Union Calls For Astrue Ouster

From a press release issued by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees:

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the nation's largest federal employee union, today called on the Obama Administration to remove Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue. The union says recent events involving H1N1 employee policy and a third party class action lawsuit indicate that Astrue has lost touch with employee rights and the impact his policies have on effective public service. The Social Security Administration’s chief negotiator for mid-term bargaining on abating H1N1 told AFGE members that H1N1 is not a serious communicable disease, contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and SSA’s own chief medical officer. In a direct challenge to SSA protocols, SSA managers – and its negotiator – have threatened disciplinary action if SSA employees refuse to take an interview with a member of the public that exhibits swine flu symptoms but wants a face-to-face interview. ...

AFGE also recently applauded the order of a federal judge in the Northern District of California to allow blind individuals an accommodation in the form of communications from the Social Security Administration, something which the SSA leadership has repeatedly fought against and claimed that it would be too burdensome to accommodate.

For more on this dispute, see the Washington Post article. By the way, although the President could make life difficult for Astrue, the President cannot fire him.

Updated Fee Payment Stats

Updated information 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
Sept-09	28,455	$100,918,402.40
Oct-09	36,729	$131,011,485.43

Social Security Advertises Chief Of Staff Position

The Social Security Administration is advertising an opening in the position of Chief of Staff. Here is the description of the job from the notice:

The Chief of Staff to the Commissioner of Social Security acts as personal advisor to the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Social Security covering the full range of the agency's mission. S/He is a key leader in setting and articulating the Commissioner's vision and strategic direction for the agency. Internally, the Chief of Staff oversees the tactical execution of the Commissioner's strategic vision among the agency's executive leadership. S/He represents the Commissioner in discussions with the White House, Members of Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Personnel Management, other Federal agencies, executives of State and local governments, and others who are interested in the policies and programs of the Social Security Administration.

Off Topic -- The Strangest Sports Video You've Ever Seen

I Thought This Was The U.S. Treasury's Job

Does anyone know what this presolicitation notice from Social Security means?

The Social Security Administration (SSA) located in Baltimore, MD has a requirement for an establishment where money is stored for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans or exchanged and is a FDIC member institution to provide banking services to implement and maintain a Third Party Payment System (TPPS) that will allow SSA to issue selected payments using payment instruments. Payment instruments mean drafts, checks or other similar negotiable instruments that will be printed and provided by the Government Printing Office. The contractor shall service up to 6,000 SSA cashiers in approximately 1,500 SSA offices worldwide. SSA expects to issue in fiscal year 2010 approximately 300,000 payments equaling an estimated $110,000,000. The SSA TPPS shall require 1 master account and 15 subsidiary accounts.

Thirty Options For Financing Social Security

The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) has released Fixing Social Security: Adequate Benefits, Adequate Financing, a report that outlines thirty options for putting the program's finances on a sound footing for the next 75 years.

9th Circuit Says Supreme Court Meant What It Said In Gisbrecht

From the opinion of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Crawford v. Astrue, released today:

We review three consolidated appeals that present one overarching issue: Did the district court follow the mandate of Gisbrecht v. Barnhart, 535 U.S. 789 (2002), in determining the amount of attorneys’ fees awarded to lawyers who successfully represented Social Security disability insurance (“SSDI”) claimants in federal court under contingent-fee contracts? We hold in each case that it did not. We vacate the district courts’ orders and grant the attorneys the contingencybased fees they requested. ...

By beginning with the lodestar calculation, the district courts plainly failed to respect the “primacy of lawful attorney-client fee agreements.” Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 793. ...

These cases vividly demonstrate the deleterious effect of a district court’s failure to recognize the distinction between fee-shifting cases and cases involving payment by the claimant from his benefit award. ...

The district court orders quote extensively from Gisbrecht. They even cursorily discuss the character of the representation—noting that it was skillful and not dilatory—before concluding that the requested fee would represent a windfall to the attorneys. But this parroting of language from Gisbrecht does not mean that the district courts actually applied its teachings.

There have been a lot of District Courts around the country that have done what the Court of Appeals condemned in this case.

Some Clues?

Some time ago Social Security published a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) on entities as representatives of claimants. The NPRM was confused, particularly when it came to definitions, because Social Security had not thought through the issues. The agency has promised final regulations by February 2010. A recent issuance in Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) may suggest where the agency is heading since it provides definitions for terms such as "advocacy services", "entity", "representative" and "representational services", but I have to say that I cannot tell much from it. Maybe you can.