NCSSMA Newsletter

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, has issued its April 2009 Newsletter. Among other things, the newsletter includes an interview with David Foster, the new Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR), and a piece written by a woman who went from working in Social Security field offices to working as a group supervisor at ODAR.

Not Likely To Happen Here

The National Post reports that a court in Ontario, Canada has held that a Canadian law that excludes alcoholics and drug addicts from receiving disability payments violates the provincial Human Rights Code.

Notices About $250 Payments Already Causing Confusion

The notices that Social Security has sent out about the $250 economic stimulus payments are already causing confusion. See the short piece in the Miami Herald. Telling people about the SSI consequences of holding onto the $250 payment for more than nine months may have been TMI (Too Much Information).

Results Of Last Week's Unscientific Poll

What Brings About Your Interest In Social Security News

I work at Social Security Central Offices (33)	16%
I Work In Social Security Field Operations (35)	17%
I Work In Some Other Part Of Social Security (36)	18%
I Am Involved In Representing Social Security Claimants (71)	35%
I Work At A Non-Profit Interested In Social Security (1)	0%
I Am Involved In Lobbying (0)	0%
I Work In A Congressional Office (2)	1%
I Work For Some Government Agency Other Than Social Security (5)	2%
I Work At A DDS (8)	4%
I Am A Social Security Claimant Or Recipient (14)	7%

Total Votes: 205

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.