How Do You Square This?

Quotes from Michael Astrue's September 13, 2007 letter to Senator Tom Harkin, the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that deals with Social Security's budget:

This is America and it simply is not acceptable for Americans to wait years for a final decision on a claim. ...

In FY [fiscal year] 2009, we fully expect that the number of disability hearings pending will decrease. SSA's most optimistic projections are that the number of hearings pending will be reduced dramatically by FY 2013 under my plan ...

Hiring additional ALJs is an essential element in a successful plan for reducing the backlog. ...

What SSA will accomplish in FY 2008 is to build a firm foundation with automation improvements, ALJ hiring, and other initiatives described here, so that dramatic improvements will be achieved in FY 2009 -- a real turning of the tide. ...

However, Nancy Shor, executive director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) reports that while Social Security hopes to bring in 150 new ALJs in FY 2008, the agency only plans to bring in 125 new ALJs in FY 2009. This total of 275 new ALJs in two years is little more than enough to cover predictable attrition in Social Security's ALJ corps between now and September 30, 2009. It is unlikely to be enough to get Social Security up to 1,250 ALJs, the number that Michael Astrue has said the agency needs -- and I think that all who are familiar with the situation would agree that it will take far more than 1,250 ALJs to accomplish "a real turning of the tide."

There is an inconsistency between the soaring words in Astrue's letter and the sad reality that he is unwilling to ask for a high enough budget to achieve his goals. His rosy scenario is based upon absurdly optimistic assumptions about productivity gains. Astrue's predecessor may have been foolish or self-deluded enough that she really believed that her plan would achieve miracles. No one believes that Michael Astrue is foolish or self-deluded. I cannot square his words and his actions.

Fireworks At AALJ Meeting With Astrue

The ALJ Improvement Board includes the text of a newsletter from the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ), which is a union which represents Social Security's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The newsletter summarizes a meeting on October 10 between the head of the AALJ and Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue and other top Social Security officials. To put it mildly, it was not a friendly meeting.

As I have said about another recent situation involving ALJs, this is painful to watch. Instant karma?

Read the newsletter while you can. I doubt that it will stay up long.

Social Security News Readers

Click on the map shown above to see where Social Security News readers reside. Not all hits on this blog are shown on the map, just the bigger concentrations. The large "(not set)" location is because Social Security's network was not allowing the relaying geographic locations for a time. I believe that problem has been resolved.

This Is Doable

The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee can do little directly about the Social Security Administration's staff shortages and huge backlogs. This problem can be addressed directly only by increased appropriations and those committees do not control appropriations. These committees could report out legislation that demands that the Social Security Administration meet certain service delivery criteria, but any legislation they report out of committee must comply with Congressional "pay-go" rules which require that any legislation that would cost money must also provide a means to pay for those costs. If the Social Security Administration is ordered by legislation to provide better service, Congress has to cut something else or raise taxes to pay for it and that is much harder to do.

Let me suggest something that would not cost a dime. Require the Commissioner of Social Security to file with Congress every year a budget request that sets forth the amounts of money the agency needs to meet certain specified service delivery criteria. This does not cost a thing because it does not require that any monies be appropriated. It merely allows the Congress and the American people to know how much it would cost to run the Social Security Administration as it should be run. Social Security Commissioners would no longer be able to get away with piously declaring their commitment to good service while proposing budgets that make service ever worse at the Social Security Administration. The Congress and the White House could then decide how much to actually appropriate, without illusions about the effects of their appropriations.

At the moment, no one knows how much it would cost to achieve satisfactory service at Social Security. The White House's budget for Social Security in recent years would not have come close to achieving this goal (despite what Michael Astrue has been repeating at every turn) and the Congress under Republican leadership appropriated far less than the White House asked for. The current Commissioner of Social Security seems unwilling to ask for anything more than the White House is willing to recommend for his agency and the White House is uninterested in providing enough money to address the problem. The Democratically controlled Congress does not even know what the agency needs.

Let me suggest a few service criteria that should be assured in any budget proposal that the Commissioner of Social Security presents to Congress, but this is just for starters. There should be other criteria.

1. Have sufficient telephone lines for both Social Security's 800 number and field offices that less than 5% of callers to either receive a busy signal.
   
2. Have a human answer 90% of telephone calls to Social Security's 800 number within four rings.
3. Have a human answer 60% of all telephone calls to Social Security's field offices within four rings by the end of the first fiscal year for which a budget proposal is prepared after this legislation is enacted and then increase this by 10% a year until it reaches 90%. [Why only 60%? Because they currently can only answer about 50% and many of those are only after dozens of rings.]
   
4. Retain at least the same number of Social Security field offices as currently (although some individual offices will need to be closed and some new offices opened because of population shifts) but increase the number of field offices in proportion to the rise of the population of the United States.
5. Hold all Social Security Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings within 800 days after a request for hearing and then reduce this time limit by 100 days per year until it is 200 days.

Poll -- Off Topic

With thanks to Daily Kos for the idea

Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com

An Image From 1939

Offices To Close Early In Buffalo Area

From the Buffalo News:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, is criticizing the Social Security Administration for proposing a pilot project that, beginning in March, would close the agency’s Buffalo area offices to the public three hours early every Wednesday afternoon.

The agency says the program is under consideration as a possible way for office workers to catch up on the mounting backlog of work — growing larger with baby boomers beginning to sign up for retirement benefits and call volume threatening to surpass staffing limitations.

“I understand concerns about having insufficient staff to adequately handle the agency’s current workload, but I assure you that limiting access to the public will not solve that problem and will only create further backlogs, confusion and dissatisfaction among the members of the public whom your agency serves,” Reynolds said in a letter to Michael J. Astrue, Social Security commissioner.

Reynolds said the plan could backfire and adversely affect senior citizens and disabled people.

The Empire State News reports that Social Security will not go ahead with the reduction in offce hours -- until March.

Testimony On SSI Computation Issues

Below are some excerpts from testimony of David Rust, Social Security's Acting Deputy Commissioner for Disability and Income Security Programs before the Subcommittees on Select Revenue Measures and Income and Family Support on October 17.

... this provision would treat most military compensation as wages for SSI, and codify SSA's policy of treating certain housing allowances as “in-kind” income. We believe this legislation is very important. ...

Under current SSI law, generally only basic pay is counted as earned income. All other allowances – housing, uniform, special duty pay, and so on – are counted as unearned income. Because of SSI's provisions supporting beneficiary efforts to work, earned income is treated differently than unearned income in determining benefit eligibility and payment level. ...

This distinction between consideration of military basic pay and other pay types has had the effect of disadvantaging military personnel compared to civilians in similar situations....

The proposal contained in the HEART bill would result in treating most cash military compensation and civilian wages alike (for SSI purposes), thus eliminating this present unfair treatment of military compensation other than basic pay. ...

Turning to the second proposal, we also support legislation that would exclude the AmeriCorps State and National and AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps program payments for purposes of determining SSI eligibility and benefit amounts. ...

... the third proposal to exclude State annuity payments to blind veterans from income consideration for SSI benefits, could serve as a means to recognize that sacrifice. An exclusion of State annuity payments for veterans who, by definition, are blind and also of limited means, may be reasonable and appropriate.