Marianna LaCanfora At NOSSCR Conference

Marianna LaCanfora, the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Retirement and Disability Programs, spoke today at the conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) in Miami Beach. I will attempt to summarize only those things she said that seemed new to me and add a few comments in brackets and italicized.

• Social Security expects a 40% increase in retirement claims and a 10% increase in disability claims over the next ten years.
• In the next year or so, the "principal representative" (a term which she did not define) would be able to file claims for their clients as well as form 1696 online. The "principal representative" would be able to file form 1695 online and get a receipt. She hopes that this will become not only possible, but mandatory -- for represented claimants.
  
• Beginning in September 2008 Social Security will begin testing online attorney access to Social Security e-files. She hopes to make this generally available by early 2009. [Early 2009? I will believe it when I see it.]
  
• She wishes to introduce an automated system by which medical records are obtained automatically before claims files ever reach Disability Determination agencies for adjudication. A Harvard professor has convinced her that this is possible. [Maybe for one Boston hospital, but it is pure fantasy to talk about this happening generally at any point in the reasonably foreseeable future.]
• She expects far more Listings to be published in 2009. [I think that she needs a reminder that there will be a new President next year and that all rulemaking will be dramatically delayed as a result. If the new President is named Obama, everything in the pipeline will get a very detailed, skeptical examination.]

Debit Cards Coming In Florida

From the Treasure Coast Palm newspaper:

The government's use of ATM debit cards for payments to citizens is to expanding to incorporate thousands of Social Security recipients in Florida. ...

Nationwide, about 60,000 Social Security checks are forged annually and 600,000 are reported stolen, officials said. Millions of dollars are involved.

So by August, the federal Department of the Treasury is planning to start offering debit cards to Social Security recipients who don't have bank accounts in Florida. The federal program could help many of the nearly 11,000 Treasure Coast Social Security recipients.

While no local figures are available, nationally about 28 percent of Social Security retirement recipients nationally don't have checking accounts. The percentage figure is much higher — 59 percent — among disabled and lower-income individuals getting Social Security supplemental payments.

New Central Office Digs Coming

From the Baltimore Business Journal -- and make sure to read to the end:

The U.S. Social Security Administration could soon be vacating its Metro West facility in downtown Baltimore for a new city headquarters, more than 18 months after it started looking for new space.

The federal General Services Administration, overseeing the search, said Wednesday it has narrowed its search to two sites in Baltimore City: 2600 Liberty Heights Ave.; and 6100 Wabash Ave. ...

The move would involve only a portion of Social Security's 300 N. Greene St. headquarters. ...

As the Baltimore Business Journal first reported Sept. 22, Social Security is planning to downsize to smaller space because of cutbacks in its workforce. ...

The agency once employed as many as 5,000 people, a number which has since fallen to under 2,000 people.

Criticism For Obama Plan

From Dow Jones:

Some Social Security experts - including Democrats and liberal economists - are wary of a proposal from presumptive Democratic nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to shore up the federal retirement program by raising taxes on the highest earners.

Obama has said he wants to raise limits on wages that are subject to the 12.4% federal Social Security tax. That is the only specific proposal in documents from the Obama campaign directed at helping make the Social Security program solvent over the long term.

Under current law, Social Security taxes are collected only on the first $102, 000 of an individual's income, indexed for inflation. Proposals to increase or eliminate that cap have been around for years, advanced mostly by Democrats who claim that the wage cap unfairly burdens lower and middle-class workers.

But some economists and politicians warn that lifting the cap jeopardizes a feature that has underpinned the success of the Social Security system since its inception in 1935 - the notion that one will ultimately benefit from the system in proportion to what one has paid into it.

"As someone who has contributed to Obama's campaign and will vote for him in November, I don't think that's one of his better proposals," said Henry Aaron, an economist at the Brookings Institution, of Obama's plan to lift the Social Security wage cap.

I can only guess that Aaron's preference is for cutting benefits or raising taxes on poorer people.

Fraud In Montana

From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

A 49-year-old Three Forks man illegally used his elderly mother’s Social Security benefits to buy tires, pay taxes and cover his restaurant and bar bills, while simultaneously neglecting his mother’s health and well being, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Pendelton Bernard Merriam pleaded guilty to Social Security fraud in Helena on Thursday, according to the U.S. attorney for the District of Montana. ...

Merriam applied to be his mother’s “representative payee,” and promised to use the Social Security payments for his mother’s current needs and save any “currently unneeded benefits for future use,” according to the government.

SSI Monthly Stats

The Social Security Administration has released its monthly package of statistics from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

An Instant Classic!

You HAVE to see this video issued by Transamerica!

Fraud Allegation In PA

From the Pittsburg Tribune-Review:

A federal grand jury in Pittsburgh has indicted a Fayette County man on a charge of Social Security fraud.

Shawn R. Johnson, 27, of Uniontown, is accused of failing to tell the Social Security Administration that he was hired by a Hopwood carpeting company and was receiving income that would have affected his continued rights to receive Supplemental Security Income benefits.

The indictment was handed down after an investigation by the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General.