Lots Of Pain For No Gain

An Op Ed piece appearing in the Los Angeles Times, written by Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, and Yvonne Walker, president of The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents employees of the California Disability Determination Services Department:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have a cameo role in a current film, but the real "Expendables" appear to be disabled Californians, the state employees who make disability decisions for the Social Security Administration and the federal dollars he is throwing away. Long before he was governor, bodybuilder Schwarzenegger lived by the motto "No pain, no gain." However, as California's chief executive, his policy of furloughing even those state employees whose salaries are federally funded has given rise to a new axiom: "Lots of pain for no gain."

Social Security pays 100% of the salaries and overhead for workers in California's Disability Determination Services Division (DDSD) — bringing in more than $211 million a year to the state. These employees make medical determinations for Social Security payments. As a direct result of their work, each month Social Security pays $1.3 billion in disability benefits to more than 1.3 million California residents.

Furloughing DDSD employees does not save California a single penny. It has done nothing to reduce the $19-billion general fund deficit. Instead, the state loses the federal funds allocated for the DDSD. Most tragically, it imposes a financial burden on California's disabled citizens by delaying millions of dollars in federal disability benefits and medical coverage to those in need.

To meet the needs of California residents, the Social Security Administration is redirecting thousands of backlogged California cases to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The cost of processing such cases will total millions of dollars — federal dollars that would have gone to California, had the governor chosen to exempt the DDSD workers from furloughs.

"Not Something The State Foresaw"

From the Charleston, WV Daily Mail:

Several thousand low-income West Virginia children who are also blind or disabled could see a one-month reduction in their federal disability benefits, the result of a decision by the state Department of Health and Human Resources.

Faced with a deadline for using millions of dollars in one-time federal stimulus funds, the department decided to send tens of thousands of children $250 extra for school clothes and supplies.

The Social Security Administration at this point views those checks as income.

In West Virginia, about 9,300 low-income blind or disabled children received Social Security Income benefits.

Because the receipt of those benefits is based on income level, any extra money the children receive - including the money from the state for school clothes - causes a reduction in the amount the children receive from the federal Supplemental Security Insurance program.

"It's reducing (SSI) dollar-for-dollar based on the amount of money they get (from the state)," Robert Jeffries, a spokesman for the Charleston field office of the Social Security Administration, said Monday. ...

Doug Robinson, deputy commissioner of the state DHHR's Bureau of Children and Families, said the SSI reduction was not something the state foresaw when it decided to send out the $250 checks. He called the federal standards "unfortunate."

Is There An App For This?

A subcommittee of Social Security's Future Systems Technology Panel has recently released a report calling, in effect, for an end to Social Security field office services. The report says that Social Security claimants can do their business with Social Security over the internet, perhaps using their cell phones. The benighted claimant who needs in person help can go to some office staffed with people who also help with federal tax matters, immigration matters, etc. or perhaps they can go to their local library for help.

I thought I would pull up a list of changes made just last month to Social Security's primary staff manual, POMS, to give an idea of the sort of issues that this subcommittee thinks your local librarian can help you with. Remember that the whole manual is vastly larger than this list of recent changes.

GN 03910 TN 10	0/30/2010	Representation of Claimants
DI 13005 TN 7	08/26/2010	Medical Issues
GN 02410 TN 29	08/25/2010	Assignment, Levy, Garnishment
RM 00201 TN 24	08/25/2010	The Social Security Number (SSN)
OS 15025 TN 3	08/23/2010	Office of Program Development and Research (OPDR) Responsibility
DI 70010 TN 3	08/20/2010	Field Office (FO) Procedures
DI 25235 TN 2	08/19/2010	Case Processing Instructions for Title XVI Child Claims
RS 02101 TN 7	08/18/2010	Employer - Employee Relationship - Policies and Procedures
GN 02820 TN 11	08/16/2010	American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
SL 60001 TN 3	08/16/2010	Employment
GN 02608 TN 24	08/12/2010	Government Pension Offset
GN 02613 TN 11	08/11/2010	Title II Fugitive Felons and Parole and Probation Violators
OS 15010 TN 10	08/10/2010	Office of Income Security Programs (OISP) Responsibility
DI 20503 TN 8	08/10/2010	Essential Claims Folder Material
RM 10210 TN 8	08/06/2010	SSN Evidence Requirements
DI 34222 BASIC	08/02/2010	Obsolete Special Senses Part B Listings 01/06/86 to 07/08
DI 34122 BASIC	08/02/2010	Obsolete Versions of Part A, the Listing of Impairments
DI 34005 TN 12	08/02/2010	Listings of Impairments - Current Part B Listing
DI 34001 TN 13	08/02/2010	Current - Part A Listing
DI 81020 TN 6	07/29/2010	DDS Procedures - Electronic Process
DI 70005 TN 5	07/29/2010	Modular Disability Folder
GN 00504 TN 16	07/27/2010	Suspension for Payee Development and Other Payee Actions
SI 00820 TN 53	07/27/2010	Earned Income
DI 81010 TN 9	07/26/2010	FO Procedures - Electronic Process

The Baby Boomer Claims Rush Is A Come As You Are Party

A panel appointed to review Social Security's future technology needs is wringing its hands about how the Social Security Administration is going to handle the crushing workload that will arrive when baby boomers begin retiring en masse.

In my opinion that is a naive concern. Retirement claims require little effort at Social Security. The agency's employees mostly spend their time working on claims filed by people who are not yet eligible for retirement benefits -- disability and survivor claims. Unlike retirement claims these take staff time. Disability and survivor claims go up as the population ages but the baby boomer peak for these claims has to be several years before the peak for retirement claims.

Has anyone at Social Security figured out when its baby boomer peak workload will actually arrive? I am guessing it will come in the next five years but there have to be people at Social Security whose job it is to project the agency's future staffing needs. When do they think the peak will arrive?

This matters because the upcoming wave of baby boomer retirements is being used as justification for long term technology project recommendations. Social Security needs long term technology planning but it is too late for any long term initiative to help with the baby boomer peak workload. That peak is is nearly here.

Union Awarded Attorney Fees

From Unity, the newsletter of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) local which represents most Social Security employees:

The Social Security Administration has been ordered to reimburse AFGE more than $100,000 in legal fees. That’s how much the Union spent when it represented 16 employees who were suspended for allegedly misusing the agency's computer system.

In her decision, Arbitrator Mary Bass ruled that management in the Northeastern Program Service Center (NEPSC) knew or should have known that the excessive penalties imposed on the employees could not be sustained. She also said the Union was entitled to that money in the "interest of justice."

Mr. Astrue Stood On The Affirmative Side

From the Huffington Post:

On Sept. 3, 2010, the Yale Political Union debated "Resolved: The Yale Class of 2014 should and will receive social security benefits" with National Commissioner of Social Security, Michael Astrue. This post contains speeches made by members of the Yale Political Union following Mr. Astrue's opening speech. Mr. Astrue stood on the Affirmative side of the resolution.

Does This Mean Anything?

This is from the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI). I would not jump to the conclusion that there is a connection between these two lines. In fact, I think there probably is no connection but it is an interesting chart.

Cutting Benefits For The Wealthy Won't Help

From Dean Baker writing at Firedoglake (emphasis added):

According to stories based on leaks from the [Deficit Reduction] commission, it is considering a plan to raise Social Security benefits for the lowest income beneficiaries. This is a great idea, since many of the elderly live at, or only slightly above, the poverty line. A modest increase in benefits would make a big difference in their standard of living.

However, the geniuses on the commission want to pay for this benefit increase by cutting the benefits of the “affluent” elderly. The problem with this plan is that there are very few genuinely affluent elderly and their benefits are not much higher than the benefits of normal people.

While we can raise lots of money by taxing the richest 1 percent of the population, since they earn such a disproportionate share of the country’s income, we cannot save much money by cutting their benefits. When billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson tells audiences that he doesn’t need his Social Security benefit, he is only putting $40,000 a year at stake. We can zero out the benefit for Peterson and his wealthy friends and not have to change a single number in the Social Security publications since the difference would be within rounding error.

In order to get any substantial sum of money to increase benefits for low-income elderly and to eliminate the long-term projected shortfall, it will be necessary to cut benefits for people who earned $35,000 -$40,000 a year during their working lifetime. This means cutting benefits for people who worked as schoolteachers, construction workers, factory workers and other very middle class or working class jobs.