at this point no Social Security legislation, whatever its merits, can pass Congress.

A Question

     I know that many would like to turn over disability determination to artificial intelligence but there’s no gold standard for disability determination so let’s start out a little simpler. Could artificial intelligence be trained to do windfall offset calculations at Social Security? They're the agency's bane. They eat up tons of employee time. I'm sure that everyone familiar with the problem knows that there ought to be some computer fix. The Social Security Administration has tried two different windfall offset software packages in the past. Both cost in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars and both failed spectacularly. Is AI different?

   

U.S. Retirement Systems Score Poorly

     From Michael Hiltzik writing for the Los Angeles Times:

Back in my school days, a “C” grade was a certification of rank mediocrity. That’s the right way to think about a recent scorecard on which the U.S. retirement system scored an inexcusably deficient C+.

That grade placed the U.S. behind Netherlands, Iceland and Israel (all A’s); and Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland (all solid B’s or B+). If you’re looking for bragging rights, the U.S. came in about even with France.

The scores come to us from the business consulting firm Mercer, which ranked 47 national pension systems for its Global Pension Index on standards such as adequacy, sustainability (including the reliability of funding) and integrity (such as the regulation of private pension providers). ...

Among the particular shortcomings of the American system identified by the Mercer team is that it leaves too many workers out in the cold, including gig workers and lower-income blue-collar employees. ...

But if you’re hoping that things will improve for American retirees in the near future, the accession of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to the post of House speaker should give you pause. Johnson is a long-term advocate of cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits through changes such as raising the retirement and eligibility ages for the programs.

He also has advocated scrutinizing the cost of those programs through a “bipartisan debt commission” that inevitably would place them in the deficit-reduction cauldron along with other spending. After his rise to the speaker’s chair Wednesday, Johnson immediately promised to create this panel. ...

Brute Force Needed

    At yesterday's House Social Security Subcommittee hearing all of the members were struggling under the illusion that agency management could seriously address agency backlogs. I have my own ideas for what the agency could do but I'm not under the illusion that they would seriously address backlogs. More money is the only thing that will work; "brute force" as former Commissioner Astrue described it when the agency was in a backlog situation not as serious as the current one.

Hearing Scheduled For O'Malley Nomination

    The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing on the nomination of Martin O'Malley to become Commissioner of Social Security for 10:00 on November 2.

Congressional Hearing

     The written materials submitted by witnesses at today's House Social Security Subcommittee are now available online. They're mostly predictable and uninteresting to me. I didn't have the time to watch but please post your summary if you did.

It Never Stops

     There's an op ed in the New York  Times pushing for increasing Social Security's full retirement age. I think the authors never encounter anyone working at a job requiring standing all day other than employees at Starbucks. The people who clean their offices, repair their cars, care for their elderly relatives and mow their yards are invisible to them. They're under the illusion that everyone is like them and works in an office, which is not true. They don't realize that most people don't make it to full retirement age now and the major reason isn't laziness, but illness. People live longer but bad knees, bad backs, diabetes and many other health conditions still reduce people's ability to work at any job as they age. To say they can just apply for disability benefits is a "let them eat cake" solution. Do they have any idea how brutal Social Security's disability programs are?

    Politically, any further raise in full retirement age isn't going to fly, now or later. You can't win on this. Give it up.

Cutting Off SSI Disability Benefits At Age 18 Leads To Adverse Life Outcomes

    From The Impact Of Losing Childhood Supplemental Security Income Benefits On Long-Term Education and Health Outcomes by Priyanka Anand and Hansoo Ko, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

Many youth with disabilities rely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) as an important source of income for their families, but they must go through a redetermination process at age 18 if they are to continue receiving those benefits into adulthood. Our project uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine the long-term impact of losing child SSI upon turning 18, due to the 1996 welfare reform, on education and health outcomes. We compare the long-term outcomes of those who turned 18 just after August 1996 with those who turned 18 just before, given that the reform increased the strictness of medical reviews for 18-year-old beneficiaries. Because the respondents are in their 30s and 40s in the later waves of the survey, we also examine the health outcomes of their children.

The paper found that:

• Those who were likely to lose SSI at age 18 have fewer years of education and are less likely to attend college than those who were less likely to lose their benefits.
• There is suggestive evidence of worse health outcomes for the children of those who were likely to lose their SSI benefits at age 18.

The policy implications of the findings are:

• Discontinuing benefits at age 18 has a negative impact on the human capital attainment of child SSI beneficiaries, which may explain their lower long-term earnings relative to other disadvantaged populations.
• The negative impacts of discontinuing child SSI benefits may continue into the next generation.
• Moderate amounts of cash transfers to children of vulnerable families may lead to lasting positive impacts. ...
  

    Wouldn't it be possible to do these age 18 redeterminations in a less harsh way, even without a legislative change? Give at least a little weight to the prior finding of disability? Where the claimant was approved based upon a child Listing and that child Listing is almost identical to the adult Listing, create a presumption that the disability hasn't ended? The current process seems to me to be designed to be as harsh as possible. Can't Social Security do better?

EM On Musculoskeletal Disorders

     The Social Security Administration has issued an Emergency Message titled Additional Guidance for Evaluating Evidence in Cases Involving the Musculoskeletal Disorders Listings. It's designed to convey the news of the Temporary Final Rule on "close proximity of time" published recently in the Federal Register but it also addresses the need for assistive devices, such as a cane or walker or motorized wheelchair.

Senators Seek Answers On SSI Overpayments

     From a press release:

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore.[Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Social Security], Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio [Chairman of the Finance Committee's Social Security Subcommittee], and Bob Casey, D-Pa., urged the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide additional information on the scope and magnitude of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries who had their benefits suspended and were assessed an overpayment due to receiving Economic Impact Payments (EIPs)[a pandemic program]. ...

Between April 2020 and July 2021, these payments were disregarded as countable resources for 12 months for purposes of SSI eligibility. In August 2021, SSA announced that  EIPs would not be counted toward eligibility and payment amount for SSI purposes indefinitely. However, SSA suspended benefits and assessed overpayments to individuals receiving SSI benefits because of the stimulus payments.

Senator Wyden previously raised this concern with SSA in two separate hearings in 2021, and the agency responded stating they had updated its policy guidance for SSA staff.  However, recent reporting has shown that SSI beneficiaries continue to receive overpayment notices because of the EIPs. 

To understand the scope and magnitude of beneficiaries affected, and the actions SSA has taken to resolve such suspensions and overpayments, the senators asked the SSA Acting Commissioner to provide the following information:

1. The number of individuals who had their benefits reduced or suspended because of the EIPs during the following periods: 

a. March 2020 to July 2021; 

b. August 2021 to December 2022; and 

c. January 2023 to September 2023.

2. Of those individuals identified in Question 1:

a. The number of individuals whose benefits were reinstated without an appeals hearing.

b. The number of individuals whose benefits were reinstated due to an appeals hearing.

c. The number of individuals whose appeals are pending.

d. The number of individuals who appeals were denied.

3. A list of the agency’s past and ongoing actions to address people who received overpayment notices resulting from EIPs?

4. The number of claimants who were denied SSI benefits because of the EIPs.

5. Whether SSA has required each beneficiary impacted to file an appeal.

Borderline Disorder And Social Security Disability

     From Course And Predictors Of Social Security Disability Insurance In Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder Over 24 years Of Prospective Follow-up by Kramer, U., Temes, C.M., Frankenburg, F.R. et al:

Methods:

A total of 290 inpatients with BPD [Borderline Personality Disorder] were interviewed at baseline and 12 consecutive follow-up waves, each separated by two years, after index hospitalization. Included were also 72 inpatients with other personality disorders. Surviving patients were reinterviewed. A series of interviews and self-report measures were used to assess psychosocial functioning and treatment history, axis I and II disorders, and childhood/adult adversity. 

Results:

Results show that rates of SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] utilization were relatively stable over 24 years of follow-up (on average, 47.2% of the patients with BPD were on SSDI). Patients with BPD were three times more likely to be on SSDI than patients with other PDs. Patients with BPD displayed flexibility in their usage of SSDI. By 24 years, 46% of patients remitted, out of which 85% experienced recurrence and 50% of the patients had a new onset over time. In multivariate analyses, four variables were found to predict SSDI status in patients with BPD over time. These variables were: age 26 or older, lower IQ, severity of non-sexual childhood abuse, and presence of PTSD. ...

    There is one thing about this study that make me wonder. Hospitalization is uncommon for Borderline Disorder itself yet this study tracked patients who had been hospitalized. That would suggest that these patients either had unusually bad cases of Borderline Disorder or had other psychiatric diagnoses in addition to Borderline Disorder. I will say that sometimes those with Borderline Disorder are hospitalized by mistake because the behaviors of the patients involved suggested some other disorder such as Bipolar Disorder. There's certainly the intensity of symptoms with Borderline Disorder, just not that much risk of suicide or homicide, which, in general, is what gets you hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder these days.

    The fact that patients with Borderline Disorder were much more likely to be on Social Security disability benefits than those with other personality disorders is not surprising. To begin with, Social Security approves almost no one based upon a personality disorder alone. However, Borderline is one of the worst personality disorders you can have. If anyone is going to be approved on a personality disorder, it's likely to be someone with Borderline Disorder. Also, those with other really severe personality, disorders such as Antisocial Personality Disorder, are likely to spend a lot of time in prison. That's not the case with Borderline Disorder.

    Clients with Borderline Disorder are difficult for me to deal with but it's not just their relationships with lawyers. People with Borderline Disorder can't maintain relationships with anyone, including employers. That's the problem. The fact that less than 50% of those with Borderline Disorder are on Social Security disability benefits is proof of how hard it is to be approved for Social Security disability benefits. Very few of those with a Borderline Disorder diagnosis work more than intermittently. That's just a fact. If you have a disorder that prevents you from working on a regular basis, shouldn't you be approved for Social Security disability benefits?

User Fee Up To $117 In 2024

     The user fee, which amounts to a tax, on attorneys who represent Social Security claimants will be $117 per case for 2024.

Social Security Subcommittee Schedules New Hearing

      The House Social Security Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on “One Million Claims and Growing: Improving Social Security’s Disability Adjudication Process” for October 26.