Quiz Answer

Question: Ms F. is drawing SSI benefits. During a redetermination she reveals that her mother died earlier in the year. As a result Ms. F and her sister inherited the mother's home, which has a fair market value of $250,000. Ms F. is not living in the house but her sister is. The sister has nowhere else to live. The fair market rental on the house is $1500 per month. Ms F. is:

Possible Answers:

• Ineligible for SSI because her interest in the house is worth more than $2,000
• Ineligible for SSI because of imputed rental income from her sister
• Eligible for SSI because her her joint interest in the house is not considered marketable
• Eligible because her sister is living in the house

Answer: Eligible because the sister is living in the house.

Post Reports On SSA Budget Issues

From Joe Davidson writing in the Washington Post:

After a recent briefing by SSA officials on the potential impact of budget reduction scenarios, the union representing 30,000 Social Security employees in 1,200 field offices sent a letter to Democratic senators “to express our deep-seated concerns about the impact of potential reductions in spending on the program and its beneficiaries.” ...

According to the union letter, which was reviewed by the SSA at the Federal Diary’s request, even with current funding, the agency has had to freeze hiring in most of its sections; expects to lose about 2,500 federal employees, plus 1,000 state employees who are paid with federal funds; did not open eight new hearing offices; and has suspended mailing Social Security statements.

If the 2012 budget remains at 2011 levels, it would be an effective $800 million cut, in part because of increasing costs, according to the letter. The SSA workforce would drop by an additional 4,400 federal and state employees, for a total of 7,900 workers in two years. Almost 400,000 fewer disability claims would be processed, taking the backlog to 1.2 million and the processing time to longer than four months.

That also “would greatly delay other less visible workloads, as S.S.A faces a snowball effect of staffing losses two years in a row,” the union letter said.

I had posted about this letter on September 24.

More On Shooting Near SSA Headquarters

From the Baltimore Sun:

An employee taking a lunchtime stroll during a break from his job at the Social Security Administration headquarters in Woodlawn was robbed and shot on a secluded wooded path on Monday, prompting officials to put the federal campus on lockdown.


The shooting occurred about 11:45 a.m. off Social Security property. Police said the victim walked or stumbled back toward the sprawling complex and collapsed on an access road near Woodlawn Drive and Parallel Road, near the entrance to the Social Security West building and a series of parking lots.


Detectives had not made any arrests as of Monday evening. The victim, whose name and age were not disclosed, was taken by ambulance to Sinai Hospital in Northwest Baltimore. Police said his injuries were not considered life threatening. ... 

Shortly after 3 p.m, Baltimore County police were called back to the Social Security Administration complex for a report of a suspicious package. Police said the package contained a pair of eyeglasses, and police were gone by 4 p.m. 

Police said occupants of one building were briefly evacuated.

Quiz

Lockdown In Baltimore

From CBS Baltimore:

The Social Security Administration facility is on lockdown after a robbery and shooting near its headquarters in Baltimore County.

The robbery did not occur on the campus of the Social Security Administration, but SSA was notified because the suspect has not yet been apprehended.

Baltimore County Police were called to Woodlawn Drive and Parallel Road at 11:43 a.m. Monday. They are on the scene of a shooting in the woods near Walden Circle. 

Police say the victim, an adult male, has suffered non life-threatening injuries and will be transported to Sinai Hospital.

The suspect was last seen running down Woodlawn Drive.

Update: OK, it's over.

You Ought To Read This

     Heather Kovich, a physician, has written an article for Guernica, a magazine, based on her experiences performing consultative examinations for Social Security. It is well-written. Indeed, it is so well-written that it should be appearing in a more prominent publication. It would fit nicely within the covers of the New Yorker. Kovich writes about people she has come to know who are affected by disability and their interaction with Social Security. Disability issues are frequently discussed in the press and in Congress by people who have little experience with actual disabled people. For a refreshing change this article about disability is written by someone who has gone to the trouble of actually getting to know some disabled people. I thought about putting some excerpts here but I could not give even the flavor of the piece within quoting far more than the copyright laws allow, so you'll just have to go to the Guernica site and read it.

A Shameless Promotion

The new edition of my book, Social Security Disability Practice, has been released.

I'm Not Buying Your Arguments

     I am getting feedback from Social Security employees to the effect that the House Republican draft of an appropriations bill covering Social Security sounds OK to them. As I understand it, their argument goes like this:

• Social Security gets more money. That is good for this fiscal year and it increases the baseline for future years, which would be even better.
• Social Security would be able to do more Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations and Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs). Both need doing.
• With the additional money, Social Security would be able to avoid furloughing employees. This may be the most important consideration for Social Security employees.

     That is all true and I agree with these points. I cannot blame anyone for wanting to avoid a furlough. However, there are other important considerations that lead me to believe the House draft bill would be bad news for the public. Here are my concerns:

• The draft bill would give more money to Social Security but would require that a huge portion of all the money appropriated to Social Security be spent on SSI redeterminations and CDRs. This would reduce the money available to be spent on everything else that Social Security is supposed to do. This will cause increased backlogs and poorer service generally.
• The money could not be spent wisely on SSI redeterminations and CDRs in the approximately nine month time period that would be left in the fiscal year by the time an appropriation is agreed to and Social Security can start to implement the appropriation. I am pretty sure that Social Security does not currently have enough personnel trained in SSI redeterminations to do all that would be required. Personnel would have to be retrained. That takes time. By the time the people get trained, the fiscal year would be about over. Disability Determination Services (DDS) personnel could do the CDRs but anyone who is cut off benefits gets the right to a reconsideration hearing. These hearings are not before Administrative Law Judges but before DDS hearing officers. There are few DDS hearing officers. Many more would be needed. It would take months to train all the needed personnel. By the time this is done, the fiscal year would be over and there would be a huge backlog of CDRs awaiting reconsideration hearings.

     If I am not understanding the proposal, please correct me, but it looks to me like the result would be a wasteful crash program that would accomplish little in the short run except to make backlogs at Social Security much worse. That would be poor public policy. Avoiding furloughs of Social Security employees is an important consideration but not be the only consideration.
     Social Security should be given the time to ramp up to do the increased SSI redeterminations and CDRs in an orderly fashion that doesn't trash everything else the agency is supposed to be doing.