Work Incentives Touted

Some excerpts from the Contra Costa Times:

Oakland resident Bernadette Nicholson was a law student when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1972. Despite her growing incapacity, she pursued a career in law until she could no longer work. Last year, she launched Write Touch, a greeting card publisher, from her home. ...

She jumped in without a net. She was willing to take the gamble without knowing -- as so many others are also unaware -- that the Social Security Administration has programs to help people with disabilities transition into self-employment without risking benefits and insurance. ...

Plan for Achieving Self-Support, PASS, is a federal program allowing recipients of SSI and SSDI to set aside money to achieve certain work goals. Under SSI, any outside income reduces your benefit. But if you qualify for PASS, Social Security will not count that new income against your monthly benefit.

My experience is that PASS is almost worthless because of multiple restrictions on how it can be used and because Social Security cannot make PASS decisions on a timely basis. Social Security employees seem almost rightened of approving a PASS application. There seems to be much sentiment at Social Security that if you can even think about working, you should not be on Social Security disability benefits and any statutes or regulations suggesting otherwise must be interpreted against the claimant or ignored.

Results Of Last Week's Unscientific Poll

New "no-match" rules require that employers must fire workers when they are unable to resolve discrepancies between the name under which they have been working and the Social Security number under which they have been working. What effect do you expect this change to have upon Social Security field office workloads?

Little effect (4)	8%
Mild increase (3)	6%
Moderate increase (7)	14%
Significant increase (20)	39%
Dramatic increase (17)	33%

Total Votes: 51

Rochester Democrat And Chronicle On Backlogs

From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

John Johnson left the U.S. Army with such physical and mental scars, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs rated him 100 percent disabled in 2003.

But it took nearly four years for the Persian Gulf War veteran from Rochester to win approval for and finally receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. ...

"The process is horrifying," said Johnson, whose SSDI benefits started last month. ...

As of the end of July, 14,707 cases were waiting for an appeals hearing at the Buffalo office. Close to 8,000 had been pending for more than a year. There are currently 13 judges working out of the Buffalo office. Social Security Administration spokesman John Shallman says that an additional administrative law judge should be added there in October.

Backlogs In Kansas

Some excerpts from the Lawrence Journal-World:

While waiting for his Social Security disability claim to be processed, Mark Reser’s children went without Christmas.

Debra Shirar — a one-time homeowner — has whittled her belongings down to $200 worth of clothes, family photos and a few pieces of antique furniture. She moved in with a friend. ...

Judge Frank Cristaudo, SSA chief administrative law judge, says the agency knows the backlogs are a problem.

“We are not satisfied with how long it does take to issue a hearing decision, but it is based on the fact that we just don’t have enough judges and staff to handle the receipts we have received over the last number of years,” Cristaudo said. ...

Kansas had an accuracy rate that was greater than 95 percent in dealing with the initial claims.

“On the front end, we do really well,” SRS spokeswoman Abbie Hodgson said.

Cleveland Plain Dealer On Social Security Backlogs

Some excerpts from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Even with a $2 trillion trust fund for its budget, the Social Security Administration is in serious jeopardy, facing increasing backlogs as it processes more claims with fewer employees.

Richard Warsinskey, manager of the administration's Cleveland office, says he is as frustrated as those who wait for hours in an office or get a recording when they call for help with retirement benefits, survivor or disability benefits or Supplemental Security Income.

"We are really concerned for the public," Warsinskey said during a recent interview with The Plain Dealer. "We want them to get good service, the right amount of money and not wait so long. People are dying before disability decisions are made." ...

What's the biggest concern?

Disability claims take more than half our resources. But we will see a growth in retirement next year as the first of baby boomers turn 62 and are in their first year of eligibility.

Why the backlog in disability claims?

About 90,000 more people have filed each of the last five years. Budget cuts have led to the lowest field office staffing level since the early 1970s. ...

What could further overwhelm your staff?

We are concerned about proposed immigration rules. Currently when someone is hired, their information is sent to Social Security and we check the Social Security number. If it doesn't match, we send it back to the employer. They weren't obligated to do anything but may be required to send the employee to SSA to straighten it out.

Bismark And Social Security Backlogs

KFVR-TV, located in a city named after the German Chancellor, is running a story on current Social Security backlogs. If this story has reached Bismark, North Dakota, it is truly a national story.

I cannot help recalling a little history. The true father of Social Security is not Franklin Roosevelt but Otto von Bismark. (Take a look at some history about Bismark and Social Security.) By the time Social Security reached the United States, Social Security had already been in effect in Germany for 46 years.

Conservatives who predict that Social Security will soon run out of money may consider why Bismark, no liberal, is the true father of Social Security and how Social Security has managed to last 118 years in Germany despite German losses in two World Wars, an incredible episode of hyperinflation between the two World Wars, the Cold War and the eventual reunification of Germany.

No Match Letters May Not Curb Illegal Immigration

From MercuryNews.com:

A week after unveiling a major crackdown on businesses that hire illegal immigrants, the Bush administration is now conceding that its most heavily touted weapon in pursuing employers - an assault against Social Security fraud - will be nearly useless.

That's because when the Social Security Administration warns employers about bogus identification numbers, it remains barred from also alerting the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that's supposed to hand out penalties.

In addition, federal promises to hold companies responsible for hiring illegal immigrants could potentially be stymied by several other issues: Employers are still not required to check a new employee's Social Security number against a free federal database, there could be long gaps between when an employee is hired to when the warnings are issued each year, and there is no way to follow up on employees who have been fired. In many cases, illegal workers could still hop from job to job without being caught.

The only way the government can punish an employer - with fines or criminal charges - is if someone first tips them off about potential fraud and then, during the course of the investigation, authorities discover evidence that Social Security warnings have been ignore.

An Image From 1956