Strategic Plan

     Social Security has posted its Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2013-2016. Here are the agency's near term goals:

• Goal 1: Faster hearing decisions
       By the end of FY 2013, we will reduce the average time for a hearing decision from 345 days at the end of FY 2011 to 270 days.
• Goal 2: Reduce Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments
       By the end of FY 2013*, we will increase our SSI overpayment accuracy rate from 93.3 percent at the end of FY 2010 to 95 percent.
• Goal 3 Increase use of our online services
       By the end of FY 2013, we will increase our online filing rates from 36 percent at the end of FY 2011 to 48 percent.

This Doesn't Look Good

     From Joe Davidson's column in the Washington Post:

As the federal workforce endures a two-year freeze on basic pay rates and faces a possible increase in pension payments and as new employees will have to contribute more to their retirement program, Barbara Murchison has reason to smile.

A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit could finally end her employment discrimination case against the Social Security Administration (SSA), which began 11 years ago. ...

As we reported in January, Murchison was reassigned from her team leader position at Social Security’s main office in Woodlawn, Md., in 2001. The agency conceded that she had been discriminated against, for reasons of race, age and sex, among others, after a ruling by an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) administrative judge. SSA agreed to give Murchison her gig back but did not.

Social Security, however, erroneously said it had restored Murchison to her position, and the EEOC accepted that false assurance.

This left Murchison in limbo. She fought to get her job back even after the District Court ruled against her at least in part because the EEOC did not issue a formal finding that the SSA had not followed the EEOC’s order to restore Murchison. She took it to the Court of Appeals, whose opinion really makes the Social Security Administration look bad. 
The opinion said the lower court’s decision and the EEOC’s acceptance of Social Security assurances were based on “what can only be deemed a deceptive and false assertion of compliance made by the SSA.” ...

In January, an SSA statement said that “we deny all of the allegations made by Ms. Murchison about the agency, and we expect to prevail” in the case.

They got that wrong, on both counts.

What's Up With Social Security's Occupational Information System Project?

     I have uploaded to Scribd a part of Social Security's Fiscal Year 2013 appropriation justification, that is their explanation of why they need the money they have requested. This part discusses research, particularly the planned Occupational Information System (OIS). You will note that Social Security tries hard to play up the role of the Department of Labor. Don't be fooled. This is completely controlled by the Social Security Administration. It has been clear all along that Social Security wants to control every aspect of its OIS project. That is the primary criticism that people outside Social Security have made of the OIS project.

Work Reviews Challenged

     From Courthouse News Service:

     The Social Security Administration will have to face claims it failed to make work reviews accessible to the mentally and developmentally disabled, a federal judge ruled.
     U.S. District Judge Edward Chen refused to dismiss two related cases accusing the SSA of violating Title II and Title XVI of the Rehabilitation Act, finding allegations of emotional distress in the review process sufficient to constitute an injury for purposes of standing.
     Work reviews take place after a person has been deemed disabled and granted benefits and are conducted to ensure beneficiaries are not earning above a certain income level, in which case benefits can be terminated, suspended or reduced.
     Terrence Davis and "John Doe" claim the SSA does not train claims representatives how to conduct work reviews when the person under review has mental or development disabilities or how to communicate with such people and that the SSA failed to modify its forms to make them understandable to people with such disabilities....
     Davis originally filed his case in 2006 as a class action but Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rejected his motion for class certification while allowing him to re-file. Davis instead chose to file an amended individual complaint without class allegations. Doe filed his individual complaint a few months later also without class allegations.

Disability Claims Increase

    From the Rupert Murdock owned New York Post:

Standing too many months on the unemployment line is driving Americans crazy — literally — and it’s costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

With their unemployment-insurance checks running out, some of the country’s long-term jobless are scrambling to fill the gap by filing claims for mental illness and other disabilities with Social Security — a surge that hobbles taxpayers and making the employment rate look healthier than it should as these people drop out of the job statistics.

“It could be because their health really is getting worse from the stress of being out of work,” says Matthew Rutledge, a research economist at Boston College. “Or it could just be desperation — people trying to make ends meet when other safety nets just aren’t there." ...

During the recent economic boom, only 33 percent of applicants were claiming mental illness, but that figure has jumped to 43 percent, says Rutledge, citing preliminary results from his latest research.

America Isn't As Exceptional As We Like To Think

     The United Kingdom is embarking upon a major overhaul of its Social Security disability benefits. The government minister whose department administers these benefits has presented a report to Parliament giving a broad overview of what is envisioned. Here are a few quotes

• [Disability benefits are currently] confusing and complex.
• Individuals will have to qualify for the benefit for a period of six months and be expected to continue to qualify for a further six months before an award can be made.
• Key to the [disability] benefit will be an objective assessment of individual need, which we are developing in collaboration with a group of independent specialists in health, social care and disability, including disabled people.
• [W]e plan to periodically review all awards.
• Since [the current system of disability benefits] was introduced in 1992, there have been significant improvements in medical treatments and in aids and adaptations that assist disabled people. Attitudes to disability have also changed. The introduction of legislation, for example the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and Equality Act 2010, to protect the interests of disabled people and prevent discrimination has helped many disabled people lead more independent live.
• We are committed to further breaking down the barriers in society that prevent disabled people from exercising choice and control, and living active and independent lives. Just as society is changing and advancing, so too must our benefits system to reflect those changes.
• In just eight years, the numbers receiving [disability benefits] has increased by 30 per cent. The complexity and subjectivity of the benefit has led to a wider application than originally intended. To ensure that the new benefit is sustainable and affordable in the long term, we must reform [disability benefits] to make sure we focus on those that need the greatest help to live independently.
• Evidence suggests that [disability benefits] can also act as a barrier to work, when it should enable people to lead independent lives, including having or getting a job.
• The definitions currently used are subjective and reflect views of disability from the 1990s, not the modern day.
• A greater emphasis on objectivity and increased use of evidence will lead to more consistent outcomes and greater transparency for individuals, as the process will be easier to understand.
• We know that many disabled people use aids and adaptations to increase
  their ability to participate in everyday life. ... We believe we should take greater account of the successful use of aids and adaptations ... This might mean, for example, considering an individual’s ability to get about in a wheelchair, rather than ignoring the wheelchair, as we do currently.

"Utmost Heinous Kind"

     Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees, has posted online its January 2012 newsletter. No urgent news in the newsletter, just more proof of the poor relationship between the union and Social Security management. 

     This issue of the newsletter has an item titled "Alabama Employee Wins Reinstatement" that includes this quote from an arbitrator's decision:

I find the behavior of Mr. (Jeff) Murphree, Grievant's fourth line supervisor to be of the utmost heinous kind. [He] used his position as supervisor to stalk Grievant, to humiliate her, to threaten her, to frighten her, and to cause her health to be affected.... [This supervisor] was the malicious leader of these actors [in her removal case]. I find that [this supervisor] used his position [highest authority in the office] to lead his subordinates to lie, to antagonize Grievant and/or to misuse their own positions in order to retaliate against Grievant for having charged [this supervisor] with violation of protected EEO activity. When Grievant sought to work at a different office in a different town in order to free herself from his heinous activities, [this supervisor] managed a way to show up to continue the harassment and to cause false charges to be made against her by his subordinates.

OIG Report On Outlier ALJs

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released its report on "outlier" Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), that is ALJs who have either high or low rates of approving disability claims or high or low productivity. If you were expecting dramatic revelations, you will be disappointed. The chart below is an example. It displays the expected bell shaped curve of ALJ rates of approving disability claims. This is pretty much inevitable when you are talking about human behavior. Notice that the tail on the left side seems to be a lot longer than the tail on the right side. I'm prejudiced but I think the problem is much more with the ALJs with a low allowance rate.