Hearing Office Backlogs Correction

Let me correct something I posted yesterday. I said that the hearing backlog numbers that Social Security is releasing to the public understate the severity of the problem, since they do not include backlogs that delay requests for hearing reaching Social Security's hearing offices. I am pretty sure this is now incorrect.

The problem of Social Security's hearing backlog statistics being inaccurate because they counted only the time from the date the appeal reached a hearing office rather than from the date it was filed was one that existed in the old Hearing Office Tracking Systems (HOTS), but that has been replaced by the more accurate Case Processing Management System (CPMS), which apparently solved this problem. There is a report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General that discusses the improvements in going from HOTS to CPMS.

Remember, I am an attorney in private practice. I have never used either HOTS or CPMS.

The problem of data entry backlogs at Social Security's Field Offices to which I referred is a very real and growing problem that is receiving virtually no attention.

Somebody Is Confusing Me

The Disability Policy Collaboration is reporting that the House Appropriations Subcommittee that covers Social Security has reported out a $400 million increase for the Social Security Administration (which was what was expected), yet the Subcommittee's summary shows only a $100 million increase (which had surprised me). Is the Disability Policy Collaboration confused or is the Subcommittee summary misleading?

The same report from the Disability Policy Collaboration also says that:

House Republican leaders are urging their colleagues to sign a pledge to uphold the President’s promised vetoes of eight FY2008 appropriations bills that are expected to exceed the Administration’s budget request, including the Labor/HHS/Education proposal. The support of two-thirds of the House is necessary to override a veto. At the end of last week, about 140 Republicans had signed a letter being circulated by Representative John Campbell (R-CA) promising to support the President, leaving the GOP leadership still shy of having enough votes to sustain the veto threats.

More Personnel Or More Williard Scott Expenditures?

It looks as if Social Security may end up with more money than was called for in the President's proposed Fiscal Year 2008 budget. The appropriations bill pending in the House of Representatives would increase the budget by $100 million. Others want to increase the budget by $400 million or more above Bush's budget. However, Michael Astrue, Social Security's Commissioner wants no more than Bush's proposed budget.

This raises an important question. If Social Security ends up with more money than Bush and Astrue are asking for, what will Astrue do with the extra money? The assumption may be that he would use the extra money for more employees. There seems to be near universal agreement that Social Security needs more employees. However, I said near universal agreement. There are signs that the Office of Management and Budget is extremely interested in holding down the number of employees at the Social Security Administration. During former Commissioner Barnhart's term of office, the number of employees at Social Security declined rapidly, even though Social Security's operating budget was going up at greater than the rate of inflation. Bush's proposed 2008 budget for Social Security contains a 4% increase in agency funding -- but holds employment steady. Mike Astrue has already said that he intends to add about 1,000 employees to Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). Does that mean that he intends to cut employment elsewhere at Social Security by 1,000? With extra money, does he just increase ODAR employment and hold employment elsewhere in Social Security steady? Does he just continue cutting employment elsewhere in Social Security and find other ways to spend the money?

There are always ways that an agency can spend money that do not involve hiring more people to get the work done. There are always contractors to hire and computer equipment to buy. Also, you can just waste money. My favorite Social Security waste of money was hiring Ari Fleischer and Willard Scott in 2006 to speak at a gathering of Social Security public relations personnel, as service was rapidly deteriorating at Social Security Field Offices.

So, if Social Security gets more money than the President proposed, does Astrue spend the money for more employees, who are hard to get rid of, or does he spend it on contractors and equipment that may or may not be needed, or does he just find ways to just fritter it away?

I have read some bad things about earmarks in appropriations bills, but I think some earmarks in Social Security's appropriations bill could be a good thing.

The Name "Mohammad"

This is a bit off topic, but fascinating. It is from a blog by the editors of Foreign Policy Magazine:

Last week we learned that Mohammed was the #2 name for baby boys in Britain last year, when the top 14 spellings were considered.

Of course, that made me wonder, how popular is Mohammed in the United States? So I visited the website of the U.S. Social Security Administration, which provides the top 1,000 baby names for each sex going back to the late 1800s. No spellings of Mohammed made it into the top 1,000 until 1976, when Muhammad came in 976th place with 73 births.

In 2006, Mohammed ranked #217, between Dominick and Rafael, when the four spellings that made it into the top 1,000 (Mohamed, Mohammad, Mohammed, and Muhammad, in order of decreasing popularity) were considered. No other spelling has ever made it into the top 1,000.

Then I wondered, were Muslims hesitant to name their sons Mohammed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks? It looks like that might have been the case, at least for a while. The graph below shows how many Mohammeds of all four aforementioned spellings were born in the United States each year since 1976, with data coming from Social Security card applications.

Interestingly, a total of 27,350 Mohammeds of the top four spellings were born from 1976 to 2006. That may sound like a lot, but 24,418 Jacobs were born last year alone.

Social Security Appropriations Bill Markup Available In Streaming Video

The House Appropriations Committee is making its June 14 meeting to markup the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill available in streaming video. I had earlier reported that the bill had been reported out of committee, but it was only reported out of subcommittee. The markup session is to begin at 9:00 a.m.

Hearing Office Backlogs Report

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has obtained lists showing the backlogs at each of Social Security's hearing offices. I have reproduced this above. Click on each page to see it in full size. These shows the length of the wait time in days from the time that a Social Security hearing office receives a request for a hearing until the case is disposed of, for each hearing office and for each of Social Security's regions.

As bad is it looks, this understates the backlog, since it only shows the wait time from the date a hearing office receives and logs in an appeal. However, each appeal must pass through a Social Security field office before getting to a hearing office. In most cases, the field offices must do a significant amount of data entry before sending the appeal on to a hearing offices. There are increasing data entry backlogs at the field offices which delay these appeals getting to hearing offices, making the hearing backlogs look less bad than they actually are. The field office data entry backlogs are four months and longer in some locations. As best I can tell, no one is keeping track of the extent of the data entry backlogs. Upper levels of Social Security management appear to be trying hard to ignore the problem.

McCrery And Rangel Working On Something

Some excerpts from a CNNMoney.com article:

Charlie Rangel [Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee] and Jim McCrery [Ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee and former Chairman of its Subcommittee on Social Security] are on a mission to rescue Social Security from bankruptcy. ...

Neither man is willing to disclose details on those options [that they are working on]. ... "It's been very quiet and it's going to stay that way," McCrery says of the proposals they are discussing.

One thing that is clear: the Bush White House will not play a big role, if any, in this effort. "McCrery and I know that we don't need the President to revive Social Security reform," Rangel says, pointedly. "The President is locked into private accounts and that ain't gonna fly," says Rangel. "[Reform] is going cost a trillion dollars; it's a political problem we have. You can have all the bipartisan cooperation you want, but if you don't find someone who's going to pay for it, you're not going to do it."

An Image From 1963