SSAB Meeting Agenda

The Social Security Advisory Board has released the following agenda for its next meeting. Both Palmer and Saving seem quite inclined towards some massive changes in Social Security, along the lines of what President Bush was earlier proposing.

Social Security Advisory Board
Meeting Agenda
Tuesday June 12, 2007

9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. John L. Palmer and Thomas R. Saving, Public Members of the

Board of Trustees of the

Social Security And Medicare Trust Funds

Baltimore Sun On Social Security Backlogs

I have noted on occasion that even though the Social Security Administration is the largest employer in Baltimore County the local newspapers largely ignore the agency. I can now report that the Baltimore Sun has published an article on Social Security's appeal backlogs and efforts to hire more Administrative Law Judges. There is nothing in the article that would be news to anyone who reads this blog regularly.

Immigration Bill Stalled

Reuters reports that President Bush's immigration bill is stalled in the Senate. There is little chance that the bill will be revived in this Congress. The bill had the potential to impose dramatic new workloads on the Social Security Administration, for either verifying Social Security numbers or issuing biometric Social Security cards.

SSI Recipients By County

Social Security has published a report showing the number of recipients of Supplemental Security Income, by type of benefit and by county. This sounds exquisitely boring, but it is the only set of statistics that Social Security routinely publishes that shows information on benefit recipients by county. The information is useful to attorneys who represent Social Security claimants. You have to know where potential clients live if you are going to serve them.

Social Security Hiring

Currently, the Social Security Administration has 138 job openings posted. This is the most for the agency in some time. However, as high a number as this may seem, Social Security's overall employment is dropping. They are not hiring as many people as they are losing by attrition. Office of Personnel Management figures on total agency employment are only available as of December 2006. When the March 2007 figures are released, they are certain to show a dramatic drop in employment, at a time when the agency is struggling to keep up with its workload.

Another NY Newspaper On Hearing Backlogs

The Post-Standard of central New York and the Press Republican of Northeastern New York are running an article about Social Security's hearing backlogs. New York Senator Shumer is quoted as saying that Social Security needs another $1 billion to hire sufficient staff.

Social Security Subcommittee Statements Available -- Recording Not Available?

The House Social Security Subcommittee has posted the written statements of witnesses at today's hearing on employment eligibility verification systems, but no recording of the hearing. I have gotten a report that there are technical problems which may prevent the Subcommittee from ever posting a recording of the hearing.

Remember that however technical and boring this hearing topic may seem, that if Social Security has to start issuing biometric Social Security cards that the agency will rapidly become a very different place with a much expanded staff. Issuing Social Security cards may become the main task of the Social Security Administration and Social Security field offices may start to resemble drivers license offices.

The only statement from a government witness about additional staffing needs at Social Security came from an official of the Department of Homeland Security who said this in his written statment:

According to SSA officials, the number of new staff required would depend on both the legislative requirements for implementing mandatory EEV and the effectiveness of efforts USCIS has under way to decrease the need for individuals to visit SSA field offices. For this reason, SSA officials told us they have not yet estimated how many additional staff they would need for a mandatory EEV.

Tyler Moran of the National Immigration Law Center and Sue Meisinger of the Human Resource Initiative for a Legal Workforce, who testified at the hearing, cautioned about Social Security's implementation difficulties at a time when Social Security field offices are already overburdened. Why is someone from Department of Homeland Security and these other witnesse talking about this, but not the witesses from Social Security itself?

It is striking that the Social Security officials who testified did not mention implementation difficulties in their written statements and, indeed, that relatively low level officials were sent to testify about something that may have a profound effect upon the Social Security Administration. There seems to have been a deliberate effort to downplay implementation difficulties.

Note that the Commissioner of Social Security has his own full time White House Liaison -- for the first time in the history of the Social Security Administration, as best I can tell. The immigration bill is a high priority for the White House. A detailed assessment of Social Security's implementation difficulties for a new employment eligibility verification system may not be what the White House wanted the Subcommittee to hear.

Memo On Streamlined Folder Assembly

CONNECT has obtained and posted a copy of Social Security's memo concerning "streamlined" folder assembly for hearing offices. While the memo "authorizes" this streamlined mode and encourages Administrative Law Judges to cooperate, it does not make this mandatory. There will be hearing offices and individual ALJs who refuse to accept this.

I do not understand why Social Security does not just release this sort of thing to begin with. It is not a secret. It is going to leak out quickly anyway. Just post it on the website for everyone to read.