Merry Christmas

 

Social Security Says Don't Rely On SkillTRAN For Numbers Of Jobs

     From Emergency Message EM-21065 REV, Guidelines for Using Occupational Information in Electronic Tools issued yesterday (emphasis added):

In making disability determinations, SSA relies primarily on the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) (including its companion publication, the Selected Characteristics of Occupations (SCO)) for information about the requirements of work in the national economy. The SSA Digital Library hosts three searchable databases developed by SkillTRAN for the DOT. Adjudicators may use these tools to help make an assessment at step four (see 20 CFR 404.1560(b)(2) and 416.960(b)(2)) or step five (see 20 CFR 404.1566(d), 404.1568(d)(2), 416.966(d), and 416.968(d)(2)) of the sequential evaluation process. ...

 [The three searchable databases] contain DOT and SCO occupational information developed by the United States Department of Labor (DOL). This information is useful, but it does not replace SSA policy or adjudicative judgment and decision-making. While the DOT and SCO are acceptable sources of occupational information for adjudicating disability claims, they also contain (1) information that must not be used in disability adjudication because our rules and subregulatory guidance do not permit it and (2) information of which we do not take administrative notice. ...

Federal agencies now publish labor market information by the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code. Those with vocational expertise use various approaches to arrive at informed estimates of numbers of jobs that exist within a DOT occupation. Results may differ given the method used for the estimate. We have not reviewed and do not specifically endorse the SkillTRAN proprietary algorithm. ...

    To explain, in responding to hypothetical questions, vocational experts testifying at hearings on Social Security disability claims give lists of jobs that a hypothetical claimant could perform. They also testify to the numbers of such jobs in the economy. The numbers of jobs figures come from a propriety program, SkillTRAN. I think that everyone who has looked at this issue, including Administrative Law Judges, knows that those SkillTRAN numbers are bull. Social Security is finally acknowledging this. 

    Will this affect cases where these numbers have already been cited in decisions? We'll see.                                                                            

OHO Stats

     Just released by Social Security:

Click on image to view full size

 

Merry Christmas

 

AI Out At Social Security, For Now

     From Fedscoop:

The Social Security Administration has banned the use of generative artificial intelligence-based tools on agency devices, FedScoop has confirmed. The block, which is temporary, is meant to ensure the security of data and systems.

The agency’s block of these third-party tools was disclosed earlier this month in a management advisory report for this fiscal year, published by the SSA’s inspector general office. The report noted that the decision was made to protect personally identifiable information, along with health, sensitive and other non-public information, that risked being shared through the use of the technology. 

The Social Security Administration said the block was a precautionary measure and that the agency has yet to use generative AI. When asked if the ban applies to agency laptops and mobile devices, a spokesperson said the block “is designed to be agency-wide.”  ...

Merry Christmas

 

NY Times Article On Service Problems At SSA

      The New York Times has a nice piece on the terrible service problems at the Social Security Administration. There’s nothing in it that would come as news to regular readers of this blog but it’s good to see any publicity given to the situation.

     There’s also a piece on Yahoo Finance dealing with the Commissioner nomination and service at S.S.A.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas

 

Look familiar?

OIG Report To Congress

     This is from the Semiannual Report to Congress prepared by Social Security's Office of Inspector General. Note that 143,816 total allegations of fraud were received but there were only 228 indictments or criminal informations issued. That's a pretty low ratio. Note also the vast number of imposter scam allegations received. This is where the real fraud problem is at Social Security. (I received a call earlier this week from a former client who was the recent victim of imposter fraud. How long will it take before his benefits are restored?)

Click on image to view full size

    Also, why is Gail Ennis still the Inspector General?

Lauren Boebert Is An Ass -- But You Already Knew That

     From The Hill:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) argued with a Social Security official over claims of backlogs in a Wednesday hearing about post-pandemic teleworking policies.

Boebert asked Oren “Hank” McKnelly, an executive counselor for the Social Security Administration, if the administration monitored its employees’ output and hours if workers are logging on from home.

 McKnelly assured Boebert social security employees are “subjected to the same performance management processes” whether they are teleworking or working from the office. ...

“We have systems in place that our managers use to schedule, assign and track workloads,” McKnelly said, adding that if employees work virtually, they must be responsive to various forms of communication.

Boebert continued, asking the official why the backlog of social security applicants has increased from 41,000 to 107,000.

“We’ve been historically underfunded for a number of years now,” McKnelly fired back, to which the congresswoman disagreed.

McKnelly said in the past 10 years, the administration has seen an increase of more than 8 million beneficiaries and experienced the lowest staffing levels ever at the end of fiscal 2022.

“That’s a math problem,” he said. “If you have those workloads increasing and you don’t have the staff to take care of those workloads, you’re going to have the backlogs that you’re talking about, representative.” ...

O'Malley Nomination Reported Out Of Committee

     From the New Hampshire Bulletin:

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley moved one step closer Tuesday to becoming the next Social Security commissioner, a role that would become increasingly difficult as the program inches closer to insolvency during the next decade.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted, 17-10, to send O’Malley’s nomination to the floor, though it’s not clear how soon the entire chamber will vote on confirmation. All the panel’s Democrats and Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted to advance his nomination. ...

Annual Statistical Supplement Issued

     The Social Security Administration has issued its 2023 Annual Statistical Supplement, a huge compendium of all the statistical information you could ask for concerning Social Security programs. Here's one excerpt (footnotes omitted):

Number of SSA full-time staff and work years, fiscal years 1995–2023 

Year	Full-time permanent staff a	Total work years b
1995	62,504	67,063
1996	62,133	66,726
1997	61,224	69,378
1998	59,943	67,210
1999	59,752	66,459
2000	60,434	65,521
2001	61,490	65,562
2002	61,914	65,742
2003	63,569	65,343
2004	63,186	c 66,154
2005	63,696	d 68,026
2006	61,692	66,878
2007	60,206	63,939
2008	61,920	64,358
2009	65,203	67,170
2010	67,548	70,758
2011	64,744	69,936
2012	62,943	67,208
2013	59,823	64,601
2014	62,956	64,006
2015	63,466	67,004
2016	62,685	65,798
2017	61,250	63,957
2018	61,011	64,095
2019	60,450	64,576
2020	60,364	62,291
2021	58,952	61,830
2022	56,907	60,570
2023	60,026	61,771

 

The Attacks On Social Security Never Stop

     Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times has quite the takedown of a ridiculous piece on Slate by Eric Boehm and Celeste Headlee titled “Social Security Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore.” Hiltzik describes the Slate piece as full of "misconceptions, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and flat-out lies about" Social Security.

Social Security Bulletin Released

     The Social Security Administration has posted the most recent issue of the Social Security Bulletin, its scholarly publication, which is now in its 83rd year. Here are summaries of two articles from this issue of the Bulletin:

Mixed-Methods Study to Understand Public Use of Social Security's Online Platform by Lila Rabinovich and Francisco Perez-Arce

In this article, the authors use quantitative analysis of survey data and qualitative analysis of personal interviews to examine public awareness and use of online my Social Security accounts. The accounts are the Social Security Administration's platform for providing both general and personalized retirement-preparation information, including benefit estimators, along with other agency services. The authors explore internet literacy and demographic factors that may affect platform access and use. They also review the experiences and reactions reported by individual platform users.

The Alignment Between Self-Reported and Administrative Measures of Disability Program Application and Benefit Receipt in the Health and Retirement Studyby Jody Schimmel Hyde and Amal Harrati

This study examines the differences between self-reported data and administrative records on Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) application and benefit receipt using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to the Social Security Administration's Form 831 records and Disability Analysis File. The authors find that aggregate survey reports of DI and SSI application and benefit receipt are lower than administrative records indicate and that individual-level misreporting is common, although both sources indicate similar incidence patterns.

Field Offices Closed Today

      I didn’t see anything about it until Wednesday evening but Social Security field offices are closed today. Are employees still working, that is, the ones who didn’t take leave?

Celebrate Thanksgiving In Your Own Way

 

Here's the recipe!

It Gets Cold In Pittsburgh

     From WESA (emphasis added):

As winter homeless shelters fill around Pittsburgh, City Council may look to zoning changes to allow for legally authorized homeless encampments. A bill set to be introduced Monday would create a new zoning use called a "temporary managed community" — areas that could host homeless encampments, with support staff, heat and food.

“We know [shelters are] full right now. … it’s just heartbreaking,” said the bill's sponsor, Councilor Deb Gross. “We want to make sure that we're not the obstacle for trying to achieve a temporary managed community.” ...

But overall, Gross said, the city desperately needs to create more affordable and transitional housing options. “People cannot live in the city of Pittsburgh on a disability check,” she said. “You cannot live indoors anywhere if you are on some of the lower levels of Social Security income.” ...

    It's obvious in my law practice that inadequate SSI benefits and delayed Social Security disability benefits cause a lot of homelessness.

House Social Security Subcommittee Field Hearing

     With no advance notice that I'm aware of the House Social Security Subcommittee held a "field hearing" yesterday in Baton Rouge on the effects of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which reduce Social Security benefits due to the receipt of pensions from work not covered by the FICA tax. Apparently, Louisiana doesn't cover state and local workers under Social Security so this comes up a lot in that state. It's obvious from the opening statements that the Republican leadership of the Subcommittee think these provisions are unfair, which they may well be.

    The merits of the WEP and GPO can be argued but isn't there more than a little hypocrisy in the Republican Party's endless calls to "save Social Security" by increasing the retirement age and subjecting Social Security benefits to means testing at the same time they're acting as if they want to increase Social Security benefits? Isn't it also a sign that they're never going to vote to increase the retirement age or means test Social Security? Those plans will always be highly unpopular.