"Emergency Clause" For Disability Determination

The budget crises that are causing many states to partially furlough their employees, including disability determination employees who make initial and reconsideration determinations and whose salaries are paid by Social Security, has led to the issuance of a new item in Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) concerning the "emergency clause." The "emergency clause" is what Social Security is calling an agreement with a state to transfer some of that state's disability determination workload to Social Security for adjudication at the Office of Central Operations (OCO), Program Service Center - Disability Processing Branch (PSC-DPB), or Disability Quality Branch (DQB).

Unfortunately, Social Security has only very limited ability to help any state, so this may mean little. It may also make it more difficult for OCO, the PSCs and the DQBs to process their regular workloads. I am sure that Social Security realizes that this is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but they must feel that they have no choice.

Does This Mean Anything?

From a press release:

A poll taken by [a law firm] asked the question, "Do you feel the Social Security Administration will handle your Social Security disability claim fairly?"

The response was astounding. Eighty three (83) percent of the responses to the yes/no question were No; they do not trust the Social Security Administration to handle their claim fairly. At the time of this release 389 people had responded. When such a huge majority of people do not trust the government to handle their disability claim, it simply cannot be ignored.

Another GAO Report

From Social Security Disability: Additional Performance Measures and Better Cost Estimates Could Help Improve SSA's Efforts to Eliminate Its Hearing Backlog, a report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

SSA’s Plan should help the agency reduce its hearings-level backlog, but the likelihood that SSA will eliminate the backlog within its projected time-frame depends on the extent to which SSA’s assumptions for improved administrative law judge (ALJ) hiring, availability, and productivity are achieved in practice. Both SSA and GAO believe that the agency has about a 78 percent chance of eliminating the backlog, that is, reducing the number of hearings-level pending claims below 466,000 claims, by the end of fiscal year 2013—SSA’s target date—if those assumptions are fully realized. However, SSA’s assumptions project higher levels of performance achieved than recent experience—from fiscal year 2008 to April 2009. ALJ productivity improvements are especially important to SSA’s reaching its goal. The likelihood that SSA will eliminate the backlog by its target date changes under different scenarios for achieving its ALJ hiring, availability, and productivity goals. If SSA achieves its average ALJ productivity, but not its ALJ hiring and availability goals, GAO estimated that SSA’s chances are reduced from about 78 percent to about 53 percent. Conversely, if SSA achieves its goals for ALJ hiring and availability, but not for average productivity, its chances are about 34 percent. If SSA is unable to achieve any of its ALJ workforce and performance goals, the likelihood of the agency eliminating the hearings-level backlog by its target date drops to about 14 percent.

GAO is foolish enough to think that the chances of reducing the backlogs can be reduced to percentages and that Social Security's projections of productivity gains have a relationship to reality. It has seemed clear to me for many years that Social Security figures out how much budget it can expect to get and how many people it can hire and then works backwards to figure out how much productivity it needs to project to meet some abstract backlog goal.

Fee Payment Stats

Social Security has posted these updated statistics on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants:

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-09	28,423	$101,128,880.69
Feb-09	31,352	$112,791,207.17
Mar-09	29,199	$104,155,187.96
Apr-09	30,963	$110,133,425.19
May-09	36,603	$126,725,262.45
June-09	31,799	$113,962,564.84
July-09	34,802	$124,621,068.71
August-09	28,218	$100,279,282.51

ODAR Processing Time Report

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has obtained the report reproduced here on backlogs at Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR -- I still hate this name and abbreviation). Click on each thumbnail to see it full size.

Here are some historical numbers to help put this in perspective.

• January 25, 2007 -- 508 days
• May 25, 2007 -- 523 days
• July 28, 2007 -- 528 days
• August 31, 2007 -- 523 days
• November 30, 2007 -- 500 days
• February 29, 2008 -- 511 days
• May 30, 2008 -- 523 days
• June 27, 2008 -- 529 days
• July 31, 2008 -- 530 days
  
• September 3, 2008 -- 532 days
• November 5, 2008 -- 476 days
  
• December 3, 2008 -- 480 days
• March 8, 2009 -- 499 days
• April 24, 2009 -- 505 days
• June 3, 2009 -- 505 days
• June 29, 2009 -- 495 days
• July 31, 2009 -- 494 days
  

Backlogs Soar At Initial Level

Courtesy of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) here are stats on Disability Determination Service backlogs. Click on the thumbnail to see it full size.

The picture is ugly, even eye popping. The national backlog of cases at the initial level is up 37.7% over a year ago. Every state but two has increased backlogs.

As Social Security makes a very slow start on reducing the backlog of cases awaiting a hearing, another bigger backlog opens up at the initial level. Very discouraging.

Slow Progress At ODAR

I received this from a reader:

Deputy Commissioner's Broadcast

Date: September 8, 2009

Disability backlog goes down eight months in a row -- internal goal of exceeding budgeted pending by 20,000 cases already met

Even during the traditionally slow month of August you have again managed to reduce the disability backlog -- now eight remarkable months in a row. This past month, you exceeded the disposition target by 3,633 cases by processing 56,332 dispositions. Our pending is currently at 734,199 cases below the FY 2009 opening pending -- which means we have already exceeded our end of year goal by over 20,000 cases.

Reducing the most aged cases continues to be an ODAR success story -- just over 3,000 of the 850 day old cases remain to process by the end of the fiscal year
For those Americans who have waited the longest for a decision from us, you have processed nearly all of the cases that are 850 days old or more, leaving just 3,201 aged cases to process by the end of September (see chart on next page [which I did not receive]).

Productivity is even better than last year

Other than a slight dip in April, we are seeing more productivity in clearing cases this year than last. Most notable is that in August 2008 the disposition per day rate was 2.15, compared to 2.54 at the end of last month (August 2009) - an 18% increase in productivity.

Improved integration of disability process with Operations

On August 21, Operations sent out an Administrative Message (AM) stating, in essence, that the DDS standard for reconsiderations is the same as review by ALJs - a de novo review. This message also included reminders about developing and documenting vocational factors. By emphasizing de novo review as the standard for reconsideration, we hope more allowances will be made at this earlier level. This is to ensure that claimants receive the right decision as early as possible in our disability process. The full AM can be viewed at http://policynet.ba.ssa.gov/reference.nsf/links/08212009013330PM.

More ALJs and support staff are coming on board - OPM Director swears in new ALJs

On August 27, our second new class of 72 ALJs was sworn-in at the Congressional Auditorium of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director, John Berry, delivered the keynote address.

In addition to hiring 148 ALJs and 850 support staff by the end of June, we are well on our way to hiring at least 348 additional staff in the field and at ODAR headquarters by the end of the fiscal year.

Regional Reorganization

In order to provide better service to the American people by making better and faster decisions, the reorganization of ODAR headquarters will take effect in October. We are also reviewing the ODAR Regional Office structure. We expect to implement the regional office reorganization during FY 2010.

You are all doing a great job - and please know that you make an important difference in people's lives every day. We are on a good path for reducing the disability backlog by 2013. Due to the recession and because we continue to be in the disability prone years of the baby boomers, we know that FY 2010 and FY 2011 are going to be difficult years. However, please know that all of our hiring and space expansion activities this year have been in preparation for this coming bulge.

I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend.

/s/
David V. Foster
Deputy Commissioner

Isn't The Solution Obvious?

From the Wall Street Journal:

The pay of employees who receive more than the Social Security wage base -- now $106,800 -- increased by 78%, or nearly $1 trillion, over the past decade, exceeding the 61% increase for other workers, according to the analysis. In the five years ending in 2007, earnings for American workers rose 24%, half the 48% gain for the top-paid. The result: The top-paid represent 33% of the total, up from 28% in 2002.

The growing portion of pay that exceeds the maximum amount subject to payroll taxes has contributed to the weakening of the Social Security trust fund. In May, the government said the Social Security fund would be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than was predicted in 2008.

The data suggest that the payroll tax ceiling hasn't kept up with the growth in executive pay. ...

Social Security Administration actuaries estimate removing the earnings ceiling could eliminate the trust fund's deficit altogether for the next 75 years, or nearly eliminate it if credit toward benefits was provided for the additional taxable earnings.