Happy 75th Anniversary!

Presidential Proclamation

President Obama has issued a proclamation in honor of Social Security's 75th birthday coming up tomorrow. I have not heard of any event involving the President honoring this occasion. I find this disappointing. I know that many Social Security field offices held open houses this week in honor of the anniversary. I am unaware of any event at Social Security's central offices but that does not mean that there was no such event.

Astrue On 75th Anniversary

From a piece supposedly written by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue that must have been sent out to newspapers by Social Security's press office:

Social Security, the most successful domestic program in our nation’s history, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. ...

Today, millions of retirees live in dignity thanks to their monthly Social Security benefit payment. Over the decades, Social Security expanded to not only protect against the risk of poverty in old age, but also the economic risk of career-ending disability and the premature death of a worker. ...

As we celebrate 75 years, I reflect on how Social Security was there for my family, how proud I am to work for this remarkable program, and how lucky I am to lead such a talented and compassionate work force.

I have two wonderful children who entered the work force in the past year. One is being called up for active military duty in October and the other will teach inner-city children. It is imperative that they and millions of other young Americans have confidence that we will continue to honor the great inter-generational contract that is Social Security.

It is in this spirit that President Barack Obama established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that in December will make recommendations regarding the future of Social Security. ...

Social Security Reduces Poverty

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty. Without Social Security, according to the latest available Census data (for 2008), 19.8 million more Americans would be poor. Although most of those kept out of poverty by Social Security are elderly, nearly a third are under age 65, including 1.1 million children. ...

TABLE 1: Effect of Social Security on Poverty, 2008
Age Group	Percent in Poverty		Number Lifted Out of Poverty by Social Security
	Excluding Social Security	Including Social Security
Children Under 18	20.5	19.0	1,117,000
Adults Aged 18-64	14.5	11.7	5,281,000
Elderly Aged 65 and Over	45.2	9.7	13,410,000
Total, All Ages	19.8	13.2	19,808,000
Memorandum:
Women Aged 65 and Over	49.7	11.9	8,120,000
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2009.

Brace Yourself: OMB Clears Mental Listings

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House, has just approved a set of amendments to Social Security's mental impairment listings. The notice says that changes were made in the amendments while they were under review.

OMB had approved a set of amendments to the mental impairment listings in the waning days of the George W. Bush Administration but Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue declined to publish that set. We have no way of knowing how that set of amendments differed from the set just approved by OMB. We have no way of knowing what changes were made in the proposal while it was pending at OMB this time. In fact, we have no way of knowing what is in this set until it is published in the Federal Register.

Amendments to the mental impairment listings are potentially quite controversial. These listings have a greater effect than any other listings. Mental illness is among the most important causes for disability. Mental illness remains a controversial topic with the public, many of whom regard it as largely imaginary. Over the decades that I have been involved with Social Security, I have seen the agency take somewhat extreme positions on the evaluation of mental disability.

I should know better than to make predictions but I will do so anyway. I predict that Social Security will make it dramatically more difficult to be found disabled as a result of mental retardation. I have never understood why, but this group has been at the top of Social Security's hit list for about a decade. I also predict that Social Security will make it more difficult for adults to be found disabled as a result of bipolar disorder and dramatically more difficult for children to be found disabled as a result of bipolar disorder. Maybe, they will propose to make it less difficult for schizophrenics to be found disabled. They ought to. They may try to slip in something to alter the standards for determining disability for those who have both a substance abuse disorder and another mental disorder. Anything along that line would be extraordinarily controversial and might not withstand judicial review. One safe prediction is that the preamble to the proposed mental impairment listings will be very, very long.

Expect that these proposed changes will appear in the Federal Register soon, perhaps next week. The public will have an opportunity to comment. Social Security must consider these comments and again obtain OMB approval before this proposal can be made official.

A Badge Of Seriousness

From Paul Krugman's blog:

A lot of the Beltway establishment has a thing about Social Security — in a way, by the way, they don’t have a thing about Medicare, which is a vastly more important long-run problem. No matter how much you talk logic or numbers, they’re obsessed with the idea that Social Security must be cut; as I wrote back when, somewhere back in the 90s talking tough on Social Security became a badge of seriousness, and facts just can’t make a dent in that social convention.

The Consequences Of Poor Service

The Center for American Progress recently commissioned a nationwide survey by Hart Research Associates on American attitudes towards their government. Here is an excerpt from the conclusion of the report:

Public confidence in government is at an all-time low, according to our survey. A common interpretation of this and other recent negative shifts in public sentiment toward the federal government is that it reflects an ideological rejection of “big government.” The results of our survey, however, reveal that Americans have not significantly changed their opinion of what government should do or its proper role. Indeed, clear majorities want more federal government involvement in areas like developing new energy sources, reducing poverty, and improving public education. Moreover, they expect government’s role in improving people’s lives to grow rather than shrink in importance in the years ahead.

How, then, can today’s undeniably negative sentiment toward federal government be explained? Americans’ critical view of government, the survey data reveals, has much more to do with perceptions of government’s competence than concern over “mission creep.” People’s concern is not that government is addressing too many problems, but rather that it will not succeed in carrying out its critically important tasks. And looking forward, people say quite clearly that their priority is improving government’s performance more than reducing its size. Americans
want a federal government that is better, not smaller.

Social Security is a lot more competent than the public gives it credit for being but the service the agency gives the public can only be rated fair at best. That is a big step up from what it was two years ago but it is still inadequate. It is almost impossible to get through on the telephone to Social Security's field offices. It can take several minutes to get through to a live person when one calls the agency's 800 number. Once callers get through to a human, far too often they receive inadequate or misleading information. Disability claims and appeals take entirely too long.

For the most part, I do not blame Social Security employees for these problems since the root cause is inadequate staffing. The only blame I assign to Social Security management is for not speaking out more clearly to tell the public why service is so inadequate.

Poor government service has political consequences, as Thomas Frank has written:

Conservatism ... seems actively to want an inferior product [government service]. Believing effective government to be somewhere between impossible and undesirable, conservatism takes steps to ensure its impotence. The result is predictable enough: another sour truckload of the mother's milk of conservatism, cynicism toward government.

Watch Out!

It looks like Social Security's Cooperative Disability Investigations office in Tampa is hiring the Georgia Bureau of Investigations to do surveillance for them, in Georgia, I suppose.