It's Shocking

     Mark Miller at Reuters thinks it's a terrible thing that Social Security is no longer mailing out annual statements to working people. Miller is also shocked to hear that the agency has frozen hiring, reduced its workforce and is cutting field offices. He cannot believe that people are increasingly required to do business with Social Security over the internet.

     He's right. This shouldn't be happening. 

     The problem with Miller's piece is that its thrust seems to be that the service reductions are the result of choices by Social Security management. I don't get the feeling when reading his piece that he has any idea just how tight the budget squeeze is at Social Security, that Social Security management had a gun held to its head when it made these decisions. There's no way to fairly write about service at Social Security without talking about the insistence of Congressional Republicans on slashing federal non-defense discretionary spending. Miller doesn't talk about that subject even though he's been critical of Republican budget plans for Medicare. I know that "federal non-defense discretionary spending" sounds like an awfully boring topic but the consequences of decisions on "federal non-defense discretionary spending" for Social Security, for other government agencies and for the American public are important.

GAO Criticizes Social Security

     From a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has undertaken numerous modernization efforts, but it lacks effective measurement tools to determine progress. Since 2001, SSA has reported spending about $5 billion on the modernization of its systems. Specifically, the agency has undertaken hundreds of modernization projects each year from 2001 to 2011, and officials identified 120 such initiatives that they considered to be key investments in modernization. ... While the Office of Management and Budget requires agencies to establish performance measures to gauge modernization progress, SSA has not fully established quantifiable performance measures for all its modernization projects or performed post-implementation reviews, which GAO has previously recommended and which would enable the agency to effectively measure its progress....

SSA lacks updated and comprehensive plans to guide its modernization efforts. Strategic planning is essential for an organization to define what it seeks to accomplish, identify strategies to achieve the desired results, and measure progress. ...

      Let someone who is fairly removed from this issue give a few guesses as to why Social Security's systems modernization efforts may not meet GAO's criteria:

• Much of it was funded by the economic stimulus adopted in the early days of the Obama Administration. A lot of money came to Social Security unexpectedly. There was a heavy emphasis on getting things going quickly. Social Security didn't have the luxury of spending a few years attending to the niceties that GAO likes. Besides, the niceties that GAO likes can lead to "paralysis by analysis."
• Social Security has no idea from one year to the next how much money it will get for information technology or anything else. This makes effective long term planning impossible.
• The whole world of information technology keeps changing at such a rapid pace that no one knows what to expect in the future. How do you plan for the future or even properly evaluate what you are current doing in this environment? There appears to be  a legitimate argument that much of the money being spent on Social Security's national computer center is a waste, that this sort of center is yesterday's technology, but  Social Security can't wait for a few years for its proper course to become crystal clear. It must go forward with what its best judgment is now. It has to do something even if that something turns out later not to have been the wisest thing it could have done.
• The GAO always whines about something. That's their job. Sometimes their whining makes a worthwhile contribution to public administration. Sometimes it's just pointless whining.

Fee Payment Numbers

     Social Security has posted new numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants. These fees are processed by Social Security but come out of the back benefits paid to the claimants.
     Since the claimants are paid at the same time as the attorneys, these numbers shows how quickly or slowly Social Security is able to make benefit payments after approving claims. Note the dramatic decline in April. My working theory is that there was a fair amount of overtime available in the first quarter of the year but no more. January is always badly affected despite the availability of overtime because of heavy seasonal demands.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-12	29,926	89,749,312.99
Feb-12	43,946	134,207,416.10
Mar-12	47,376	139,571,577.57
Apr-12	38,239	113,225,483.07

Senate Finance Committee Schedules Hearing

     The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for May 17 on the topic "The Social Security Administration: Is it Meeting its Responsibilities to Save Taxpayer Dollars and Serve the Public?" The only scheduled witness is Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue. This is before the full committee.

A Quarter Of A Million Times A Year

     Social Security has sent over to the Office of Management and Budget a routine Paperwork Reduction Act request for approval of a new version of a form. The agency predicts that the form will be used 250,000 a year. The form in question is the SSA-1724. You know that one, right, the "Claim for Amounts Due in the Case of a Deceased Beneficiary", used when someone entitled to back Social Security benefits, almost always disability benefits, dies before they get paid. 

     And, of course, if you believe the "disability community", each and every one of those folks  who dies before getting paid could and should have been working until the very day they died if only they had had the right level of support and encouragement.
     Yes, I know that estimate of 250,000 is almost certainly over the top but the reality is that the form gets used plenty, probably tens of thousands of times a year.
     Several times a year someone who has recently gotten into the Social Security disability field asks me how to deal with the situation of a  Social Security disability claimant who dies before getting paid. They usually seem surprised that I can easily answer their question. Of course, I can easily answer the question. It's because it's a situation that comes up on a regular basis in my practice. If you have trouble believing that, you just don't know the reality of Social Security disability.

Fairies And Unicorns Are Real And Every Disabled Person Can Work

     The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has met with  Christy Dunaway, an official of the Southeast Americans with Disabilities Act Center to talk about Social Security's disability programs, particularly work incentives. Here's a key quote from Dunaway:

One fundamental core value and belief underlies our comments today: All people of working age with disabilities can work if they have access to appropriate education, training, and vital supports such as technology assistance, transportation, and personal assistance services.

     This is absolute rubbish. It comes from a woman who tells us that she is disabled. In Social Security terms, she is not a bit disabled since she has regular employment. Impaired yes, but disabled no. She has no business trying to speak for a group of people whom she does not represent and whom she does not begin to understand. All the things that Dunaway say make it possible for anyone to work regardless of their disabilities are irrelevant to the vast majority of Social Security disability recipients. None of that matters if you are suffering from severe pain or devastating mental illness or are older and have a severe, chronic degenerative diseases. Would she really repeat the statement she made to a real, live person dying of cancer?

     People like Dunaway are a positive menace to truly disabled people. They are the reason we have politicians who are confused and dismayed that Social Security disability recipients fail to return to work. Dunaway and her ilk are mostly interested in federal grants to allow them to serve a tiny sliver of the handicapped community, most of whom are in wheelchairs. We have to make policy based upon the reality of who is drawing Social Security disability benefits and that's someone other than Dunaway and those few people whom she thinks are representative of the disabled population of this country.

NHC ALJs To Travel

     I am hearing reports that National Hearing Center (NHC) Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) will now be forced to travel to remote locations when the claimant declines a video hearing. The obvious reason for this is that claimants are frequently declining to do a video hearing with an NHC ALJ because the identity of the ALJ is being kept a secret until the day of the hearing. The whole reason for the "secret ALJ" policy has been the NHCs. 

     There are several problems with having the NHC ALJs travel like this:

• Social Security doesn't have the money for the travel expenses.
• The traveling will make the NHC ALJs much less efficient.
• None of the NHC ALJs signed on to any travel, much less extensive travel.
• It has been my impression that at least a few of the NHC ALJs wanted to be at a NHC because they wanted to avoid being in the same room as the claimant and the claimant's attorney. For them, the lack of face to face contact wasn't a bug. It was a feature.

     Defeat the NHCs and you probably defeat the "secret ALJ" policy. I think the NHCs are in trouble.

Washington State Congressman Fights Office Closure

     Congressman Jim McDermott is fighting an office closure in Seattle, Washington. 

     What sort of office closures do we get if Republicans control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives? Can field offices survive a Romney Presidency? Doing away with field offices could easily be the assignment of a Romney appointee as Commissioner of Social Security. Is it imaginable? Of course, getting rid of Supplemental Security Income would have to be the first step but where would you go from there? 

     If this seems inconceivable, you have not considered the consequences of the Ryan budget, to which Romney has pledged his support. It cuts domestic discretionary spending -- and that includes Social Security's administrative budget -- virtually in half.