Congressional Hearing Announced

     From a press release: 

U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the accuracy and uses of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.  The hearing will take place on Thursday, February 2, 2012 in B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 9:00 a.m. ... 

As many news reports have accounted, incorrect death reports have created severe personal and financial hardship for those who are erroneously listed as deceased, including the termination of benefits and the public disclosure of information that the SSA normally keeps confidential.  According to the SSA, each year approximately 14,000 individuals are incorrectly listed as deceased on the DMF.  Those affected have experienced termination of benefits, rejected credit, declined mortgages and other devastating consequences while their personal and private information is publicly exposed.  

Further, the DMF reportedly has become a source for thieves to capitalize on the identities of children and others who have died.  Criminals appear to be exploiting the easy access to death information to submit fraudulent tax returns that include the decedent’s SSN.  Parents of the deceased child do not know their child’s identity has been stolen until the IRS rejects their legitimately filed return and the theft has been exposed.

     But if you don't use the Death Master File, you end up paying out lots of Social Security benefits to dead people. If you don't make the Death Master File available to other agencies, then other agencies have the same problem. If you don't make the Death Master File available to the public, there is the same problem with  private retirement benefits and with credit fraud not to mention that life insurers get to avoid paying off on their insureds whose survivors did not know there was a life insurance policy.
    Like a lot of government, the Death Master File sounds terribly boring but it has huge implications. for many, many people Also like a lot of government problems, probably there is no solution so we'll have to keep muddling along.

Patty Duke Applies For Social Security Benefits And There's More Revealed Than You Would Expect -- Unscripted Social Security Number Wistfulness, A Few Real Tears And A Major Detail That Social Security Hopes You Don't Notice

     Ms. Duke became wistful thinking about receiving a Social Security number at a very young age.At that time one received a Social Security number only when one began working.  She received her Social Security number at such a young age because she started working as an actress at a very young age. The acting itself may not have been so bad for Ms. Duke but her life around the time she received her Social Security number and for many years thereafter was grim and I'm talking PTSD-inducing grim. Bringing up those memories may have contributed to her shedding a few real tears at the end  as she finalized her claim. I doubt that Ms. Duke or Social Security anticipated that this video would have such a genuinely emotional element to it.

     Social Security would prefer that you not notice that Ms. Duke needed the help of her husband in applying for benefits online.

I Feel So Bland And Colorless After Watching This

Social Security Releases Contractor Information

    Social Security has released its annual Service Contract Inventory, which shows how much was made to each of the agency's service contractors. If you go to the trouble, you can find how much was paid not only to Lockheed Martin but to each medical consultant or vocational expert. I did a quick review and came up with this list of the biggest contractors:

• Lockheed Martin $72 million
• Computer Sciences Corporation $34 million
• Microtechnologies LLC $32 million
• Northrup Grumman $31 million
• ABT $22 million

     Note that this is a list of service contractors. It does not include hardware purchases or rent, for instance.

Budget Cuts Mean Staff Cuts Which Means Less Work Gets Done

Here are a couple of tables from the testimony of Steve Clifton, the President of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA) at today's Social Security Subcommitee hearing.

 

Just two acronyms to explain -- FY means Fiscal Year and TSC means Teleservice Center.

Hearing Backlogs To Improve?

     From the testimony of Social Security Deputy Commissioner Carolyn Colvin at today's House Social Security Subcommittee hearing:

Due to tight budgets in fiscal years (FY) 2011 and 2012, we have suspended or postponed lower priority activities so that we can continue to achieve our most important goals—eliminating the hearings backlog and focusing on program integrity work. Our available funding in FY 2012 is almost $400 million less than what we operated with in FY 2010. At the same time, our fixed costs and our workloads continued to increase. We lost over 4,000 employees in FY 2011, and we expect to lose over 3,000 more employees this year that we cannot replace. We simply do not have enough staff to complete all of the work for which we are responsible, and we made strategic decisions about the areas in which we must do less with less.

Eliminating the hearings backlog remains our top priority. With the resources we received in FY 2012, we can still achieve our commitment to reduce the average hearings processing time to 270 days by the end of FY 2013 provided we are able to hire enough administrative law judges. It will be an extraordinary accomplishment because we have faced a significant increase in hearing requests due to the economic downturn. While we cannot afford to complete the level of program integrity work authorized under the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) because Congress did not appropriate the full amount, we will increase the number of program integrity reviews that we conduct by 90,000 more full medical continuing disability reviews (CDR) this year.

 I don't know what's going on in other places but the hearing backlog is certainly growing where I am. Given the hiring freeze and the elimination of contract hearing reporters, it's hard for me to see anything other than an increase in hearing backlogs nationally over the next year.

Some PEBES Mailings To Resume

    From the Associated Press:

Social Security benefits statements — which officials stopped mailing to cut costs — will again be sent out to selected age groups.

Annual statements will begin being sent again next month to people 60 and older who are not yet receiving benefits, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press. One-time mailings to 25-year-old workers introducing them to the entitlement program and their potential benefits will begin being sent by the end of the year, the letter says.

     The benefit statements are officially known as Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statements (PEBES).

Burlington, NC Field Office To Close

     The Burlington, NC Social Security field office will be closing in March as a budget cutting measure. I am familiar with Burlington since it is about an hour by car from where I'm sitting. It is not losing population. Burlington and surrounding communities, such as Graham, Mebane and Elon, are all growing rapidly. This reduces service to tens of thousands of people and increases pressure on the Durham, Greensboro and Reidsville field offices.