SSI Stats

The Social Security Administration has released monthly statistics on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for December 2007.

Customer Service In Vero Beach

A letter to the editor of the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches newspapers of Florida:

As a citizen, I wish to register a complaint. If the U.S. government can police the world by keeping troops all over it, it should be able to have more than one window in the local Social Security office.

I received two letters from the Social Security Administration concerning a reduction of my 2008 benefits. I wanted an explanation because these letters were very unclear, like most bureaucratic letters tend to be.

So, I went down to the Vero Beach office and was shocked to find out there was only one worker and one window to service everyone in town. I was asked to take a ball with a number on it from some uninformed worker at the entrance and to wait my turn. The room was full of people and I was not willing to wait that long for a few simple questions. I even went down a second time and had the exact same experience as before.

I heard that Vero Beach had more Social Security checks sent to it per capita than any other place in the United States. So exactly why would there be only one person to service such an area that would have a high demand for help from the local Social Security office?

As a person I have better things to do with my time than sit around a Social Security office waiting to be served. It is a shame that we waste so much money on things that aren’t important in this country instead of spending money on really helping out our taxpaying citizens. 

Edward R. McHenry Jr. 

Vero Beach 

The Vero Beach metropolitan area has a population of 130,100 according to Wikipedia.

Port Huron Field Office Moves To Bigger Quarters

While some Social Security offices close, others move to bigger quarters. From the Times Herald of Port Huron, MI:

After spending more than five decades in a cramped office at the federal building in Port Huron, the Social Security office is moving.

Starting Monday, the Social Security Administration will be at 2620 Krafft Road in Fort Gratiot. ..

The office at the federal building is 8,000 square feet compared to the 12,000 square feet available at the new building.

Stepping Stones Manual

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Center for Mental Health Services of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has written a 202 page manual entitled Stepping Stones to Recovery: A Case Manual for Assisting Adults Who Are Homeless With Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income Applications.

While it is a good manual, it does miss the crucial issue of how Social Security deals with cases in which it is impossible to tell what part of a claimant's limitations is due to drug abuse or alcoholism and what part is due to other mental illness. This is a common problem when one is trying to help substance abusers, who are a high percentage of the homeless population.

Would This Do Anything To The Social Security Disability Programs?

There are many people who already believe that the Americans with Disabilities Act somehow made disabled people far more able to work, despite abundant proof that the Americans with Disabilities Act has been almost useless. Would an Americans with Disabilities Act with teeth change things for disabled Americans? Should it change things at Social Security? We may have to answer those questions before long. From the Kiplinger Letter:

Employers should brace for an expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing a bill that would broaden the reach of the ADA, the landmark 1990 federal law that prohibits discrimination against the disabled. Current law applies only to disabilities that "substantially limit a major life activity." Proposed legislation eliminates this qualifier, with the result that anyone with a physical or mental impairment would be covered. ...

Businesses can't count on a veto by President Bush to stop the measure. The original ADA was part of his father's legacy, and he may be reluctant to block an expansion. But the president, with backing from Senate Republicans, is likely to push for changes to make the legislation less onerous to employers. One possible compromise would include adding a list of diseases and conditions that would be covered by the ADA. It would not be an exhaustive list, but one designed to limit the scope of the bill.

Because of the short legislative calendar this election year, the bill may not make it through Congress in 2008. If it doesn't, it's a good bet for 2009. And if Democrats win the White House and expand their majorities in the House and Senate, the eventual bill will be tougher on employers than if Republicans can force a compromise this year.

SSA Role In Economic Stimulus?

From the McClatchy newspaper chain (emphasis added):

As Congress and the White House craft an economic stimulus package, there’s growing concern that it can’t be enacted and implemented quickly enough to forestall a recession. ...

The Internal Revenue Service has already begun processing 2007 tax returns, and it’s reprogramming its computers to comply with changes in tax law that Congress passed late last year, which means that the IRS probably couldn’t begin mailing any rebate checks before late spring. Short-term payroll tax holidays would be even harder for the IRS to process quickly. It would take the Social Security Administration, which has an outdated computer system, at least six weeks to begin distributing additional money to retirees. ...

The Social Security Administration sends out nearly 50 million checks per month, but its computer systems have needed updating for many years.

Nevertheless, Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael J. Astrue said supplement checks could be processed and distributed in about six weeks.

And what would processing economic stimulus checks do to ordinary workloads at Social Security?

Slashing The Backlog -- In Recons -- In Nevada

From the Reno Gazette-Journal:

Lisa Worobey likes to work.

Even as a brain condition from childhood continued to wreak a serious physical toll on her body, the 39-year-old Reno resident still managed to work regularly through the years. “I didn’t want to be on disability,” Worobey said. “I wanted to work just like everyone else.”

Everything changed, however, after Worobey fell in her last job and injured her femur. Already having several surgeries on her brain and spine, the latest resulted in several complications, including a staph infection. The pain eventually became so unbearable that Worobey decided to apply for disability. After being denied twice, Worobey was finally approved last December — a year and a half after she first applied. ...

“I just don’t understand why it takes so long,” Worobey said. “I sold my house, so I got a bit of money; but I quickly went through that. ...

The Bureau of Disability Adjudication in Carson City has undergone some key changes since a Reno Gazette-Journal article chronicled the agency’s problems in 2006.

Nationally, the Social Security Administration launched a couple of initiatives to help states speed up the disability application process, said Lowell Kepke, Social Security spokesperson for the San Francisco office.

One is hiring more administrative law judges nationwide to hear appeals. Another is a program called Quick Disability Determination, which was officially implemented in Nevada last October. Quick Disability uses software that screens applications based on key health criteria to speed up identification of severe disability cases.

The biggest change was the lifting of a freeze on reviews in the Carson City bureau of cases under appeal. The freeze was initially ordered as a way to ease workload pressure on overstretched staff and allow them to focus on reviewing new applications, said Kraig Schutte, chief of the Bureau of Disability Adjudication. . But the move led to a backlog of nearly 5,000 cases in the appeal stage — 2,800 of which involved “reconsiderations” or the first level of appeal and 2,149 for cases under continued review.

“We found that we were essentially 13 months behind in processing cases (on appeal), during the backlog,” Schutte said. “It had a major impact.”

The freeze was eliminated in September 2006, plus the bureau got assistance from the Social Security Administration to clear the backlog of appeals, Schutte said. As of last week, the bureau has trimmed its backlog for reconsiderations to 146 cases. The backlog for cases under continued disability review saw a similar significant drop to 152. Social Security also lifted a hiring freeze that was causing vacant positions to accumulate at the bureau. This bumped up staffing from 37 to 45, Schutte said.

Spiking

I received this e-mail from a former benefits authorizer. I thought it would be of general interest, so I am posting it here, with Mr. Herling's permission:

As a Social Security employee who retired after working for the agency for almost 29 years, mainly as a benefit authorizer, I would like to make an observation regarding the processing of disability benefits.

After the agonizingly lengthy procedure involved in approving disability claims (even if they are not denied), the final product, a disability award, must be processed by a benefit authorizer before benefit checks can go out. It is at the point that the Social Security Administration plays a final cruel joke on many successful disability applicants. To wit: the authorization process is delayed, unnecessarily in my opinion, because benefit authorizers, who are the only ones who can perform the benefit authorization function, are frequently forbidden to perform this function for long periods of each work week. Instead, the B.A.'s [Benefit Authorizers] are forced to "spike," i.e., answer phone calls from the public, the majority which deal with SSI eligibility and payments, which have nothing to do with Social Security. In effect, B.A.'s are being forced to act as babysitters instead of being allowed to perform the job for which they and they alone have been professionally trained. I think you will agree that this situation is a grave disservice to both the disability claimants and the B.A.'s who should be authorizing their claims.

I would appreciate it if you would make this administration policy known to your readers and to the general public. Only a public outcry could put pressure on Congress and on the Administration to do away with or at least modify drastically the Administration's pernicious and wasteful "SPIKE" policy.

John Herling
Mineola, NY

My impression is that the BAs do not do such a great job at answering the phone either, since that is not the job they were trained for.