Some Help On SSI Payment Backlogs

    From Emergency Message EM-24009:

... Since May of 1992, a prepayment review is required for any SSI case (initial or post eligibility), if an underpayment (UP) of $5,000 or more is due through the month prior to the current computation month (CCM) as per SI 02101.025 - Basic Requirements of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Underpayment (UP) Review (ssa.gov). Effective 03/16/2024, the amount of an SSI underpayment that requires a prepayment review will increase from $5,000 to $15,000. ...

    This should help reduce the SSI workloads a bit. The SSI effectuation backlogs are a major problem.

    I wonder whether something like this is planned for the Title II payment centers. Certainly the larger payments are a source of major delay. If you've been a high wage earner you could be looking at many months of delay before you're paid your back benefits. Would they announce that sort of change? Emergency messages generally don't concern truly emergent matters. They concern matters the agency believes are important -- that they want the public to be aware of. The agency isn't all that consistent in what it announces via EMs.

A Theory

     I've been thinking about that post yesterday concerning a man who visited a Social Security field office to obtain a replacement Social Security card. He was given a sheet containing a telephone number he could call to get the card replaced. He called the number and found that it wasn't Social Security on the other end but a scammer. The number on the sheet was one digit different from the real number he should have called.

    My initial thought was that someone at the Social Security field office must have been in cahoots with the scammers but one fact kept drawing my attention -- the number the man was given to call was only one digit different from the real number. If you had someone on the inside who was funneling calls to you, why would you go to the trouble of obtaining a phone number so similar to the real one?

    Let me posit a theory for what happened. Nobody at Social Security was in cahoots with the scammers. The number on the sheet was a simple typo. What had happened was that scammers had obtained as many telephone numbers as they could that were one digit different from the real number. Probably they did this for many offices. They could then expect a steady stream of misdials from people who thought they were talking with a Social Security office. By chance, the sheet handed out by Social Security funneled more calls to them but it wasn't part of their scheme. Actually, the typo may end up exposing their scheme.

    That's my theory. Have you got a better one?

What Happened Here?

      From The Intercept:

“We need to let you know you have been selected for $100 in rewards.”

It was a cheery automated message, not what I expected when I called the number for the Social Security Administration’s primary office in Manhattan. The message went on: “Simply press 1 now to be connected to a live agent and claim your gift today.”

I double-checked the number, which a Social Security employee had just given me at the agency’s local office in Harlem in late February. I needed to replace a lost card, which was a service only offered at certain locations, the agent told me. He slid me a flyer and circled the contact information for the office in the Financial District in Manhattan.

“You can call this number to try making an appointment,” the agent told me.

Still sitting in the lobby of the Harlem building, I dialed the number a couple more times, and each time reached a different grifter: I was eligible for another $100 gift card to Walmart, then help getting “free insurance.” I just had to hand over my name and address, to “confirm you’re eligible,” one scammer said. …

Still sitting in the lobby of the Harlem building, I dialed the number a couple more times, and each time reached a different grifter: I was eligible for another $100 gift card to Walmart, then help getting “free insurance.” I just had to hand over my name and address, to “confirm you’re eligible,” one scammer said. … 

Reached for this story, Social Security employees at the Harlem office did not answer detailed questions about how this version of the flyer came into existence. “We were made aware” of the scam number on the flyer, one ticket agent said, “and that’s why we stopped giving those out. … 

On closer inspection, the scam phone number was off by a single digit from the real direct line to the Manhattan Social Security office, and the phone numbers for other offices were legitimate….

SSA Employee Charged With Embezzling $1.8 Million

     From a press release:

On March 6, 2024, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned a 17-count indictment charging Myrna Faria, a.k.a. Myrna Oliveras-Santiago, with theft of government funds ...

According to court documents, Faria was employed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) from approximately 1991 through 2019 as a “Social Insurance Specialist” and “Claims Specialist” working in the Workload Support Unit in San Juan, Puerto Rico. From March 2012 through March 2024, Faria embezzled and stole SSA funds, namely Retirement Insurance Benefits, Survivors Insurance Benefits and Auxiliary Benefit payments, to which she knew she was not entitled. In total, Faria stole approximately $1,812,455.10. ...

Faria utilized her position within SSA to submit false claims on behalf of others, using the identity of individuals she believed to be deceased. She then approved those false claims and submitted her own bank and address information to fraudulently receive the corresponding SSA beneficiary proceeds. Faria proceeded to withdraw, transfer, and spend the money from the accounts that fraudulently obtained the SSA funds. Over the span of twelve years, Faria submitted and approved 13 fraudulent claims. A total of 10 fraudulent claims were still active and receiving funds as of the date of the Indictment. ...

O'Malley Has Plans To Deal With SSA's Overpayment Problems

     From KFF Health News:

The Social Security Administration’s new chief is promising to overhaul the agency’s system of clawing back billions of dollars it claims was wrongly sent to beneficiaries, saying it “just doesn’t seem right or fair.”

 In an interview with KFF Health News, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley said that in the coming days he would propose changes to help people avoid crushing debts ...

He said he has concrete steps in mind, such as establishing a statute of limitations, shifting the burden of proof to the agency, and imposing a 10% cap on clawbacks for some beneficiaries. ...

O’Malley said the agency plans to cease efforts to claw back years-old overpayments and halt the practice of terminating benefits for disabled workers who don’t respond to overpayment notices because they did not receive them or couldn’t make sense of them. ...

“One would assume that in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” he said, “that the burden should fall more on the agency than on the unwitting beneficiary.”

SSAB Study On Effectuation Of Disability Benefits

     The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has done a study on Effectuation of Disability Benefits. It shows that there have been major increases in the time it takes to effectuate disability benefits, particularly SSI benefits. These delays are cruel. The claimant has already been found disabled. He or she is poor enough to qualify for SSI yet must wait many months to receive their benefits. That's wrong.

    Below are a couple of charts from the report showing what has happened. Note that the SSAB couldn't obtain good data from Social Security. They had to rely upon data from a large non-attorney representative group. That tells you that this hasn't been enough of a priority at Social Security to even collect good data on it. In addition to giving us an idea of the scope of the problem, the data also gives us an idea of the size of that non-attorney representative group.

Two Important Sets Of Final Regs

     The Social Security Administration has asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve two sets of proposed regulations.

     Here's a description of the first for which approval has been requested:

We propose to update our regulations to reflect that we may authorize direct payment of representative fees to an entity itself, not only to representatives working for an entity, as required by the decision of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Marasco & Nesselbush v. SSA. In accordance with the Marasco ruling, we propose a process for paying an entity directly, which involves requiring registration for all entities who wish to receive direct payment of assigned fees. We also propose several measures to standardize registration, appointment, and payment processes for all representatives who wish to be appointed on a claim, matter, or issue with us. These proposed changes will enable us to pay fees directly to entities in a timely and efficient manner. In addition to helping us implement the Marasco decision, these provisions will increase appointed representatives’ access to our electronic services, reduce delays, and thus improve program efficiencies for all representatives.

    Here's a description of the second set of proposed regulations for which approval has been requested:

We propose to develop intermediate improvements to reduce the burden in our current disability adjudication process as a step towards longer-term reforms to ensure our disability program remains current and supports equitable outcomes. Actions could include decreasing the years of past work we consider when making a disability determination, as well as other potential regulatory changes.

The development of this regulation was informed by a listening session conducted by our Office of Communications with advocacy groups representing claimants and beneficiaries.

Biden Proposes 9% Increase In Social Security Operating Funds

     From President Biden's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins on October 1, 2024:

... The Budget provides an increase of $1.3 billion, nine percent over the 2023 enacted level, to improve customer service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families. The Budget also improves access to SSA’s services by reducing wait times. ...

    Nothing like this can be passed until after the election and only then if Democrats control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives -- and Senate Democrats are willing to scrap the filibuster, at least in part.

    In the lengthy supplement to the budget, the detailed explanation shows that program integrity would not increase. One complaint about recent appropriations is that there has been lavish funding of program integrity while basic operations have suffered greatly.

    The Commissioner of Social Security gets to include his own proposed budget for the agency in the supplement to the budget. Commissioner O'Malley's proposal is for the agency to be funded at $16.45 billion, about three quarters of a billion dollars higher than the President's budget but O'Malley has issued a statement praising the President's budget.

    The proposals of the President and the Commissioner are nice but restoring acceptable service at the Social Security Administration will have to be a multi-year effort.

    By the way, the Biden budget also calls for extending SSI to U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico.

New Telework Wrinkle

     From Federal News Network:

... Under a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between SSA and the American Federation of Government Employees, signed March 1, employees can now request “episodic telework” — or extra work-from-home days — when unexpected personal circumstances arise.

The new flexibility, which took effect March 4, gives SSA employees the option to occasionally request taking an extra day of telework in extenuating circumstances. That’s instead of having to take time off or dip into annual leave. ...

Agency spending levels are the next challenge SSA will face. To try to improve services and morale at SSA, AFGE is proposing a supplemental funding package of $20 billion over the next 10 years.

The highly anticipated budget proposal from House and Senate appropriators, which has a deadline of March 22, is unlikely to yield the results AFGE is hoping for.

“We’re severely underfunded in our operating costs, and current budget talks aren’t signaling that we’re going to get much money this year,” LaPointe said. “So, we’re really getting creative.” ...

NY Times On Social Security Scams

     The New York Times is running a piece on the ongoing scandal of criminals, by hook or crook, obtaining enough information about a person receiving or eligible to receive Social Security benefits and then convincing the Social Security Administration to divert those benefits to the criminals. It happens thousands of times a year and involves tens of millions of dollars. It goes on and on with no apparent fix in sight.

Increase In Social Security Fraud

     From Newsweek:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has issued a warning for Americans regarding scams that are stealing benefits from thousands of recipients each year. ...

According to the SSA's Office of the Inspector General, there was a 61.7 percent increase of reported scams between Q3 of the financial year in 2022 and the same period in 2023. In the former, just over 13,000 scams were reported, rising to 21,080 in the latter. ...

[T]hose under 50 were most likely to fall for scams ...

Thanks, Commissioner O'Malley

     From a recent "Dear Colleague" letter from Social Security to attorneys who represent claimants before the agency:

... We offer flexible repayment plans, including payments as low as $10 per month. If they are unable to meet their necessary living expenses due to the current repayment amount, or are unable to repay the debt within 60 months*, they can request a change in the recovery rate by completing form SSA-634, Request for Change in Overpayment Recovery Rate. *This is a recent policy change. Previous policy required the completion of the SSA-634 if the overpayment could not be repaid within 36 months. ...

    You know, that policy change means that it's harder to get a current repayment rate reduced. More overpayments can be satisfied in 60 months than in 36 months. Squeeze those debtors as hard as you can.

Achieving Social Security Equity For Black And Hispanic Americans

     From How Can Changes to Social Security Improve Benefits for Black and Hispanic Beneficiaries? by Richard W. Johnson and Karen E. Smith:

• ... Racial and ethnic differences in annual and lifetime Social Security benefits are substantial. We project that average lifetime benefits received by adults born between 2001 and 2010 are 19 percent less for Black beneficiaries than white beneficiaries and 14 percent less for Hispanic beneficiaries than white beneficiaries. Black and Hispanic beneficiaries ages 62 and older in 2080 are projected to be about 10 percentage points more likely to receive limited incomes in 2080 than white beneficiaries. 
• Various benefit enhancements, including creating caregiver credits, making the benefit formula more progressive, and adding a new minimum benefit to Social Security, would disproportionately help Black and Hispanic beneficiaries. 
• However, these benefit enhancements would only modestly narrow racial and ethnic disparities in Social Security benefits. Adding a new minimum benefit tied to years of covered employment would have a particularly modest effect, because relatively few beneficiaries receiving limited benefits complete long careers. 

The policy implications of the findings are: 

• The effectiveness of benefit enhancements depends crucially on how those adjustments are structured. Policy details, including eligibility for the enhanced benefit and the presence of any benefit caps, shape how much low-income beneficiaries would receive and how well targeted the adjustments are.
• Achieving equity in Social Security benefits for Black and Hispanic adults would likely require substantial progress toward equality in labor market outcomes. ...
  

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

 

Click on image to view full size

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. ...