Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

The House Social Security Subcommittee has announced an oversight hearing to be held on April 28 to review Social Security's progress in implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that gave the agency new funding to work down its backlogs and build a new national computer center and gave the agency new responsibilities in implementing a special $250 payment to most beneficiaries.

Is This Worth The Money?

Today's Federal Register contains an announcement that Social Security is planning to form a Financial Literacy Research Consortium (FLRC) with the idea of encouraging saving for retirement. According to the announcement:

The Financial Literacy Research Consortium (FLRC) will be an innovative, non-partisan multidisciplinary research and development (R&D)initiative to develop products to better inform the public about key financial literacy topics related to retirement savings and planning. We are interested in developing products--such as Internet tools as well as print materials--that help foster retirement and other savings strategies at all stages of the life cycle.

Encouraging people to save for retirement is certainly a good thing. However, I see little hope that the Social Security Administration can do anything to significantly encourage saving. This seems like a waste of money at a time when Social Security's budget is so tight that the agency has enormous backlogs and cannot answer its telephones. It is also a distraction from Social Security's core mission. This sounds like a Congressional earmark. Is it?

How To Spend $250?

The Social Security Administration now has a webpage that asks recipients of the $250 economic stimulus payments how they plan to spend the money. The agency plans to post some of the responses.

What Can I Say?

From the Greenwood (MS) Commonwealth(emphasis added):

Joseph Simpson Jr. walks with the pained shuffle of a man much older than his 53 years.

The lifelong McCarley resident has diabetes, anemia, high blood pressure, bad sinus problems and an unknown ailment that causes him pain both when he sits and stands.

What Simpson doesn’t have is health insurance or Social Security disability, even though he is qualified based on his 33 years of uninterrupted work.

The problem, according to his uncle, James Dukes of Carroll County, is Simpson didn’t pursue applying for disability like he should have when he quit being able to work in May 2007.

“He should have followed up, and he didn’t follow up,” Dukes said. “Social Security disability didn’t drop the ball. Junior dropped the ball.” ...

Simpson applied for disability before getting a diagnosis, though. When he was turned down, he hired a lawyer whose commercial he had seen on television.

That decision has been the source of most of his troubles, according to Dukes. They have never been able to speak with the attorney personally, and his secretary tells them the lawyer will do nothing until 20 days before a disability hearing date. Social Security has yet to schedule Simpson. ...

Last week, he let his attorney go and gave Dukes the ability to represent him.

Lockheed Martin And Social Security

From the Baltimore Sun:

Lockheed Martin, one of Baltimore County's larger employers, officially opened its sixth facility Monday in Woodlawn and announced plans to add 160 information technology jobs to a work force that exceeds 1,500.

The company's Information Systems & Global Services division has refurbished and rewired a nearly 42,000-square-foot brick building on Woodlawn Drive near the Social Security Administration complex. In the past year, the company has hired about 200 employees in its efforts to provide a wide variety of services to SSA, which is continuing modernization efforts.

The proximity of the service provider to its federal customer reflects a partnership fostered during the past two decades, William S. Gray, deputy commissioner for systems at SSA, said at Monday's ribbon-cutting ceremony. ...

"We have to have the best Web site in government and a seamless serving architect that makes sure the system is up and available continually," he told the crowd of about 100 officials and company employees. "Lockheed Martin has provided sound expertise and counseled us on how to improve."

Biden On Social Security

From the Pittsburg Tribune-Review:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced last month that Social Security beneficiaries will get one-time $250 stimulus bonus payments beginning in May.

He didn't mention that he will be one of the recipients.

The annual tax returns for Biden and his wife, Jill, released last week, show he began collecting Social Security benefits in 2008. He became eligible for full benefits in November when he reached age 66. ...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who is a year older than Biden, did not list any Social Security income on his final financial disclosure statement filed a year ago.

NADE Newsletter: Denials Are Less Accurate Than Allowances And The Meaning Of Relevance

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of the people who make initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims, has issued its Spring 2009 Newsletter. It is not surprising that much of the newsletter is devoted to the furloughs hitting many NADE members, who are almost all state employees, but there are other interesting things discussed.

Here are a couple of excerpts from an article about a meeting between NADE officials and Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue:

SSA is continuing to explore the possibility of expanding the Single Decision-Maker (SDM) model and expanding the list of conditions to be included in the Compassionate Allowances (CAL) initiative. However the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is not considering any new regulations until the economic problems have been addressed ...

NADE also renewed its call for a reduction in the 15 year vocationally relevant time period to 5 years. The Commissioner reported that the Agency was seriously considering this proposal and Associate Commissioner Glenn Sklar reported he had formed a workgroup to examine this proposal and that he expected a reduction would be forthcoming. While it may not be 5 years, it would be considerably less than the current 15 years. [Apparently, they are thinking about ten years. See below.]

Here is a little nugget from an article about a meeting between the NADE Board of Directors and Kelly Croft, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Quality Performance:

The Office of Quality Performance has changed the pull [of disability determinations made at the initial and reconsideration levels by NADE members] for Pre-Effectuation Review (PER) cases to one that is more of an integrity review. ...

40,000 denials will be reviewed at random (with probably more reconsiderations being reviewed). Denial case accuracy runs 90-91%. Allowance accuracy rates are 97-98%.

Social Security agrees that initial and reconsideration allowances are much more accurate than denials. A lot of people who represent claimants have been saying that for years.

This article also says that "An Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel is in place and conducting a study to change the time frame for past relevant work (PRW) from 15 years to 10 years." I did not know that the definition of past relevant work was part of that group's charter. The article quoted above indicates that Glenn Sklar is forming a workgroup to study the issue. Sklar's workgroup and the Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel's study on this issue may be the same thing.

While the issue of how far back past work may be considered relevant is heating up, it has been under study for years and may remain under study for many more years. The issue needs little study. The problem is that reducing this time period to five years would cost money -- probably not much, but some. It would be fairer, but when fairness in disability determination collides with budget considerations, the budget almost always wins.

Think about it. If you last worked at a job 14 years ago, do you think you could pick back up on that job and be able to perform it again without additional training? The answer is obviously "no" and the answer would be the same even if you reduced the time period to ten years or even seven. Resuming an old job without additional training after even five years could be a stretch. This may sound boring and technical but claimants are being denied based upon a policy that, as best I can tell, no one is willing to defend.

How Independent Is The Social Security Commissioner?

Michael Astrue was the keynote speaker at a TechAmerica meeting on March 3, 2009. TechAmerica is apparently a trade industry group. A video of the 50 minute presentation is available online.

The most interesting thing that I learned from watching this is that last fall Astrue won a longstanding battle with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Because of his victory he was finally able to tell Congress that his agency needed a new national computer center.

Some questions come to mind:

• Why would Astrue need OMB permission to tell Congress that Social Security needs a new national computer center? The Commissioner of Social Security is not only allowed, but required, by statute to give Congress his or her own budget for the agency. The statute contemplates that the Commissioner of Social Security will have more independence than Astrue is able or willing to exercise.
• When he was interviewed by the White House before being nominated to become Social Security Commissioner did Astrue make a promise to the Bush Administration that he would not exercise any budgetary independence? Does he still feel bound by such promises?
  
• Is Astrue such a team player that he cannot imagine not getting the approval of the White House before telling Congress what Social Security needs?
• Does OMB have so much power that Astrue feels that it would be suicidal for him to exercise the budgetary independence given him by statute?
• Could it be that Michael Astrue would love to tell Congress and the American people how many employees his agency needs to properly do its work, but he is waiting for OMB permission?
• If Social Security Commissioners have as little independence as Astrue is saying, why are we pretending that Social Security is an independent agency?