Guam Wants To Remove The Cap

The Pacific Daily News reports that Guam's non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, Madeleine Bordallo, is introducing a bill to remove the cap on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments to people living in U.S. territories such as Guam. The article says that because of the cap the average SSI payment in Guam is only about $100, rather than over $600 as it is in the U.S. proper.

I am confused. I thought that SSI was not payable at all in U.S. territories such as Guam -- and more importantly, Puerto Rico. When did this change and what is the cap?

Roundtable On Backlogs

The Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ) (the labor union that represents Social Security's ALJs) is holding a "roundtable" today from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the AFL-CIO Headquarters in Washington to discuss Social Security's appeals backlogs. The roundtable is scheduled to include "Federal judges, experts on Social Security and key Congressional staff."

Senator McCaskill Has Questions

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri has a lot of questions for Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.

Sotomayor On Social Security Disability

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has been nominated for the Supreme Court by President Obama, is the author of two published decisions in Social Security cases.

• Kohler v. Astrue, 546 F.3d 260 (2d Cir. 2008)
• Rosa v. Callahan, 168 F.3d 72 (2d Cir. 1999)

In each cases the Appellate panel remanded the case. (Thanks to Eric Schnaufer for finding this for me. )

It should be noted that David Traver at CONNECT has found quite a number of unpublished Social Security decisions by appellate panels that included Judge Sotomayor.

Interesting Sidelight On Sotomayor Nomination

President Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Interestingly, Wikipedia says that at age 8 Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I think many of the people who read this blog understand the significance of this history. Her diabetes is already raising concerns.

Stimulus Checks For Dead People

There is a report that Social Security has sent about 10,000 $250 economic stimulus checks to people it knew had died. The agency's excuse is that it did not have enough time to clean up its databases. Allegedly, one check was sent to a woman who had died in 1967.

Ten thousand mistakes sounds like a lot, but in context, it is far less than one mistake per thousand checks sent out. I doubt that this is anything to get excited about.

Social Security has given a contract to Oracle for computer work on a recovery system for these payments. The notice posted in FedBizOpps.Com estimates that there will be 15,000 to 20,000 incorrect payments.

For The Sake Of Comparison

From VA Watchdog dot Org:

According to the Monday Morning Workload Report (MMWR) of the Veterans' Benefits Administration dated January 5, 2009, the backlog for veterans' benefits claims stood at 808,607. Report is here
...http://www.vba.va.gov/REPORTS/mmwr/2009/010509.xls

The same report for May 11, 2009 shows the backlog at 916,456. That report is here ... http://www.vba.va.gov/REPORTS/mmwr/2009/051109.xls

This is an increase of nearly 108,000 claims in the backlog in just a bit over four months ... an increase of 13.3%.

Retirement Claims Surge

From the Los Angeles Times:

Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

This also has implications for workloads at Social Security field offices.