Social Security News

Mar 29, 2011

Fighting For An Adequate Budget

Claims for Social Security and disability benefits have grown in recent years, the result of baby boomer retirements and high unemployment. The Social Security Administration received 10 million new claims in 2009, up from about 8.2 million in 2004.

With 65 percent of new disability claims initially denied, appeals began piling up, and administrative law judges who hear these cases were overwhelmed.
By August 2008, an appeal took an average of 532 days to resolve. The agency hired judges and support staff to speed up the process, and by last year the average appeal took 390 days. There was still a backlog of 705,370 pending hearings.
But progress has been undermined by the budget impasse affecting most federal agencies, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Without a budget for the current fiscal year, the Social Security staff has had to cut short its efforts to improve efficiency. ...
The report also says that President Obama’s budget requests for the Social Security Administration in recent years have not covered the increases in claims and backlog in appeals. ...
In response, the Social Security agency has suspended efforts to open eight planned hearing offices to process claims in Alabama, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, Montana, California and New York, spokesman Mark Lassiter said. Overtime has been largely eliminated, and a hiring freeze has blocked new staff to process appeals.
The extended stopgap measures have “made it much more difficult” for the agency to reduce the backlog in disability claims, he said.
“We have many high-traffic offices where all day long, our employees interview people filing for benefits,” said Witold Skwierczynski, president of the union representing local Social Security field offices. “Then they have to process a case. That takes time.”

This sort of article seldom appears spontaneously. Some member of Congress asked for that Congressional Research Service report. Probably, someone asked that member of Congress to ask for that report. Someone pointed out the report to the Post. Someone fed the Post information about backlogs at Social Security. Someone told them that even the Obama budget for Social Security is inadequate. We cannot know for sure but there is a good chance that Social Security's press office was involved in planting this story since they are quoted. I am glad to see that a good fight is being put up to get Social Security an adequate operating budget. This is exactly the opposite of what happened when Jo Anne Barnhart was Commissioner of Social Security.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a need to acquire consulting services in the field of Industrial Organizational (I/O) psychology or an equivalent field in support of the design of an Occupational Information System (OIS).

Can anyone explain this one?

April 8

From Ezra Klein, writing in the Washington Post:

April 8th. That’s the deadline for Republicans and Democrats to reach a deal on funding for the remainder of 2011. No deal? Then the government shuts down. And if I were a betting man, that’s where my money would be right now: the negotiations have become too acrimonious, the issues at their heart too numerous and personal to the parties, to make a deal likely even in normal circumstances. But in circumstances in which newly elected Republicans are trying to prove to their base that they won’t catch Beltway fever and compromise while Democrats are trying to prove they won’t get pushed around by a party that controls a minority of the federal government? A deal seems near impossible.

Mar 28, 2011

Government Shutdown Looms

From the Wall Street Journal:

The White House and Democratic lawmakers, with less than two weeks left to avoid a government shutdown, are assembling a proposal for roughly $20 billion in additional spending cuts that could soon be offered to Republicans, according to people close to the budget talks.

That would come on top of $10 billion in cuts that Congress has already enacted and would represent a deeper reduction than the Obama administration and Senate Democrats had offered previously in negotiations. But it isn't clear that would be enough to satisfy Republicans, who initially sought $61 billion in spending cuts and face pressure from tea-party activists not to compromise....
The Treasury Department this week is likely to issue an updated report on when it expects the ceiling on the federal debt will have to be increased; its most recent estimate was that the borrowing limit would be reached between April 15 and the end of May. ...
Anticipating tough tea-party opposition to raising the debt limit, Senate Republicans are planning soon to mount a new push for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget, which may be unveiled soon after Congress reconvenes this week.

What Social Security Crisis?

From Paul Krugman, writing about the argument that the Social Security trust funds are a myth:

The bigger problem for those who want to see a crisis in Social Security’s future is this: if Social Security is just part of the federal budget, with no budget or trust fund of its own, then, well, it’s just part of the federal budget: there can’t be a Social Security crisis. All you can have is a general budget crisis. Rising Social Security benefit payments might be one reason for that crisis, but it’s hard to make the case that it will be central.

Mar 27, 2011

Government Shutdown Looking More Likely

From the Washington Post:

A breakdown this week in closed-door negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House on funding the federal government spilled into the open late Friday, with aides from both parties now saying it’s possible Congress may not agree on a long-term funding resolution or another temporary measure by an April 8 deadline. ...

Democratic aides said talks had been underway for nearly two weeks between Boehner’s staff and the White House budget office, with steady progress leading to an agreement that the two sides would meet halfway between the $61 billion in cuts approved by the House and Democrats’ preference for maintaining current spending levels.

Since $10 billion in cuts had already been approved in two temporary funding resolutions, that position would require Democrats to come up with only an additional $20 billion to $25 billion — some of which Democrats hoped to take from mandatory programs such as health care and agriculture subsidies.

But on Tuesday, according to Democrats, House Republicans changed the terms, insisting that negotiations start with the House-passed bill and that Democrats identify the cuts they couldn’t accept.

Such a move would force Democrats to go on record defending programs that Republicans had identified as wasteful. In the meeting Tuesday, White House budget director Jacob J. Lew balked at the terms and walked out of the meeting, Democratic aides said.

Republican aides blamed Lew for the impasse, saying it was the White House that had demanded unreasonable terms.