A $500,000 Underpayment?

    From Newsweek:

A Kentucky woman said she is owed more than $500,000 after the Social Security Administration began underpaying her in the 1990s.

Wyonia Butler, 65, worked as a nurse in the 1990s, but at the young age of 32, she was injured on the job and wound up unable to work. ...

While Butler said she initially received workers' compensation, the payments ceased after just seven months. ...

In June of 1997, Butler received a letter saying she would get only 80 percent of her earnings due to the workers' compensation, despite the payments having stopped. That totaled $1,620 taken out of her benefits, which has easily surpassed $500,000 in lost money today.

While Butler immediately went to correct the error, confirming that she did not receive any workers' compensation anymore, the past 27 years have left her without answers and a heavy hit to her financial situation. ...

She initially received a letter saying they needed to secure more information and she needed to complete a few forms. She mailed them out and followed up but was told the forms were in backlog. The SSA representatives she spoke to said they weren't sure why her account still said she receives workers' compensation. ...

"I did as I was asked," Butler said. "However, to this date, it's never been done or addressed. They are still withholding $1,625 out of my check every month. I called, of course, and was told each time to be patient, it's being worked up."

After five years of failing to get answers, Butler said she stopped. It was affecting her health, but 27 years later, she still is unsure where a half-million dollars is and why it's been withheld from her. ...

In the meantime, Butler said she has been deprived of at least $500,000 in payments and lost her farm. ...

"I should have continued every day until I got an answer," Butler said. "I should have called more. Due to health reasons, I had to stop. I did call last year and this year. The line just rings and rings."

She received a denial of reconsideration after five months despite having immediately corrected the Social Security error. ...

    What happened here? I think the most likely explanation is that Ms. Butler was receiving her full, unreduced benefits. She thought her payment was reduced by the workers compensation offset but she was just confused about how much she was owed each month. She was certainly confused about what that 80% that she heard something about meant. It's complicated but while 80% is part of the workers compensation offset, it doesn't mean that there's an 80% reduction. The actual reduction could be more or less than that. Even though Ms. Butler seems confused -- as well she should be since this is all so complicated -- there is the real possibility that she has been underpaid all these years. Social Security has a hard time administering the complex workers compensation offset. I don't think that Social Security would deny that they make a lot of workers compensation offset mistakes but 27 years of mistakes is at the extreme end of what would be imaginable.

    If I were representing her, I'd like to see that reconsideration determination she received and I'd like to know what she did after receiving it. I'd like to see any other paperwork she has. Was there a settlement of her workers compensation case with a lump sum benefit payment? Was this paid by an annuity? Did her benefit payments change when she turned 62? If it did, that would suggest that the agency was still applying the workers compensation offset until then. I'm not going to explain why age 62 matters other than to say that I'm talking about the RIB-DIB election. If you don't know what the RIB-DIB election is, you don't know enough to be commenting on any of this.

No Attorney Fee Numbers Released In A Year

     I used to post newly released numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants. Something like a year ago I posted that the agency hadn't released any new numbers in months. In an apparent response, Social Security finally updated the numbers on their website. However, Social Security hasn't updated its numbers since then. No new numbers on fee payments have been posted since February 2023.

    There really is interest in these numbers. I'm sure the agency hasn't stopped collecting the data. It may well be posted on Social Security's intranet. Please release the data to the public.

Monthly OHO Report

 

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Why Does Social Security Keep Relying Upon Ancient Occupational Data?

    Andrew Van Dam at the Washington Post has written a "Department of Data" piece on the Social Security Administration's continuing reliance upon incredibly old data in the adjudication of disability claims. He asks whether the Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics could be the answer. Van Dam gives examples from the ORS but concentrates only upon the heaviest and lightest jobs in the economy and the ones that require the most and least training. That's fine but Social Security needs to concentrate upon those jobs that have both low physical AND mental demands. That's where the action is at Social Security.

The Effects Of Incarceration On Disability Benefits

     From The Impact of Past Incarceration on Later-Life DI and SSI Receipt by Gary V. Engelhardt:

• Past incarceration reduces the career years of employment, in general, and the likelihood of meeting the DI [Disability Insurance] duration test, in particular, reducing eligibility for DI. 
• Given the likely reduction in eligibility, however, past incarceration leads to a 30-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of applying for DI or SSI benefits, with an 18-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of benefit receipt. 
• Past incarceration raises by about 20 percentage points the likelihood the individual is in poverty as measured by the federal poverty threshold. 

 The policy implications of the findings are:

• At the aggregate level, DI rolls are about 300,000 higher for 50-61-year-old men because of past incarceration; SSI rolls are about 50,000 higher. 
• Incarceration has resulted in about 375,000 additional men between 50 and 61 years of age being under the federal poverty threshold in the 2010-2016 period.  ...

    What I've seen over the years is that imprisonment is bad for your health. Unhealthy food, incredibly stressful living conditions and poor medical treatment are a big part of it but probably not all. Certainly, many convicted felons arrive in prison already suffering from significant health problems, both physical and mental.

Appropriations Bill Covering SSA Delayed Until At Least March 22

     Since the beginning of the federal Fiscal Year (FY) on October 1, 2023 the Social Security Administration has been operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that allows the agency to spend money at the rate they spent it in the prior FY. This is because Congress, or to be more accurate, the House of Representatives, or to be more accurate still, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives can't agree on what they want in several FY 2024 appropriation bills, including the Labor-HHS bill that includes Social Security's administrative budget. Congress is now kicking the can down the road with a new CR on the Labor-HHS bill that goes to March 22. There's a solemn promise from Congressional leaders, including Republican leaders, that they'll get it done by March 22 but don't count on that holding. It's impossible to overestimate the dysfunction within the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. A sizable number of them would never vote yes on any Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Even if they got everything they wanted, they'd still vote "no" since they'd believe they didn't ask for enough!

EM On Overpayments During Covid

     From Emergency Message EM-24005:

... On January 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement agreement in Campos v. Kijakazi, No. 21-cv-05143. The case involved Title XVI overpayments incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 through April 2023.

C. FO [Field Office] instructions

Effective immediately, when making a fault determination on a waiver request for an overpayment incurred in any month since March 2020, technicians must consider any circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that an overpaid individual alleges prevented the individual from reporting changes. When COVID-19 circumstances are alleged, technicians must also document the individual’s allegations of COVID-19 circumstances that prevented the individual from reporting changes in the file. ...

Examples of circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that may have prevented an individual from complying with Title II or Title XVI reporting requirements include, but are not limited to, the following scenarios:

The overpaid individual:

• attempted to contact us but was unable to visit a FO, mail us information, reach us by phone, or get transportation because of the COVID-19 pandemic;
• was unable to contact us because of government-imposed COVID-19 travel restrictions;
• was unable to contact us because of child-care or family-care changes due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders or school-at-home requirements;
•  was unable to contact us because of the overpaid individual’s COVID-19 illness or related serious illness; 
•  was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s representative payee died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or serious illness related to COVID-19; or
•  was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s immediate family member died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or related serious illness.

NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. ...

Equite Action Plan Report

     The Social Security Administration has recently issued its Equity Action Plan: 2023 Update. It sounds like they're about a year behind in getting this out. It's full of vague, largely unmeasurable goals. Look at it yourself but what I've pulled  out below is all the content that I can find that seems vaguely interesting to me, at least:

• ... In FY 2023, to restore SSI applications closer to pre-pandemic levels, we launched a new SSI “Basic Needs” campaign in support of our FYs 2022-2023 Agency Priority Goal (APG) to increase SSI applications nationwide by 15 percent and increase applications from underserved communities by 25 percent, 1,758,656 and 127,749 applications, respectively. We have seen an increase in the overall number of SSI applications, nationally and in underserved communities. Since the campaign launched:

a. Our digital marketing tactics generated 1.81 million referrals from our SSI website to the online SSI Protective Filing tool, yielding 345,000 SSI applications through September 3, 2023. The tool allows individuals and third-party helpers to establish a protective filing10 online and request an appointment to file for benefits.

b. Our marketing generated more than 1.9 billion impressions across all tactics and over 2.7 million website visits.

c. Through September 29, 2023, we exceeded our APG target for SSI applications in underserved communities relative to the 2021 baseline by receiving nearly 135,000 applications. ...


• In May 2023, we established the Office of Transformation (OT), which includes our Customer Experience (CX) team. The OT’s mission is to facilitate the most critical business enhancements that serve the public and support our frontline employees. ...
• As of August 23, 2023, there were about 220,000 pending [SSI] underpayments, of which more than 140,000 underpayments (with corresponding alerts) have been pending for a year or more or are priority cases. ...
  

    I can be critical of the vagueness of the report but in an organization as large as the Social Security Administration a 1% improvement in service which might seem trivial to me could still improve the lives of a not insignificant number of people. We'd all love to see transformative changes but with current levels of funding all that's possible are the tiniest baby steps.

News?

     When you look online now for news about Social Security, you mostly come across clickbait and "listicles" like those shown below. These pieces have little or no value to people who work in the field but they're indicative of what the public reads:

• Social Security update: Third round of February payments worth $4,873 goes out in five days
• 3 Things To Know About Social Security Payments If You’ve Ever Been on a Payroll
• Social Security Benefits for Spouses: 4 Things Retired Couples Need to Know
• Social Security update: March direct payment worth $943 goes out in seven days
• Social Security Recipients: Will You Get a March Check if the Government Shuts Down? 
• Goodbye to the $1,900 Social Security check: retirees will earn less money as of this date

New SSI Regs In The Pipeline

     The description of a packet of proposed regulations that the Social Security Administration has asked the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to approve for publication in the Federal Register:

We propose expanding the rental subsidy exception beyond the 7 states to which it already applies so that it applies nationwide. Accordingly, our nationwide policy would be that a business arrangement exists when the amount of monthly rent required to be paid equals or exceeds the presumed maximum value or the current market value, whichever is less. We expect that the proposed change would improve service delivery by making our policy uniform throughout the country and reducing administrative burdens for individuals seeking access to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

Final Rules Approved To Omit Food From SSI Support And Maintenance Calculations

    The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has approved publication of final rules to omit food from SSI support and maintenance calculations. Expect to see it in the Federal Register in the near future.

A Poll

 

online polls

A Sunday Medley

     Social Security news has been scarce. Below are some links to recent media articles. I wouldn’t normally post them but you may find one of interest:

• ‘I cannot understand how they can do this to people’: Social Security admits to overpaying a North Texas widow by $41K — and now demands she pay the money back. How did this happen?
• Opinion: Hey, Donald Trump, where’s your plan to save Social Security?
• Divorced? Here's How to Tell If You Qualify for Spousal Social Security Benefits
• Security Administration sends new checks to retirees born between the 11 – 20
• Those Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Social Security Add Up Quickly
• Divorced? Here's How to Tell If You Qualify for Spousal Social Security Benefits

Wyden Praises O'Malley

     The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has saluted the new Commissioner of Social Security for going forward with proposed rules to allow use of electronic wage reporting to reduce overpayments.

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