Budget Reconciliation Bill Still in Question

Congress thought it had passed the Budget Reconciliation bill. The President signed it. Part of the bill requires staged payments of SSI back benefits that total more than three months of benefits. However, one little problem was noticed after the fact. The versions passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate were not exactly the same. The Senate agreed to a concurrent resolution that they thought would solve the problem, but House Democrats are unwilling to agree. The whole issue is still up in the air, according to The Hill.

PASS Success Story

The Plan for Acheiving Self Support (PASS) program has been a part of SSI for years. Under PASS, an SSI recipient is able to receive extra income and to amass resources without penalty in order to fulfill a plan to achieve self support. The limitations inherent in SSI -- it is very hard to get on SSI and most recipients are quite sick, desperately poor and have limited educational attainments -- as well as strict limitations upon the use of the PASS program have made PASS nothing more than an empty promise for most SSI recipients. But there are occasional success stories and here is one from Florida, where a woman has used PASS to start a real estate services company.

Overpayment Waiver Study

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a study of decisions on waivers of overpayments and has decided that SSA is granting too many waivers. The problem with the study is that while OIG gives details on how it selected cases to review, no details are given on how OIG decided that the incorrecte decisions were made. It is unclear whether OIG personnel doing the study had enough knowledge and experience to second guess anyone on waivers or whether OIG was willing to acknowledge that some cases were close calls in which it would be inappropriate to say a mistake was made even if someone working in OIG would have made a different decision. The study does not mention the bias problem inherent in having personnel at OIG decide whether other SSA personnel have erred, when the jobs of the OIG personnel are justified by finding "mistakes" made by other components of SSA.

Monthly Statistical Summary

Social Security has published its monthly statistical summary.

The Crime Beat

The U.S. Attorney's office in Boston has announced that a Gloucester, Massachusetts man has been convicted of taking $116,000 in Social Security benefits paid to his mother after her death.

Attorney Fee Stats for January

Social Security has posted the attorney fee payment numbers for January. $64,848,326.02 was paid in attorneys' fees in January 2006, down 12% from December 2005.

Rumors

According to people posting on the ALJ Improvement board, rumors are circulating within SSA that budget problems mean that no new ALJs will be hired this year and that there may be no Reviewing Officers hired either. If these rumors are true, backlogs will worsen at OHA and the Commissioner of Social Security's plan to revise Social Security's appeals process can make little progress, if any. With Barnhart's term ending in January 2007, this could be the death knell for her plan, if she is not reappointed for a second term as Commissioner.

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

The House Means and Means Committee's Subcommittees on Social Security and Oversight will hold a joint hearing on February 16 dealing with wage reporting issues.