OIG Report On Hearing Backlog Reduction

Senator Claire McCaskill asked Social Security"s Office of Inspector General (OIG) whether Social Security's 2007 "Plan to Eliminate the Hearings Backlog and Prevent its Recurrence" would achieve its goal. OIG took almost a year in getting back to Senator McCaskill with the answer, "We believe SSA will be able to achieve its FY 2013 pending hearings backlog goal if the Agency has reliably projected hearing level receipts, ALJ availability levels, ALJ productivity levels, and senior attorney adjudicator decisions through 2013." The answer begs the question of whether Social Security has accurately predicted future receipts as well as future productivity. However, the signs so far are encouraging.

Proposed Procedural Regs

From today's Federal Register:

We propose to revise the procedures for how claimants who request hearings before administrative law judges (ALJs) may seek further review of their fully favorable revised determinations based on prehearing case reviews or fully favorable attorney advisor decisions. We also propose to notify claimants who receive partially favorable determinations based on prehearing case reviews that an ALJ will still hold a hearing unless all parties to the hearing tell us in writing that we should dismiss the hearing requests.

Wonder How This Story Got In The Times

From the New York Times:

Social Security is paying roughly $50 million a year too much to people who collect state pensions but fail to declare that income, according to the system’s inspector general.

The overpayments go to retirees who have held state jobs and also worked in the private sector — teachers who worked on their summer breaks, for instance, or police officers who retired young enough to form their own companies.

If the workers do not declare their state pension income, they appear to be low lifetime earners in the Social Security system. ...

“This is somebody else’s money they’re playing with,” said Andrew G. Biggs, a former deputy commissioner for Social Security, now an economist with the American Enterprise Institute. “The people who are in the Social Security system who don’t get good state pensions, this is taking money away from them.”

It is odd that I do not remember this report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General nor can I find it online. Was this leaked to Biggs before it was officially released? While not insignificant, in Social Security terms, this is small potatoes.

Some States Look To Social Security

From the New York Times:

Lawmakers in Maine have found an unusual tool for tackling their state’s pension woes: Social Security.

Just as workers in the private sector participate in Social Security in addition to any pension plan at their companies, most states put their workers in the federal program along with providing a state pension.

Maine and a handful of others, however, have long been holdouts, relying solely on their state pension plans. In addition, most states have excluded some workers ...

Now, Maine legislators have prepared a detailed plan for shifting state employees into Social Security and are considering whether to adopt it. They acknowledge it will not solve their problem in the short term but see long-term advantages.

Some variation on this idea could ultimately appeal to other states grappling with their own exploding pension costs and, in extreme cases, quietly looking for help from Washington. ...

The Attacks Work

From USA Today:

USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that a majority of retirees say they expect their current benefits to be cut, a dramatic increase in the number holding that view. And a record six of 10 non-retirees predict Social Security won’t be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.

Skepticism is highest among youngest workers: Three-fourths of those 18 to 34 don’t expect to get a Social Security check when they retire. ...

The downbeat outlook reflects “all the attacks on Social Security that we have this total crisis in the program,” says Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. What’s more, she says, “the fear and distrust as a result of the financial collapse and the Great Recession has spilled over into people’s expectations generally, that you can’t count on anything.”

Union Newsletter

Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees, has posted its newsletter for July. The newsletter includes an article complaining that Social Security did not do enough to commemorate the 15 year anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, a bombing that killed many Social Security employees.

Access To Electronic Files -- The Holdup Is Bandwidth

Social Security has just issued a new section to its POMS manual dealing with attorney and representative access to their clients' electronic folders at Social Security. The section tells us what is causing the delay in allowing all the attorneys and representatives access to the electronic folders, "Until we are sure of our bandwidth capability, only those invited representatives will succeed in accessing their clients’ eFolders." I suspected that was the problem but this is the first time, as far as I know, that Social Security has publicly acknowledged that the problem is at least partially bandwidth.

The Dream Dies Slowly

The George W. Bush administration inspired the fantasy among the right wing faithful that the country might someday see the light and realize that Social Security must be phased out. This fantasy is only dying slowly. The budget reduction commission may represent the last best hope for those who believe it imperative that we end the error that Franklin Roosevelt foisted upon the country almost 75 years ago. Some findings from a recent national survey conducted for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare ought to make the anti-Social Security zealots cry:

• Americans do NOT believe Social Security is a major cause of the deficit – it is only cited by 2% of Americans as the primary cause of the deficit.
• Three out of four Americans do not think policymakers should make significant changes to Social Security in order to reduce the national deficit.
• Two out of three Americans (64%) think that Social Security provides security and stability to the U.S. economy while only 20% think it is a drain on the economy, and 11% think it does some of both.
• 70% of younger Americans (under 35) believe they will need Social Security when they retire.
• 78% of Americans oppose raising Social Security’s retirement age – with two-thirds of Americans expressing strong opposition to such a proposal.
• Half of Americans support removing the current cap on Social Security wages that are taxed ($106,800). Upper income voters – that is, those who are most likely to pay higher taxes under such a proposal – are also the income group most likely to support removing the cap.