The Greening Of Social Security

From the Social Security Update, a newsletter put out by the Social Security Administration:

...[Social Security's] eight-story Southeastern Program Service Center in Birmingham, Ala., boasts the largest green roof on any General Services Administration-leased building. The roof reduces the building's carbon footprint with oxygen-producing plants and vegetables. The building also features a raised floor system that provides better ventilation for improved air quality; a "natural light harvesting" system is designed to capture as much natural sunlight as possible; and accessible public transit allows more employees to use public transportation.

Most Popular Baby Names

Social Security has released its list of most popular names for babies over the last year:

Boys:	1) Jacob	Girls:	1) Emma
	2) Michael		2) Isabella
	3) Ethan		3) Emily
	4) Joshua		4) Madison
	5) Daniel		5) Ava
	6) Alexander		6) Olivia
	7) Anthony		7) Sophia
	8) William		8) Abigail
	9) Christopher		9) Elizabeth
	10) Matthew		10) Chloe

Chloe? And the press release says that Khloe is rising fast! I am feeling old and out of the loop.

Room For Debate?

Some excerpts from the Room for Debate blog at the New York Times:

From "The Editors":
The 2010 budget unveiled on Thursday by the Obama administration estimates that the government can generate huge savings if it devotes more resources to eliminating fraud, abuse and waste in Medicare, Medicaid and the Social Security disability insurance program. ...

In the Social Security program alone, the White House proposes to spend $4.3 billion over five years to fight fraud associated with disability claims — a problem, officials say, that stems from lack of oversight. Federal spending on disability insurance leaped 65 percent from 2001 to 2007, “yet the number of full medical reviews, one type of review for evaluating claims for eligibility for continuing disability payments, fell from 840,000 in 2001 to 190,000 in 2007, according to the Social Security Administration,” as The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

From Jennifer L. Erkulwater, an associate professor of political science at the University of Richmond, and the author of “Disability Rights and the American Social Safety Net”:

Before we go looking for miscreants cheating the disability programs, it is important to realize that the growth in the Supplemental Security Income and Disability Insurance programs is perfectly understandable given bipartisan policy changes made two decades ago and current limits on what the Social Security Administration can do to ferret out fraud.

Between 1984 and 1990, Congress and the S.S.A. loosened the disability requirements, especially for children and people suffering from mental disorders. The agency also agreed that it would no longer cut off recipients it thought were “no longer disabled” unless it could show that their medical condition had improved, something that is exceedingly difficult to do. As part of welfare reform in 1996, Republicans in Congress did manage to tighten disability standards somewhat.

From Gary Burtless, a former Labor Department economist who now works at the Brookings Institution:

The federal government can certainly reduce the disability rolls and the cost of the disability program by conducting more frequent and tough-minded reviews of recipients’ disability status. There will be collateral damage, however. The reviews will impose real hardship on some disabled workers whose cases are reviewed.

It makes sense to conduct the reviews, but it would be sensible to focus reviews on workers with medical conditions that are most likely to improve. Resources should also be concentrated in parts of the country where statistics suggest that error rates are highest.

From Morley White, an Administrative Law Judge in Cleveland:
... I do not believe that there is as much fraud as the press and the public believe ...

I have advocated for a long time that the government needs to have its own representative in these hearings. I do not advocate making the hearings adversarial, but that government attorneys act as an ombudsman, charged with the duty of getting the pertinent facts.

Nice debate. "The Editors" know little, Gary Burtless knows nothing, Professor Erkulwater presents an argument that ignores the clear evidence that disability policy during the Reagan years was an aberrational nightmare rather than a Golden Age and Judge White, who actually has good knowledge about Social Security disability, decides to use his space to promote a hopeless cause that has little to do with the subject at hand.

Update: The Times has added two additional pieces to this "debate." One is from a disability examiner in North Carolina. His piece seems to have been edited into near complete incoherence. I am sorry for the author, because he might have had something useful to contribute. The other piece is from what I will refer to as a "disability denier," that is someone who feels that everyone can work. "Disability deniers" believe that the only reason that people are "disabled" is because of societal discrimination. With enough government funds, especially funds given to people like the "disability deniers", almost everyone on Social Security could be returned to productive employment. "Disability deniers" seem to believe that almost everyone who is disabled is in a wheelchair. Hey, a wheelchair is used as a symbol for disability, isn't it? Yes, I exaggerate the man's position, but not by much. The "disability deniers" are responsible for the Ticket to Work fiasco. Of course, their position would be that Ticket to Work failed because it was not given an adequate test, that more money for research is desperately needed. Baloney. The credulous usually believe that the "disability deniers" are important experts. I would really like to sit some of these "disability deniers" down with a roomful of Social Security disability recipients so that they could hear about the effects of chronic pain, chronic fatigue and chronic mental instability on ability to work. They might learn that people in wheelchairs are only a small fraction of the disabled population and that issues affecting them have little to do with the lives of most disabled people.

Results Of Last Week's Unscientific Poll

What percentage increase in personnel is needed in order to give good public service at those parts of Social Security with which you have personal experience?

No increase needed (5)	4%
1-5% (4)	4%
6-10% (16)	14%
11-15% (14)	12%
16-20% (19)	17%
21-25% (15)	13%
26-30% (2)	2%
More than 30% (39)	34%

Total Votes: 114

The comments that people made on the poll are also worth a look.

4th Circuit Rules That EAJA Fee Belongs To Client

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has issued an opinion in Stephens v. Astrue that an attorney fee under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) belongs to the claimant and is subject to attachment for debts owed the federal government. This was fairly predictable since the 4th Circuit is, by far, the most conservative of the federal Courts of Appeal. Many, perhaps most, Social Security cases that go to the federal courts end with the government having to pay an EAJA fee. This issue is likely headed to the Supreme Court, probably in the next term. Legislative action on the issue is also possible.

Budget Details

The Social Security Administration has put out a useful summary of the President's proposed budget for Social Security for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2009. The summary shows the proposed budget for Social Security is $11.6 billion, which is what had been earlier announced. The $12.081 billion figure I am quoted on Thursday apparently includes some items not normally included in budget announcements for Social Security. Federal budgeting is very technical and confusing.

Of particular interest in Social Security's summary are numbers for employment levels at Disability Determination Services (DDS). These are the state agencies which work under contract with Social Security. The full time equivalent (FTE) level for DDS was 13,605 in FY 2008, 14,369 in FY 2009 (the current year) and 15,128 in FY 2010 under the President's budget. 759 more employees are not going to make those backlogs at DDS go away.

By the way, the budget proposal calls for "research" at Social Security to go up from $35 million to $49 million. That is a much more dramatic increase than for anything else. Why?

Press Release On Budget

A press release from Social Security:

By requesting $11.6 billion for Social Security’s administrative expenses, a ten percent increase over the previous year, the President has demonstrated his commitment to help us reduce longstanding backlogs as well as handle the recession-related work that is flooding the agency. With this support, we can continue to drive down the hearings backlog, process increasing numbers of retirement and disability claims, modernize our information technology, and improve service in our field offices and teleservice centers.

It is critically important that Congress enact President Obama's budget proposal in a timely manner so that we can make the changes that will provide the American public with better and more timely service.

Full Obama Budget Proposal Out

I have criticized the current and former Commissioner of Social Security for not requesting a higher budget for the Social Security Administration. Almost every time I do this, I get one or more comments saying that I am off-base, that all budget requests for all executive branch agencies must be approved by the President, that the Commissioner of Social Security cannot legally do what I suggest. That would be true for all or almost all other executive branch agencies, but not for Social Security. The President has released his full budget proposal for fiscal year 2010 (which begins on October 1, 2009). Take a look at this excerpt from the budget for Social Security:

As directed by Section 104 of P.L. 103-296, the Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994, the Commissioner of Social Security shall prepare an annual budgetfor SSA, which shall be submitted by the President to the Congress without revision, together with the President's request for SSA.

The Commissioner's budget includes $11,949 million for total administrative discretionary resources in 2010. This represents $11,842 million for SSA administrative expenses and $107 million for the Office of the Inspector General. In addition, the Commissioner requested $750 million for replacement of the National Computer Center.

There may be practical reasons why the Social Security Commissioner will not communicate a budget proposal to Congress that really reflects what the agency needs, but there is no legal barrier.

The Obama budget for Social Security's operating budget (the Limitation on Administrative Expenditures or LAE) is $12.081 billion which is slightly higher than Astrue had requested. I should say that I find these budget proposals are confusing, so it is possible that I have misinterpreted something. It had been previously reported that the Obama budget for Social Security's LAE would be $11.6 billion. As I read the budget proposal, the difference between what had been reported previously and what this document says is additional allocations for improving program compliance. These additional allocations are expected to save money, so they will not really cost what they seem to cost. Again, I would appreciate any help that any real budget expert can give me.

The budget proposal says that Social Security's Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employee total was 60,744 in FY 2008, 63,469 in FY 2009 and projects it as 65,114 in FY 2010 under this budget proposal, which is about what we had heard. This is not nearly enough to significantly reduce the backlogs at Social Security or to significantly improve service. I am quite sure of that.