ERAP -- What Are We Doing?

     Social Security management has a strong lean in the direction of centralizing anything that can be centralized and some that can't. One of the things that they have centralized is the scheduling of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings. It's called ERAP -- Enhanced Representative Availability Process -- at least insofar as it applies to people like me who represent claimants. I cannot even imagine a sensible reason for ERAP. Let me set out some problems I have encountered with ERAP:

• It's now February. ERAP is demanding that I tell them when I've available for hearings in August! Do you know what your plans are for August? They have just started scheduling for June. I don't know why we need to schedule this far in advance anyway but why do I have to submit my availability well beyond what they need now.  How is this helping anyone. 
• I have been told verbally that if I fail to meet Social Security's deadline that I am considered available for the entire month even if I tell them well before scheduling actually begins for the month in question. Gotcha! Is there any rational reason for this?
• I have been informed that once I submit my availability that I cannot later change it to say that I am unavailable certain days even though Social Security hasn't started scheduling even for the month before the month we're talking about. Gotcha! Not only must I submit availability six months in advance, I'm not allowed to make changes even if the changes don't inconvenience Social Security in the slightest. Do your plans six months out never change?
  
• Despite providing dates that I'm available six months in advance, Social Security still schedules hearings on days I've told them I was unavailable and they still schedule two hearings at the same time. As best I can tell, they don't even consult the dates I've given them. The burden is on me to catch this and get it corrected. When this happens there is usually a significant delay in rescheduling a case.
  
• Attorney who have clients in two of Social Security's regions have impossible problems since those regions can't coordinate scheduling with each other. Somehow we're supposed to solve this problem for the agency.

     What are we doing here? This is an unworkable system for attorneys. My guess is that it may not be much better for ALJs.

    The old system, which involved hearing offices calling attorneys about each hearing was workable. With all the reschedulings because of errors, I don't know that ERAP actually saves time for the agency. The agency is supposed to be serving the public. ERAP is lousy public service.

NPRM On Use Of Payroll Data Provider Info

     From a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) that the Social Security Administration will publish in the Federal Register tomorrow:

... We are proposing these rules ... for implementing the access to and use of the information held by payroll data providers. ...

We use wage and employment information to decide who can receive OASDI [Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance] disability benefits and SSI payments. We also use it to determine SSI payment amounts. Receiving complete, accurate, and timely wage and employment information allows us to administer our programs efficiently and to avoid improper payments that can occur when we do not have such information. Reviews of post-entitlement cases show that substantial gainful activity (SGA)4 continues to be the leading cause of overpayments in the OASDI disability program. In fact, SGA-related overpayments in the OASDI program averaged approximately $500 million annually as of fiscal year 2022.5 Further, wage discrepancies, which reached an annual average of approximately $1.4 billion in improper payments as of fiscal year 2022, have been a leading cause of improper payments in the SSI program for more than a decade. ...

A Less Colorful Waterfall Chart With CDR Numbers

 

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The Waterfall Chart For 2023

 

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Another Super Bowl Poll

 

online polls

A Poll

 

online polls

Problems With Retirement Earnings Test

     From The Social Security Administration’s Enforcement of the Earnings Test, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

The earnings test is a provision of the Social Security Act that requires that SSA withhold payments from beneficiaries who are under full retirement age (FRA) if their earnings exceed a certain limit. ...

SSA did not accurately or timely pay beneficiaries subject to the earnings test. As a result, we estimate SSA:

• inaccurately calculated approximately 47,000 of the 294,000 earnings-test overpayments established in FY 2021, totaling more than $148 million;
• inaccurately paid approximately 9,000 beneficiaries approximately $29 million based on estimated earnings that were more or less than their actual earnings; and
• did not timely pay approximately 176,000 beneficiaries approximately $81 million in monthly benefit increases. ...

    And to think that the retirement earnings test used to apply to all retirees regardless of age.

Overdue

    From Joe Davidson at the Washington Post:

The Democratic chairman of a powerful Senate committee on Wednesday called on President Biden to fire the lead watchdog for the Social Security Administration, pointing to stalled investigations and plunging staff morale.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the White House, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said promises by Inspector General Gail Ennis to “establish a culture that welcomes debate, collaboration, and transparency … appear to have been hollow.”

“I urge you to remove her,” Wyden wrote. ...

Monthly OHO Report

 

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An Interesting Employee Benefit

     From a contracting notice posted by the Social Security Administration:

... The Contractor shall administer a reimbursement process for employees who choose to utilize SSA’s Pick Your Own Provider emergency backup dependent care program for temporary or short-term services for employees who are scheduled to work, and their regular care arrangements are disrupted. This will allow employees to continue working knowing that their dependents are being cared for in a safe environment. When employees use the Pick Your Own Provider program, they are required to locate their own provider and pay for all costs. The contractor will administer a process to reimburse employees a $100 flat fee for each day of emergency backup care provided.  Employees can utilize the Pick Your Own Provider program for a maximum of 5 days of emergency backup dependent care per contract period. ...

Headcount Inches Up

    The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has finally posted updated numbers showing the headcount of employees at each agency as of the second and third quarters on 2023. Note that these numbers do not tell the whole story. They don't account for part time employees nor for overtime. Overtime is a huge part of the story at Social Security. A Full Time Equivalent (FTE) report would cover that but we seldom see FTE reports.  Here are Social Security's numbers as of September with earlier headcount numbers for comparison:

• September, 2023 61,410
  
• June, 2023 60,726
  
• March, 2023  59,400
• December, 2022 58,916
  
• September, 2022 57,754
  
• June, 2022 58,332
  
• March, 2022 59,257
  
• December, 2021 60,422
  
• December 2020 61,816
  
• December 2019 61,969
  
• December 2018 62,946
  
• December 2017 62,777
• December 2016 63,364
• December 2015 65,518
• December 2014 65,430
• December 2013 61,957
• December 2012 64,538
• December 2010 70,270
• December 2009 67,486
• December 2008 63,733

Reaction To O'Malley's Decision On Telework

     Tom Temin at Federal News Network has a piece up on the new Commissioner's e-mail to staff decreasing telework for some employees. He is kind enough to refer to this blog by name as "reliable." He quotes several comments made to the post.

    Erich Wagner at Government Executive has a longer piece on the e-mail, particularly to the reaction of Rich Couture, chief negotiator for the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents most Social Security employees. Couture expressed relief at what O'Malley had done. The article says that only 4,000 bargaining unit employees would be affected by the announcement. Here's a quote from Couture:

AFGE is pleased to see [O’Malley] is maintaining telework at current levels, and it’s clear that the commissioner recognizes the importance of telework for workers and their work-life balance, as well as its importance for retention and recruitment efforts,” Couture said. “We’re still in a public service crisis fueled by understaffing and attrition, and one way to maintain staffing levels is by offering telework. A commitment to continuing current telework levels for those employees is critical to keeping the agency’s ability to serve the public intact by keeping our employees working here.

     After almost 100 comments, I cut off commenting on the original post since the comments had become so repetitive but, still, I don't think anyone mentioned something about O'Malley's e-mail that caught my eye. Before signing his name to the e-mail, the Commissioner included the phrase "Yours in solidarity." That word, "solidarity," has long been associated with labor unions.

Trying To Undermine Social Security From The Inside

     From Alex Lawson, writing for Common Dreams:

Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans have a problem. They hate Social Security, because it is popular, effective, and doesn’t make any money for their billionaire donors. But their voters love Social Security. Ninety-four percent of Republicans oppose benefit cuts.

McConnell understands the political dangers of being openly hostile to Social Security. So instead, he is plotting to sabotage it from within. The latest instrument of that sabotage is Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the billionaire-funded American Enterprise Institute. Biggs is McConnell’s pick to serve on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) ...

Biggs served as an associate commissioner of Social Security under former President George W. Bush and was instrumental in Bush’s push to privatize Social Security. ...

Biggs supports raising the retirement age, and has testified before Congress that people should work longer. ...

Biggs also wants to turn Social Security from an earned benefit into a poverty-level flat benefit. That means huge cuts for middle class workers who’ve been paying into the program their entire lives. It would destroy Social Security’s political popularity by turning it into a welfare program—a sitting duck for Republicans to make even larger cuts. ...

     Biggs came under serious criticism at the hearing on his nomination.

    The good thing about this nomination is that the SSAB isn't much of a platform from which to launch attacks on Social Security. For better or worse, it's pretty obscure. Also, while Republicans like to talk about privatizing Social Security, raising the retirement age or turning it into something they can deride as "welfare," they have virtually no interest in actually doing anything along these lines.

A Message From The New Commissioner To Agency Employees On Telework

From: ^Commissioner Broadcast <Commissioner.Broadcast@ssa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2024 2:31 PM
Subject: Increasing Our Onsite Presence

A Message to All SSA Employees

Subject:  Increasing Our Onsite Presence 

Every morning for the last 32 days, I’ve been going to work at headquarters or catching pre-dawn flights to Social Security Regions across our country. 

I do this to hear from — and learn from — as many of you as possible, as soon as possible, about what’s really going on.

And while the best ideas for improving our operations always come from those on the frontlines, some decisions must ultimately fall to the Commissioner.

So, let’s acknowledge this truth:

The Covid pandemic and shutdown changed the nature of work. There is no private sector company or public agency in the world which has since found the perfect balance between onsite presence and telework.

But because I understand any new adjustments to our telework policies will affect you personally, I wanted to give you as much advance notice as possible so you can make adjustments in your own balance between work and life.

After much listening and deep consideration of currently available evidence, I have decided that the following policies will be effective across the Social Security Administration beginning April 7, 2024.

Here’s WHAT’S NOT changing:

• Field Offices will remain open to the public five days a week.
• Employees in field offices, teleservice centers, and program service centers (including the Office of Central Operations) will continue their current balance of onsite presence and telework. 
• Employees in hearing offices, hearing centers, and case assistance centers will continue their current balance of onsite presence and telework. ALJ hearings will continue to be held five days a week by teleconference, videoconference, or in-person, at the option of claimants and their representatives.
• Employees in the Office of Appellate Operations and the Office of Quality Review will continue their current balance of onsite days and telework.
• Employees with nonportable workloads and those ineligible for telework will continue their onsite presence.

Here’s WHAT IS changing:

• In our headquarters and regional offices, we will be moving to “core collaboration days.”  We do this in order to better serve the American people, to better support our new trainees, and to better support and train our frontline workers in their mission.

Therefore:

• I will be present onsite at the Baltimore Headquarters (or in regional or area offices) five days a week.
• The Commissioner’s Office will be onsite four days a week with one day of telework optional.
• Because servant leaders make themselves present and accountable to the people they lead, Deputy Commissioners, employees in headquarters components, regional offices, and area director offices will increase their onsite presence to three days per week with two days of telework optional.
• Employees in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) will increase their onsite presence to two days per week — with greater presence for top level executives at the discretion of the CIO.

Our return to a greater onsite presence not only gives us more opportunity for collaboration, engagement, and innovation, but it also brings us into alignment with other federal agencies across government, who have been increasing their own onsite presence.

Conclusion:

In the coming days, you will receive more information from your managers about logistics like signing up for a transit subsidy, updating your parking badge, making your desk arrangements, and more.  Facilities will also be working to expand cafeteria and onsite food options on core collaboration days.

As we improve the quality of our data to measure our effectiveness across the complex components of the Agency, we will continue to adjust in order to reach the best possible balance within individual units. These decisions will honor both the letter and the spirit of our Union agreements. And these decisions will be based on the mission of SSA using the best available evidence, not fear.

Our mission is the security of the men, women, and children of our Nation.

Thank you for your dedication, and I look forward to seeing you in-person if I haven’t already.

Yours in solidarity,

Martin O’Malley

Commissioner

How Crazy Is The Right Wing In America?

     People are starting to ask what will happen to Social Security benefits if Texas secedes.

Improvement In Mail Processing But Some Problems Persist

    From Follow-up: The Social Security Administration’s Implementation of Mail Procedures, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (footnotes omitted):

...  Mail processing at SSA offices is primarily a manual workload. This requires that managers and employees open each mail item, scan the program-related documents into a workload management system, and assign to staff. SSA’s regional offices are responsible for monitoring the status of mail handling in their region ...

In September 2021, SSA issued a Mail Handling BPD that focused on 10 key issues significant to mail processing. ...

We judgmentally selected and visited 87 SSA offices throughout the continental United States. At each office, we interviewed management and observed the mail handling process. ...

SSA offices had improved mail processing since our July 2021 review. SSA offices we visited generally complied with the requirements in the Agency’s Mail Handling BPD.While most offices were meeting the requirements of 6 of the 10 BPD key issues, some offices did not always meet the requirements ...

Of the 87 offices visited, the following offices complied with the timeliness metrics established:

• 86 (98.9 percent) received mail directly from mail carriers,

• 84  (96.6 percent) opened mail within 1 business day of receipt,

• 81 (93.1 percent) processed all Social Security number applications within 5 business days of receipt, and

• 79 (90.8 percent) returned all original primary evidence documents to customers within 3 business days  of receipt and kept a log of the returned documents.  ...

• 73 (83.9 percent) processed their undeliverable returned mail within 5 business days of receipt, as required. However, the remaining 14 offices had undeliverable returned mail over 30-days-old. Moreover, three of these offices had mail dated back to January 2022, and one with mail dated back to September 2019. ... 
  

• 67 (77 percent) complied with the requirements for remittances and returned unendorsed Treasury checks. Specifically, the offices processed to completion all remittances and returned unendorsed Treasury checks within 1 business day of receipt, 16 recorded receipt in the office’s remittance log, and secured 17 checks that could not be processed to completion the same day. The remaining 20 offices had the following issues:
  

• 17 did not process remittances within the required timeframe. Of these, 15 offices had checks that remained unprocessed 3 to 31 days after the 1-business-day requirement. Additionally, two offices had unprocessed checks that dated back to July 2020 and November 2021. The banks could return these checks as non-negotiable since they were not endorsed within 6 months, as required by banks.,
  

• 5 did not use remittance logs, as required. For example, 1 office had 77 unprocessed checks that were unsecured and accessible to office staff. In fact, 1 office had 58 checks dating back to October 2022 with no record they existed. The new remittance manager was unaware these unprocessed checks were locked in a safe because they were not recorded in the office’s remittance log.
  

• 2 did not properly secure the unprocessed checks. For example, 1 office had 77 unprocessed checks that were unsecured and accessible to office staff.

• 36 (41.4 percent) scanned and profiled mail within 5 business days of receipt, as required. The remaining 51 offices, on average, scanned and profiled mail within 10 business days of receipt. ...

New Allegations Against Social Security Inspector General

     From Federal News Network (emphasis added):

House Democrats are reigniting an investigation into Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s use of taxpayer dollars to settle claims of retaliation by his former top deputy.

And lawmakers are also probing whether the Social Security Administration’s inspector general inappropriately referred Cuffari to her former law firm in connection with the retaliation investigation. A spokeswoman for the SSA IG called the assertions “blatantly inaccurate.” ...

DHS OIG spent $1.4 million on a 2020 contract with law firm WilmerHale to conduct an investigation into allegations of misconduct by Costello and other former employees. The investigation ultimately did not substantiate any allegations of illegal misconduct.

[Jamie] Raskin [House Oversight and and Accountability Ranking Member] is now investigating the role SSA Inspector General Gail Ennis may have played in the DHS OIG’s decision to contract with WilmerHale. Ennis was a partner at WilmerHale before becoming SSA IG in January 2019.

In deposition before the Merit Systems Protection Board, Cuffari said he asked Ennis to have her office conduct the investigation. Ennis declined to take it on due to the high workload, Cuffari said.

Raskin is probing whether she had a role in advising Cuffari to select WilmerHale for the investigation.

“If true, this would appear to violate your ethics agreement, which shows that you were a partner at WilmerHale and continue to have an ongoing financial stake in the firm’s profitability,” Raskin wrote in a letter to Ennis today. “As a result, your referral to your former employer WilmerHale potentially represents a financial conflict of interest.”

 A spokeswoman for the SSA OIG told Federal News Network that “Inspector General Ennis looks forward to the opportunity to respond to Ranking Member Raskin to correct the blatantly inaccurate assertions made in the letter.” ...

SSAB Nominations Advance

     The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for January 31 on four nominations, including these three to the Social Security Advisory Board:

• Andrew G. Biggs, of Oregon
• Kathryn Rose Lang, of Maryland
• Sharon Beth Lewis, of Oregon

Report On AI At Social Security

     Here's a piece by four researchers touting Social Security's progress in Artificial Intelligence. It's somewhat odd. Apparently, it hasn't been published unless you consider releasing it online as publication. It has no date on it. I don't see any source cited from after 2021 so this may be a few years old. I may not the one who should say this but I'm not sure if what they're calling "Artificial Intelligence" would generally be called "Artificial Intelligence" today.

A Tale Of Two Trust Funds

     Social Security has released information showing how its trust funds have done through the end of 2023. Here are summaries for the Old Age and Survivors Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust fund for the last five years. You'll notice that they're heading in opposite directions. I expect that money will eventually be diverted from the Disability Insurance Trust Fund to the Old Age and Survivor's Trust Fund, not that it will be enough to make much difference.

Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
(Amounts in millions)

Calendar year	Total income	Total outgo	Net increase in asset reserves	Asset reserves at end of calendar year
2019	$917,873	$911,423	$6,450	$2,804,322
2020	968,348	960,954	7,394	2,811,716
2021	942,856	1,001,936	-59,080	2,752,636
2022	1,056,718	1,097,455	-40,737	2,711,899
2023	1,166,885	1,237,294	-70,409	2,641,490

Disability Insurance
(Amounts in millions)

Calendar year	Total income	Total outgo	Net increase in asset reserves	Asset reserves at end of calendar year
2019	$143,901	$147,876	$-3,974	$93,083
2020	149,748	146,260	3,488	96,570
2021	145,470	142,646	2,824	99,394
2022	165,063	146,470	18,594	117,988
2023	183,801	154,815	28,985	146,973