Aloha Disability Claims

The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports on Vikky Nakamura, a supervisor at the Hawaii Disability Determination Branch, in its series, "Hawaii at Work." Even in paradise there are disability claims.

SSA Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda

Social Security has published its semi-annual regulatory agenda, showing the regulations that the agency is working on. The list seems to lack anything surprising or mysterious. There usually seems to be at least one item that is described in such a sketchy way that it is impossible to tell whether it is important, but not this time.

New NADE Newsletter

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of employees of state disability determination agencies, has published its Fall 2006 Newsletter. The Newsletter contains this little piece of new information from Sylvia Karman of Social Security's Office of Disability Evaluation Policy:

Draft final regulations of Silvera-Vargas pending at the executive level. This regulation will clarify illiteracy and inability to communicate in English as an education level and its impact on potential skill transferability.

Family Burns Father 's Body To Keep Social Security

The Jefferson City News Tribune reports that the widow and two children of a Missouri man have pleaded guilty to concealing his death in order to keep getting his Social Security retirement benefits. Larry McWilliams died of natural causes in 1997. His family burned his body to conceal the death. The family members were improperly paid $130,000 in Social Security benefits as a result of the fraud.

Social Security Funding Stays Low Until February 15

The House of Representatives has just adopted H.J.Res 102, a continuing funding resolution that will keep the government running through February 15, 2007, on a roll call vote. The resolution keeps Social Security funding at the same low level in effect since the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. This means that Social Security will be operating for at least four and a half months under a budget that the Commissioner of Social Security has said would require ten days for furloughs for Social Security employees over the course of the entire fiscal year. The Commissioner does not have the relative luxury of planning how to use what is available now over the course of the entire fiscal year, but must deal with almost day to day limitiations on spending money. Purchases may be deferred and payments to vendors may be delayed slightly, but there is a real risk of serious problems at Social Security over the next two months.

In fairness, Commissioner Barnhart must share in the blame for this fiasco. She has spent over five years doing her best to convince Congress that she could bring dramatic improvements in productivity through the EDIB electronic file program and the Disability Service Improvement (DSI) reorganization. Congress ended up taking her seriously, even though EDIB has hurt productivity in the short run and few now believe that it will ever yield more than modest productivity gains and even though DSI will have almost no effect, either good or bad, on Social Security productivity until well into the future. The failure of Commissioner Barnhart to pull the promised rabbit out of the hat leaves Social Security painfully short of manpower for at least the next two months.

Lawsuit On Benefits To Immigrants Awaiting Citizenship

Legal immigrants can obtain Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for seven years after coming to the U.S. Their benefits are then stopped unless they have become citizens. The problem is that there are huge backlogs preventing immigrants from obtaining citizenship within those seven years, even though they fully qualify and are vigorously seeking citizenship. Some immigrants who are eligible for citizenship and actively seeking citizenship are losing SSI because the FBI cannot complete background checks on them so that their citizenship applications can be granted. This has led to a lawsuit in Pennsylvania, brought by Community Legal Services, according to a Philadelphia Daily News article.

Mental Retardation Fraud Alleged In Tacoma

From The Olympian in Washington State:

TACOMA - For nearly 20 years - ever since he was 8 - Pete Costello's mother has collected disability benefits on his behalf. In meetings with Social Security officials and psychologists, he appeared mentally retarded and unable to communicate. His mom insisted he couldn't read or write, shower, take care of himself or drive a car.

But video of Pete contesting a traffic ticket in a Clark County courtroom earlier this year seems to refute that, according to federal prosecutors who are pursuing fraud charges against the Vancouver pair.

National Review Faces Reality And Talks Social Security

Most conservatives seem to be in a state of denial about what can be done about Social Security's long term funding issues. Most, including the President, seem to believe that privatization is still possible, despite the fact that Democrats control Congress and are firmly against privatization. The National Review, perhaps the country's most prominent conservative publication, may be an unlikely place to find ideas which could be a starting point for fruitful negotiations on legislation to improve Social Security's long term funding, but it looks as if its editorial board is starting to face reality. Check out this recent National Review piece that may actually provide a useful starting point:

First, the program could be put on a sound fiscal footing by reducing the future growth of benefits. Republicans will like this proposal better than Democrats, but few Democrats have ruled it out. Second, the government could provide tax credits to help low-income workers begin investing. Democrats have proposed this policy for years, and Republicans have objected. But if Republicans are as interested as they say they are in expanding the investor class — and they should be — they should drop their objections. Third, the taxes that fund Social Security could be made more progressive. There is a cap on the amount of wages that is subject to the payroll tax. That cap could be raised. This is where Democrats want to go, and Republicans have good reasons for resisting: It would increase marginal tax rates for the affected workers quite a bit, and it would not raise much money. But if the cap were not raised much, and the revenues gained were used to fund the tax credits or to lower the payroll-tax rate, Republicans might find their objections dwindling.