Another Columbus Dispatch Article On Backlogs

The Columbus Dispatch has another article on the backlogs at Social Security. Here are a couple of excerpts:

To tens of thousands of Ohioans who have applied for Social Security disability, waiting for benefits has become a living thing: menacing, frustrating, interminable.

Waiting two years for an appeal hearing chewed up Donald Riley’s income and his health, eventually sending the former diesel mechanic from Johnstown to Mount Carmel East hospital where yesterday he was recovering from his second heart attack.

Waiting since early 2005 drove Dorothy Siders of Columbus to bankruptcy and threatens to steal her home through foreclosure. It’s all she has left.

"It’s not like I haven’t worked all my life since I was 16 years old," Siders said. "If I could work, I would. …What are you going to do? You just feel hopeless." ...

Columbus attorney John R. Allen, who has been handling Social Security disability cases for three decades, said the long waiting time is an extreme hardship for claimants and their families.

"There is nothing worse than meeting with a client, knowing with some likelihood that we are going to prevail, and having to tell him that he’ll have to wait at least two years for benefits. Most have no idea how they are going to survive."

Chief Of Staff Hired

The ALJ Improvement Board has the following report that Commissioner Astrue has hired a chief of staff:

David V. Foster, Chief of Staff, serves as the principal advisor to the Commissioner of Social Security. He is the Commissioner’s liaison to the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, Cabinet-level Agencies, Members of Congress, international organizations, the Social Security Advisory Board and executives of state and local governments. Additionally, he is the Chair of the Agency’s Executive Resources Board.

Mr. Foster has held high-level positions in the federal government, having served in various capacities at the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC and the United States Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia. In the private sector, Mr. Foster has worked extensively in the health care field as the head of government relations for biotechnology firms and as counsel for the National Leadership Coalition on Health Care. He also has chaired committees for the American Bar Association, the Federalist Society and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Mr. Foster is a magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College and received his J.D. from Northeastern University.

Why Isn't SSA A Cabinet Level Department?

I thought I would compare employment at the Social Security Administration to that of departments in the President's cabinet and to other independent agencies that have more than 10,000 employees. This is based upon figures from the Office of Personnel Management.

• Department of Defense (civilian) 668,450
• Department of VA 239,689
• Department of Homeland Security 168,635
• Department of Treasury 106,623
• Department of Justice 105,827
• Department of Agriculture 105,488
• Department of Interior 73,126
• Social Security Administration 63,647
• Department of HHS 63,506
• Department of Transportation 53,861
• Department of Commerce 40,544
• NASA 18,457
• Department of Labor 15,339
• Department of Energy 14,950
• General Services Administration 12,170
• Department of State 10,208
• Department of HUD 9,825
• Department of Education 4,344
  

So why there has been never been a serious proposal for Social Security to become a cabinet level agency -- or at least not in a very long time? It cannot be because Social Security is not a big ticket item. Social Security involves more money than any agency other than the Department of Defense. It cannot be because what Social Security does is not important to the American people. About 50 million Americans rely upon Social Security for all of part of their income. Is it because we want to keep Social Security "out of politics?" The agency was part of a cabinet department for most of its existence without any sign of obvious harm. If anything, Social Security seems to have been more "political" since it became an independent agency. I do not recall anyone like Andrew Biggs working at Social Security before it became an independent agency. Also, I do not recall any President traveling around the country trying to privatize Social Security until after it became an independent agency.

Hiring Priorities

Social Security's funding is very tight. Few vacancies will be filled between now and the end of this fiscal year. However, Social Security has advertised a few positions, which give an idea of the agency's priorities. They are currently seeking the following:

• 40 contact representatives for the teleservice centers in Albuquerque, Houston and Dallas
• Four criminal investigators to be spread around the country
• Two human resource specialists for Social Security's central offices in Woodlawn
  
• "Many" Federal Reviewing Officers

Columbus Dispatch On Backlogs

The Columbus Dispatch has an article up on backlogs at Social Security's hearing office in Columbus, Ohio. The backlogs are up to two and a half years.

Is This How Social Security Employees See Themselves?

From Tom Shoop's Fedblog:

On 24 last night, supercounterterrorist agent Jack Bauer's evil father, who is apparently behind every bad thing that has happened on the show in the past two years, cornered Jack in a warehouse. In an effort to inflict maximum anguish on his son, he told him the most hurtful thing he could come up with: that Jack had turned his back on his family to become a mere "civil servant.

Productivity Gains And Soviet Five Year Plans

Let me pick out one last item from the February 14 Social Security Subcommittee hearing. This is from the written statement prepared by Commissioner Astrue:

Since 2001, SSA has improved productivity on average by 2.5 percent per year for a cumulative improvement of 13.1 percent.

The problem with this statement is that the productivity increases talked about by Commissioner Astrue resemble the productivity increases under the old Soviet Union's five year plans. That which was being measured increased, while everything that was not being measured went to hell, making the reported productivity gains meaningless.

In the old Soviet Union, a shoe factory might be required under a five year plan to increase its productivity by, let us say, 13.1% and would meet that goal, but the shoes made would be ugly, uncomfortable to wear and so poorly constructed that they fell apart quickly, making the productivity gain meaningless. The same sort of thing is happening at Social Security. For instance, more telephone calls are answered at teleservice centers -- but the people answering the calls are under huge pressure to get the callers off the line as quickly as possible so they can meet their productivity goals, so they often fail to help the callers, leading to frustration for Social Security claimants, repeated telephone calls and more in person visits to Social Security field offices. Probably, Social Security is not measuring how completely and accurately their teleservice center employees deal with telephone inquiries and they are certainly not factoring that into their productivity figures. At Social Security's field offices appeals filed by claimants are piling up rapidly because field office personnel lack the time needed to do the data entry required to process the appeals, but no one is measuring that or factoring it into the productivity figures. If anything, delays in processing appeals at the field offices make the delays at the hearing offices look less bad than they are. In many different ways this sort of thing is happening all over Social Security. Productivity is increasing rapidly according to Social Security's official statistics, yet the error rates, which are not being measured, are going through the roof, as are the backlogs in everything that is not being measured or factored into the gross productivity numbers that Social Security reports to the world.

An Image From 1937