Oregon Congressman On Wednesday's Hearing

This Wednesday's House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Social Security's budget and backlog problems did not garner much media attention, but not for lack of effort by members of the Committee. Here are some excerpts from a press release from Congressman Earl Blumenauer:

“Our nation is facing a serious problem with Social Security,” said Congressman Blumenauer. “In Oregon, where the Portland field office ranks among the worst in the nation, people are waiting an average of 705 days for their claims to be processed. ...

Due to the combination of rising claims as the baby boom generation ages and prolonged underfunding, Social Security and SSI disability claims backlogs have reached unprecedented levels. The Portland field office ranks 131 out of 145 field offices, and the wait time is 705 days for a claim to be processed.

New ALJ Jobs To Be Filled

According to posts on the ALJ Discussion Forum, the Office of Personnel Management has certified additional names of applicants for the position of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) at Social Security. These folks may be considered for the second round of ALJ hiring. The following is the list of locations for which ALJs will be hired (with the number of Social Security's region given first):

• 03 Charleston, WV
• 03 Harrisburg, PA
• 03 Pittsburgh, PA
• 03 Richmond, VA
• 04 Atlanta, GA
• 04 Charlotte, NC
• 04 Fort Lauderdale, FL
• 04 Greenville, SC
• 04 Jackson, MS
• 04 Jacksonville, FL
• 04 Lexington, KY
• 04 Louisville, KY
• 04 Memphis, TN
• 04 Miami, FL
• 04 Montgomery, AL
• 04 Nashville, TN
• 04 Orlando, FL
• 04 Paducah, KY
• 04 Raleigh, NC
• 05 Cincinnati, OH
• 05 Fort Wayne, IN
• 06 Albuquerque, NM
• 06 Alexandria, LA
• 06 Dallas (DT), TX
• 06 McAlester, OK
• 06 New Orleans, LA
• 07 St. Louis, MO

Oregon Public Radio On Wednesday's Hearing

Oregon Public Radio is running a piece on Wednesday's House Ways and Means Committee hearing. Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer described the hearing as "one of the most depressing days" he has had in Congress and said the situation is a "national scandal." You can hear the broadcast online.

New Cancer Listings Proposed

New proposed Listings for Malignant Neoplastic Diseases, otherwise known as cancer, will appear in the Federal Register on Monday. You can read it today, however. At first glance, I do not detect anything startling.

McCain On Disability

From the Drudge Retort (this is the anti-Drudge site):

Sen. John McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff Monday termed a "disability pension" from the Navy. When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return. On Monday, McCain's staff identified the retirement benefit as a "disability pension" and said that McCain "was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW."

McCain, as I expect most people know, is also drawing his Social Security retirement benefits, since he is well above full retirement age.

Editorial On No-Match Rules

From Tyler Moran of New America Media(emphasis added):

On March 26, 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed rule that attempts to turn a Social Security Administration (SSA) benefits program into an immigration enforcement tool. If implemented, the rule will result in tens of thousands of lawful immigrant workers and U.S. citizens losing their jobs and the loss of at least $1 billion dollars to businesses each year.

Each year, SSA sends “no-match letters” to workers and employers when the names or Social Security numbers (SSNs) listed in an employer’s records do not match SSA’s records. ...

The Bush Administration wants to use these letters as evidence that employers knowingly hired undocumented workers. The DHS rule states that if workers named in the letter are unable to correct their Social Security records within a 90-day period, the employer must fire them or risk being prosecuted for violating immigration laws.

The problem is that the letters make no statement regarding a worker’s immigration status. SSA databases that generate no-match letters do not even contain complete or accurate information about workers’ immigration status. And, of the 17.8 million discrepancies in the SSA database that could result in a no-match letter, 12.7 million (or over 70 percent) pertain to native-born U.S. citizens.

There are many reasons why a worker might receive an SSA no-match letter, including errors in SSA’s database, clerical errors made by the employer or worker in completing paperwork after being hired, the fact that the worker might have used a different name convention (such as a hyphenated name or multiple surnames) when applying for a Social Security card than he or she did when applying for a job, and name changes due to marriage, divorce, or when a worker became a naturalized citizen.

If the rule is implemented, tens of thousands of workers will be fired and businesses will lose at least $1 billion dollars per year. In its economic analysis of the proposed rule for DHS, Econometrica, Inc., estimated that up to 3.9 million employment authorized and U.S. citizen workers will receive no-match letters and need to physically go to an SSA office to correct their records. Of those, up to 70,781 workers will be fired because of their inability to resolve the discrepancy within the specified time period in the proposed rule. ...

The deadline for comments on the proposed rule is April 25, 2008.

I cannot imagine what will happen if a tsunami of almost four million Americans descend upon Social Security offices in a short period of time demanding to correct their records so they can keep their jobs. It is almost inconceivable.

I do not understand why Michael Astrue is not sending out press releases containing stark warnings. Actually, I can guess why he is saying little. He wants to be a loyal member of the Bush Administration and he expects that a court will enjoin this insanity.

If these no-match rules come to pass, will Astrue be called upon to explain why he did not speak up loudly and clearly to say that his agency was unprepared? It is not as if this is hard to foresee. Even those in the most isolated, out of touch, upper reaches of Social Security have to know that no-match will be a disaster for the agency.

OMB Having Problems With Final Regs On Ticket To Work

All federal agencies must submit any regulations they wish to propose or to finally adopt to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House, for approval before publishing them in the Federal Register. Usually, OMB approves Social Security regulatory filings in a few weeks at the most.

On February 11, 2008 Social Security submitted to OMB proposed final regulations that would change the Ticket to Work program. The proposal is still at OMB awaiting disposition after two and a half months. That is rather long for a Social Security regulatory proposal to remain pending. The delay suggests that OMB is having some problem with the proposed regulations. I have no idea what the problem is. It could nothing more than a small disagreement over the computation of whatever budget effect the regulations might have or it could be a more serious policy disagreement, but there is some sticking point or these regulations would have been out quite some time ago.

Court Rules For Blind Claimants

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

[A] federal judge in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that the Social Security Administration must accommodate the needs of blind recipients of benefits when announcing decisions that affect them.

Under the Social Security Act, the agency sends certified letters, makes follow-up phone calls, or takes other steps to communicate decisions to those who are receiving benefits solely because of their blindness, but does not accommodate visually impaired people who get Social Security because of their age or other reasons.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the agency is also covered by an anti-discrimination law that requires the federal government to provide access to disabled people in all federally funded programs, including audio recordings, Braille and other aids for the blind.

Alsup gave the Social Security Administration the option of adopting regulations on visual aids or allowing the changes to be determined in further proceedings in a suit filed by the American Council of the Blind and eight individuals.