Land Acquired For Building To Replace Metro West

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Maryland Board of Public Works approved on Wednesday a transfer to the federal government of state-owned land in Northwest Baltimore where U.S. officials plan to build an office building to house some Social Security Administration operations.

The new structure, which federal and state officials say is needed by 2012, is planned near the Reisterstown Road Plaza Metro station. It would be one of the largest and most expensive federal office buildings in Baltimore in years. About 1,600 federal workers now at the federal agency's Metro West complex on Greene Street would move there.

Federal officials are seeking a private developer to construct a 538,000-square-foot office building and 1,076-space garage and lease it to Social Security. ...

Eventually, another 400 Metro West employees will be relocated to the Social Security Administration's national headquarters complex in Woodlawn, leaving none at Metro West.

Stimulus Checks For Prisoners

The Associated Press is reporting that 3,900 of the $250 economic stimulus checks sent to Social Security and SSI recipients went to prisoners. About 2,200 of the inmates were entitled to the checks because they had only entered prison recently. The other 1,700 were sent checks by mistake.

This information comes from Social Security's Inspector General, but the underlying report has not yet been released. Apparently, the Boston Herald got the story first. The Inspector General seemed to be leaking stories like this to the Washington Times in the past.

Most Popular Baby Names

Social Security has released its list of most popular baby names for 2008. By the way, John is now number 20 on the list and Mary is number 97. That is a huge drop for those traditionally most popular names.

Top 10 Names for 2008

Rank	Male name	Female name
1	Jacob	Emma
2	Michael	Isabella
3	Ethan	Emily
4	Joshua	Madison
5	Daniel	Ava
6	Alexander	Olivia
7	Anthony	Sophia
8	William	Abigail
9	Christopher	Elizabeth
10	Matthew	Chloe

Many Applicants For Attorney Jobs At Social Security

The New York Times had an article yesterday on the tough job market for recent law school graduates which reported that applications for attorney positions at Social Security had gone up from 800 last year to 2,000 this year.

Ted Kennedy And Michael Astrue

Michael Astrue, the Commissioner of Social Security, like the late Ted Kennedy, is from Massachusetts. Astrue has some history with the late Ted Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from the Stromata blog for October 31, 2001:

Michael Astrue, a moderate Republican whom I know slightly, today withdrew his name from consideration as head of the Food and Drug Administration. He was known to be President Bush’s top choice for the position, but Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, announced that he would refuse to hold hearings on an the prospective nomination. Kennedy doesn’t accuse Astrue, a former general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services and current chairman of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, of harboring abhorrent right-wing opinions. His “disqualification” is that he has worked for Biogen, and the Senator opposes allowing anyone with a background in the pharmaceutical industry to be in charge of the FDA.

Kennedy did support, or at least did not oppose, Astrue's nomination to be Social Security Commissioner (see pages 61 and 62). Kennedy's letter to the Senate Finance Committee was not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Feinstein Asks For Sanity

The Associated Press is reporting that California Senator Diane Feinstein has written Governor Schwarznegger asking that he cancel furloughs for state disability determination employees. All salaries and other costs for these employees are borne by Social Security. The governor claims that the furloughs will not affect public service. Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue is saying that the furloughs could postpone $15 million in federal payments.

Binder And Binder Offices

I always receive a ton of hits whenever I post anything about Binder and Binder, which is probably the largest entity representing Social Security disability claimants. Here is an interesting excerpt from a press release issued, apparently last year, by MGB, a construction company that did some work for Binder and Binder:

MGB served Binder & Binder, a social security disability law firm, as general contractor for a structural redevelopment, expansion, and a complete interior fit-out of the firm's 22,000 s/f, two-story office building at 34 Industrial St. The $3.3 million project encompassed the addition of a floor, including a floor slab, steel columns, and beams; construction of column foundations; exterior renovation; demolition of the pre-existing space; construction of new office interiors; and new mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and sprinkler systems. The MGB team installed a new sewer ejector system that incorporates a pump and a ¼-mile pipe connection to the city sewer line.

Binder & Binder administrative offices, designed by UAI Urban Architectural Initiatives, encompass an open plan area, private offices, and a large employee cafeteria. The building features a new elevator and a staircase.

Social Security Loses On Federal Career Intern Program

From Government Executive.Com:

The Merit Systems Protection Board has ruled that a disabled veteran can legally challenge the government's career internship program, reversing a 2008 decision by an administrative judge.

The ruling deals another blow to the Federal Career Intern Program, created by a 2000 executive order as a special hiring authority for the government. A July decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia allowed a separate lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union against the program to move forward.

The veteran, Alvern C. Weed, said the internship program cost him a job with the Social Security Administration in 2005. Weed had applied for the job during the first round of hiring by responding to an advertisement on the federal recruiting site USAJobs.gov, and was added to a list of candidates who had preference because of their veteran status. But the supervisor in charge of filling the position ignored that list, according to the case, and instead selected two candidates who responded to a newspaper advertisement.