Does This Register With Republican Politicians From Rural Areas?

     From The Administrative Burden Experienced by U.S. Rural Residents Accessing Social Security Administration Benefit Programs in 2024 by Debra L. Brucker, Stacia Bach, Megan Henly, Andrew Houtenville and Kelly Nye-Lengerman

Abstract: This project used a community-engaged qualitative research approach to address the following research aims: 1) examine information- and service-related barriers that rural persons with disabilities, family members of persons with disabilities, and older adults face in accessing information about and services related to U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) benefit programs, and 2) solicit recommendations for community-level and SSA-level actions that could improve rural resident access to information and services. ... Conducted in 2024 in the State of New Hampshire, the research team first engaged with twelve individuals who had lived experience of disability and/or were older adults (age 62+) to jointly develop focus group questions and recruitment strategies. The research team then held in-person and virtual focus groups and interviews with 40 rural residents to address the research aims noted above. The qualitative analysis revealed that rural residents, particularly those attempting to access or receiving disability benefits, experienced high levels of administrative burden. Persons with stronger social networks were better able to overcome these barriers to services. Regardless of type of benefit receipt, people very strongly preferred having access to an SSA field office in person instead of communicating with SSA by e-mail, mail, or phone. Most rural residents did not prefer using technology to communicate with SSA as many had limited access to and knowledge about technology.  ...

Another Day, Another Lawsuit

     From CNBC:

A group of disability advocates filed a federal lawsuit against the Social Security Administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency on Wednesday aimed at stopping cuts to the agency’s services.

Recent changes at the Social Security Administration under DOGE — including staff reductions, the elimination of certain offices and new requirements to seek in-person services — have made it more difficult for individuals with disabilities and older adults to access benefits, the lawsuit argues.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The plaintiffs include the National Federation of the Blind, the American Association of People with Disabilities, Deaf Equality, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and individual beneficiaries. ...

    There is a staggering amount of litigation against the Trump Administration for the brutality it has caused across the government. If you're on X or Bluesky follow the feeds of the Trump Litigation Bot if you dare. You'll be overwhelmed. This litigation has to be sapping the resources of even the Department of Justice.

Bisignano Received No Democratic Votes From Finance Committee

      The Bisignano nomination to become Commissioner of Social Security advanced out of the Finance Committee on a narrow 14-13 party line vote. Not a rousing endorsement.

Social Security Doing A Poor Job Of Resolving Critical Issues

      From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

Objective
To determine whether employees submitted and processed Manager-to-Manager (M2M) requests in accordance with Social Security Administration (SSA) policy.

Background
When a field office (FO), processing center (PC), or teleservice center employee identifies a critical issue for a beneficiary that requires another office’s action, managers can expedite action for the beneficiary by initiating an M2M request. Managers should only use M2M for high priority requests, such as beneficiaries who have terminal illnesses; made homicidal, suicidal, or potentially violent behavior threats; or are in dire need situations, such as facing eviction or homelessness.

Given the critical nature of M2M requests, FO and PC employees must address them within 5-business days or provide an interim reply to the requesting manager explaining the delay.
We reviewed a random sample of 100 M2M requests: 50 in a “resolved” status from June 1, 2021 through June 1, 2023 and 50 in a “pending” status as of June 1, 2023.

Results
SSA employees generally submitted M2M requests according to SSA policy; however, they did not always follow policy when they processed M2M requests. Of the 100 M2M requests we sampled, FO and PC employees did not process 57 requests according to policy.

• For 48 requests, FO and PC employees did not process them timely, resulting in delays in employees addressing critical issues and beneficiaries waiting weeks or months to receive the benefits they were due. 
  

• For 9 requests, PC employees placed them in a “resolved” status in the M2M application before completing all necessary actions to address the requests.
  

SSA managers provided reasons for delays, and we identified control weaknesses that contributed to delays, such as: (1) case complexity; (2) insufficient communication between offices, including no notifications in the M2M application when employees take action on requests; and (3) the absence of controls that prevent employees from prematurely closing M2M requests.  ...

    This is the sort of thing that drives me and other Social Security attorneys crazy We can't get problems resolved.

Proof Of What You Already Knew

      From HuffPost:

A week after Maine Gov. Janet Mills clashed publicly with President Donald Trump at the White House over transgender athletes in girls’ sports, Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, asked his staff about what contracts Maine had with the Social Security Administration. 

The agency has vital records contracts with every state, allowing parents to request Social Security numbers for their newborns at the hospital and to verify deaths through an electronic system.

According to emails obtained by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Social Security staff informed Dudek that canceling the contracts “would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft.” 

Dudek told his staff to go for it.

“Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” Dudek wrote, referring to Mills. …

     The real question is whether Dudek acted on his own initiative or whether he acted upon directions form the White House. My strong suspicion is that this came from the White House. 

Bisignano Nomination Advances

     The Bisignano nomination to become Commissioner of Social Security has advanced. The Senate Finance Committee has reported out the nomination favorably. We will see how soon the entire Senate will act on this. There may be a desire to put an adult in charge as quickly as possible. 

    We don't know how much control Bisignano will have over the brats from DOGE or whether the Office of Management and Budget will order arbitrary staffing cuts that Bisignano will be unable to resist. Of course, we don't know what Bisignano himself wants. I'd like to project upon him my desire that he act responsibly or that,  at the least, that he try to avoid presiding over a disaster but it's more than possible that Bisignano is a true believer who cannot imagine that there's a connection between staffing levels and public service. He may even believe that public service doesn't matter.

Lining Up For Service

      There are people lining up two hours before a Social Security field office is set to open in Iowa. Also, I expect in every other state. Some lined up are big DOGE supporters.

Bisignano Nomination Goes Into Overtime

      I have no idea what happened yesterday with the Bisignano nomination. The Senate Finance Committee held a session to consider the nomination but recessed without a vote after some member statements on the nomination. Maybe it had something to do with Senator Booker’s filibuster. In any case, they’re scheduled to meet again to consider the nomination at 2:15 Eastern today. This session won’t be televised,

What The Whistleblower Said

     In the Bisignano confirmation hearing there was reference to correspondence from a current or former Social Security employee concerning Bisignano's contacts with agency personnel. I haven't seen that correspondence until today. We still don't know who this is from but here it is and, as always, click on the images to view full size:

 

 

Replacing COBOL At Social Security Is A Bad Idea

     From Waldo Jaquith, described as a former government technologist, writing for MSNBC:

...  Wired magazine reported last week that the Department of Government Efficiency plans to replace the mainframes that power the agency’s mission and rebuild their functionality on new servers in a new programming language — with just a few months’ work.

Assuming Wired’s reporting is accurate, we know that such an effort will surely fail. The track record of decades of modernizations of thousands of software systems, in both the private and public sectors, makes that clear. This isn’t even an interesting-yet-flawed idea. It’s a hackneyed, clichéd bad idea that could only sound compelling to novice software developers. It’s like cooking a Thanksgiving turkey in 20 minutes by putting it in a blast furnace, or choosing to get measles instead of getting vaccinated against it: it sounds most convincing to the layperson who asks the fewest questions.  ...

Critics complain that the COBOL programming language, widely in use in the SSA, is old and outdated. This is wrong. While COBOL’s origins date to 1959, it’s an actively maintained programming language, with an updated standard published by the International Standards Organization in 2023. The advanced age of actively maintained languages is evidence of their sustainability and quality. ...

Critics also complain that mainframes are antiquated in an era of cloud computing. In fact, mainframes are still in wide use throughout the public and private sectors. They are not the room-sized reel-to-reel machines of the 1960s, but instead sleek, modern machines that would turn any developer’s head. They excel anywhere that it’s important to have lots of processing power, high redundancy and the ability to muscle through big batches of data processing—precisely what the SSA needs. ...

Replacing COBOL is a special challenge, for a reason generally known only to experienced COBOL developers: math works differently in COBOL. It handles decimals unlike any other programming language, which is particularly important for large financial systems working at the scale of the SSA. What COBOL might calculate as 1,000.99, Java might calculate as 1,000.98. Neither number is wrong in a mathematical sense, but for an accounting and payment system designed around decades of COBOL-based math, the Java-based answer is functionally wrong. For a system making 840 million financial transactions annually, such a small difference in math can quickly spiral into a disaster. ...

DOGE To The Rescue

      DOGE is saying that they’ve corrected almost all of the Numident records kept by Social Security to show that anyone 120 years of age or older is dead. Of course, this is a complete waste of time. Numident isn’t used to pay benefits. There are separate databases for that and they don’t include anyone older than 115 but, hey, if it impresses the rubes who voted for Trump it’s all for a good cause. Of course, despite this, those rubes will still believe that 150 year olds are being paid because the rubes are credulous fools.

Trump Orders End To Treasury Issued Paper Checks

     I missed this one. Last week Trump ordered an end to Treasury issued paper checks as of September 30 of this year. 

    I think it's better than 95% of Social Security claimants who receive their benefits by direct deposit now but there are those who still need paper checks. One important group who still need paper checks are claimants who have lacked the funds to keep a bank account open while they wait months and years for their Social Security disability claims to be approved. They're only too happy to receive their payments by direct deposits once they have money to put in an account but not for that first check or two.

    Yes, I know there are benefit cards but the fees on those are ridiculous. More important, most folks still have a bank account when they file their Social Security disability claim but later have to close the bank account because they're broke so they won't be set up for a benefit card. 

    We'll see how this plays out. In theory, they aren't supposed to be paper checks even now but circumstances on the ground don't match up with what armchair theorists think possible. A little leeway is needed.

COBOL Isn’t The Problem

           Mar Hicks wrote a few years ago about an episode where Republican leaders tried to blame COBOL for basic governmental agency failings that had nothing to do with COBOL. As he writes:

… But despite [COBOL’s advantages], there’s a cottage industry devoted to making fun of COBOL precisely for its strengths. COBOL’s qualities of being relatively self-documenting, having a short onboarding period (though a long path to becoming an expert), and having been originally designed by committee for big, unglamorous, infrastructural business systems all count against it. So does the fact that it did not come out of a research-oriented context, like languages such as C, ALGOL, or FORTRAN.

In a broader sense, hating COBOL was—and is—part of a struggle between consolidating and protecting computer programmers’ professional prestige on the one hand, and making programming less opaque and more accessible on the other. There’s an old joke among programmers: “If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.” In other words, if your code is easy to understand, maybe you and your skills aren’t all that unique or valuable. If management thinks the tools you use and the code you write could be easily learned by anyone, you are eminently replaceable. 

The fear of this existential threat to computing expertise has become so ingrained in the field that many people don’t even see the preference for complex languages for what it is: an attempt to protect one’s status by favoring tools that gate-keep rather than those that assist newcomers. …

Bisignano Nomination Advancing

      The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a meeting for 10:00 Eastern for April 1 to advance the Bisignano nomination to become Commissioner of Social Security.

Even AEI Thinks Social Security Was Well Run — Until January 20, 2025

      From the right wing think tank American Enterprise Institute:

Here in the DOGE era, the specter of inefficient bureaucracy haunts many government agencies. Yet the Social Security Administration (SSA) offers a surprising counter-narrative—at least in parts. As civil servants go, those administering retirement benefits are a relatively efficient bunch, according to AEI scholar Mark Warshawsky, who until 2021 served as the agency’s deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy. 

As he tells in a new podcast, “I would say, in terms of the retirement side, it is a well-run program.” The Internal Revenue Service efficiently collects payroll taxes and administers benefit taxation, while disbursements flow with minimal leakage through fraud or processing errors. This efficiency is all the more remarkable given the program’s gargantuan scale—some $1.3 trillion in annual benefits.

Less efficient, Warshawsky goes on to explain, is the Disability Insurance part of Social Security. It demands substantially more administrative resources, with means-testing, medical evaluations, and ongoing eligibility verification creating a bit of a bureaucratic morass. Likewise, the Supplemental Security Income program is also particularly cumbersome, requiring detailed scrutiny of both income and assets.

Recent criticisms of the agency seem overblown, however. Claims about payments to long-deceased beneficiaries are demonstrably false. The SSA employs robust verification mechanisms, including automatic investigation of nonagenarians without recent medical claims and outright benefit denial for anyone claiming to exceed 115 years of age. …

DOGE Strikes Again!

 

From the Washington Post

What Could Go Wrong?

     From Wired:

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months. ...

SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.

“If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead,” says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.

    You may recall that Frank Bisignano testified at his confirmation hearing that COBOL was still widely used in business and that its presence at Social Security was nothing to be too concerned about. 

Sure, No Problem

      From Forbes:

Elon Musk lauded his Department of Government Efficiency in a Thursday interview with Fox News, saying the work of the agency, which has drawn criticism over its sweeping and rapid layoffs to the federal workforce, will allow Social Security recipients to “receive more money.” …

Press Release Denying Field Office Closures

 

Press Release

Thursday, March 27, 2025

For Immediate Release

Mark Hinkle, Press Officer

press.office@ssa.gov

Correcting the Record about Social Security Office Closings

reports in the media that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is permanently closing local field offices are false. Since January 1, 2025, the agency has not permanently closed or announced the permanent closure of any local field office. From time to time, SSA must temporarily close a local field office for reasons such as weather, damage, or facilities issues, and it reopens when the issues are resolved. The agency has announced the permanent closure of one hearing office, in White Plains, NY.

SSA works closely with local congressional delegations before closing any office permanently. The agency also reassigns employees from an affected office to other locations to help communities access in-person services.

“SSA is committed to providing service where people need help and our local field offices are no exception,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We have not permanently closed any local field offices this year.”

SSA identified for the General Services Administration underutilized office space to ensure the government is spending taxpayer money as prudently as possible. The agency provided GSA a list of sites for termination. Most of these are small hearing rooms with no assigned employees. Since most hearings are held virtually, SSA no longer needs these underutilized rooms.

Dudek Walks Back Some Of What He Told The Court! (In Case Dudek Doesn't Know, That's Not Cool)

     Also, the Court was not impressed with the argument that DOGE needs access to non-anonymized data in order to find patterns of fraud when they have no evidence that a pattern of fraud exists. Find it first and then those involved can be identified.