NCSSMA Newsletter

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, has issued its April 2008 Newsletter. Here is a small excerpt written by a teleservice center manager, with my comments and explanations in brackets:

The TSCs [Teleservice Centers] are wrapping up their Peak Period , our busiest time of the year [the first few months of each calendar year are always the toughest for several reason, such as the release of SSA-1099s]. In fact the first six months of this Fiscal Year were very busy for the 800 Number. Through February 2008 the Average Speed of Answer was 50 seconds over the same period last year [that is a very big jump in the length of time it takes them to answer the phone --and that is a bad thing]. The Agency is somewhat concerned that we may not meet the goal of 330 seconds this year [the goal is answering the phone in five and a half minutes -- and they don't think they can meet it -- and that's just the average, which means it's a lot worse at times]. Average Busy Rate has begun to improve and we are on track to meet this year’s goal of 10% [10% busy rate is their goal. How many businesses shoot for a 10% busy rate? How many callers get frustrated and hang up after being on hold for several minutes?]. As of February, Handle Time, the total time it takes an agent to handle a call, is 15 seconds higher than the same period last year [Not a good sign. The calls are taking longer because they're getting more complicated]. It appears this trend has peaked and handle time is beginning to come down. The Agency greatly reduced SPIKE hours [the time that payment center employees are taken off the regular jobs of putting people on benefits and put to work answering the phone, which delays people getting put on the benefits for which they've been approved] this fiscal year. This means more time processing Payment Center workloads. We all enjoy the benefits of less SPIKE hours! There is good news - TSCs have hired many TSRs [Teleservice Representatives], bringing staffing levels closer to the FTE [Full Time Equivalent] floor. We probably won’t see the effects of these hires until next fiscal year as it takes time for training and for a new TSR to become proficient.

I suppose some wonder why I link to this sort of thing. This newsletter was not written to embarrass the Social Security Administration. These are just people talking about their work. Read this sort of thing and the day to day problems that Social Security employees and Social Security claimants have to face become clear. How would you like to be a Social Security employee having to deal with a confused, mentally ill claimant who had to call the 800 number a couple of times before getting through and then had to wait more than five minutes before talking with someone? How would you like to do this all day, every working day? Could you deliver high quality service? Is it the sort of service that taxpayers deserve?

Haven't Noticed Much Of This At SSA

From the Washington Post:

Joseph Wassmann thought he had a secure position producing videos for the U.S. Military Academy, but not long ago he found his job on the line because of a Bush administration plan to inject more efficiency into the federal bureaucracy.

Wassmann, 40, was among a group of information management employees at West Point who had to prove that they could do their jobs better and more cheaply than a private contractor. If they could not, they were told, the work would be outsourced. It was all part of President Bush's government-wide plan to reduce costs by inviting contractors to bid on about 425,000 federal jobs that could be considered "commercial" in nature.

The West Point competition dragged on for more than two years. In the end, Wassmann and most of his co-workers won, but only by agreeing to downsize from 119 employees to 88. And the mood has never been worse, he said. ...

The public-private face-off at West Point illustrates just what Bush envisioned when he proposed the "competitive sourcing" initiative in 2001 as part of his management agenda. It turned on a simple idea: Force federal employees to compete for their jobs against private contractors and costs will decrease, even if the work ultimately stays in-house.

But as Bush's presidency winds down, the program's critics say it has had disappointing results and shaken morale among the federal government's 1.8 million civil servants.

Private contractors have grown increasingly reluctant to participate in the competitions, which federal employees have won 83 percent of the time.

The article says that 210 Social Security employees' jobs were threatened in this way and that 84% of those employees kept their jobs. It makes you wonder why Social Security brass seem convinced that they can get much better productivity out of their employees when private enterprise seem unwilling to compete with the productivity that Social Security is already getting from those employees.

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.