Budget Shortfall Creates Challenges

     Some excerpts from Fiscal Year 2012 Inspector General Statement on the Social Security Administration's Major Management and Performance Challenges:

While timeliness and ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] productivity have improved, an increased number of applicants has led to an increase in the hearings backlog. By the end of September 2012, the backlog stood at about 817,000 cases, an increase of almost 30,000 cases since the start of the FY [Fiscal Year]. ...

With the loss of DDS [Disability Determination Services] employees and a high level of initial disability claims receipts anticipated in FY 2013, SSA [Social Security Administration] does not expect to achieve its initial claims pending level goal of 525,000 by FY 2014. In fact, in FY 2013, SSA expects that pending initial disability claims will rise to over 1.1 million. ...

SSA stated that the current level of funding would lead to a loss of employees. In FY 2012, it lost over 1,600 employees. Consequently, the Agency projected its national 800-number service will deteriorate significantly because it will not have a sufficient number of employees to answer calls. Busy signals rose from 3 percent in FY 2011 to 4.6 percent in FY 2012. The average speed to answer also increased from 180 seconds in FY 2011 to 294 seconds in FY 2012 [that's about five minutes]. Additionally, SSA estimates it will be unable to complete all its post-entitlement work [that is putting people on benefits after they have been approved -- computing their back benefits and authorizing payment]. The Agency believes its inability to handle this work timely could result in improper payments and delays in collecting overpayments.

     This is all going to get worse if SSA's appropriation stays where it is now under the continuing resolution, which is slightly below last year's amount. SSA needs a larger appropriation merely to prevent further deterioration. If Congress wants even marginal improvement, SSA needs a significantly larger appropriation. And the result if Social Security's operating budget is cut dramatically by sequestration is almost unthinkable.

Romer Says Disability Benefits Need Reform

     I missed this in a piece by Christina Romer in Sunday's New York Times Business section:

Another entitlement program needing attention is Social Security Disability Insurance. It provides essential support for people unable to work, and will be even more important if we raise the Medicare eligibility age. But the current system is expensive and inefficient. The rolls have surged in recent decades, and the system discourages part-time work and moves to less-demanding jobs. Economists have proposed innovations that could allow more workers to stay in the labor force — thus slowing spending growth and improving the security and well-being of disabled workers.

     Romer was at one time chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. The "innovations" touted by Romer are completely unworkable. Any "reform" of Social Security disability will almost certainly take the form of making it harder to qualify for benefits with some meaningless fig leaf of rehabilitation added on top to distract people about what is being done.

Did Michael Astrue Expect Obama To Lose?

     I can't be sure but I'm guessing that Michael Astrue expected a Republican to win this year's Presidential election. I ask myself whether Astrue would have gone ahead with his plan for Social Security to create its own occupational information system to replace the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) if he thought that the Commissioner replacing him would be appointed by President Obama. My answer to that question is "no."
     Figuring out how to replace the DOT has been the most consequential issue that Michael Astrue has had on his plate as Commissioner. Sure, his efforts to deal with backlogs and inadequate budgets have gotten more public attention but the DOT replacement issue will affect Social Security disability determination for decades into the future. Millions of disability claims will be approved or denied because of what is done on this issue.
     I can't be sure but I think the occupational information system project is going back to the drawing board once we have a new Commissioner. The "We'll go it alone and make the DOT replacement say exactly what we want it to say" approach isn't likely to be acceptable to a Democratic Commissioner.  In the end, I expect that the Department of Labor will be asked to take the leading role. I think this result could have been foreseen.
     My best guess is that the only way Astrue's plan could have gone forward was if Astrue's successor was a Republican appointee. Even then, its future would have been uncertain because of the costs and because of concerns about whether the courts would accept it. The "go it alone" approach was a bad decision that has wasted time and money.

Waive Five Month Waiting Period For Disabled Vets?

    From a press release:

The Disabled Veterans National Foundation(DVNF), a nonprofit organization that exists to help to men and women who come home with emotional and physical wounds after serving our country, is applauding and supporting a bipartisan bill that would provide faster disability payments to veterans injured in combat. 

The Recovering Service Members Disability Benefits Act (HR 6445) would exempt active-duty, Reserve and National Guard service members injured in a combat zone from the customary five-month waiting period for Social Security Disability Insurance payments. Reps. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and Dave Loebsack (D-IA) proposed the bill as an amendment to Title II of the Social Security Act.

     A better idea would be to exempt everyone from the five month waiting period. If we're going to do something special for vets, why don't we make anyone found 100% disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs (or a branch of the military for that matter) automatically qualify medically for Social Security disability benefits? That idea has been around for a few years. A lot of people found 100% disabled by VA are denied disability by Social Security. Almost all are eventually approved on appeal. Why not cut the unnecessary delays for these folks?

On The 11th Hour Of The 11th Day Of The 11th Month

Pennsylvania ALJ Charged With Indecent Assualt

     From the Citizen's Voice of Wilkes-Barre, PA:

Scranton police arrested a judge for the Social Security Administration on charges that he groped two women and kissed one of them against her will, police said.

Sridhar Boini, 42, South Abington Township, faces two counts of indecent assault in the two alleged incidents.

The first occurred July 26 when Judge Boini returned to his office at 409 Lackawanna Ave. after lunch, police said.

He called a female security officer into his chambers, kissed her and grabbed her breasts without her consent, police said. The woman told investigators Boini smelled of alcohol at the time.

     Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Boini has a 32% reversal rate, not that there's any connection between that fact and the accusations against Judge Boini.

The Election Is Over -- We Can Now Talk Social Security

     With the election over, Social Security is starting to come up more frequently in public discussions. Ironic, isn't it, that Social Security is discussed more after the election than before. Here are some items I've noticed:

• Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, has said emphatically since the election that "We are not going to mess with Social Security." 
• There was a rally featuring Democratic politicans and labor leaders yesterday in Philadelphia opposing Social Security cuts. 
• The AARP has sent a post-election letter to members of Congress and the President opposing the chained CPI concept. The chained CPI method is a sneaky way of cutting Social Security benefits by using a different less favorable method of computing the inflation adjustment in Social Security. Over time, this would amount to a significant reduction in Social Security benefits. 
• Peter Orszag, who was President Obama's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is talking up raising the normal retirement age even further and also cutting Social Securtiy benefits fairly dramatically -- but only years into the future. Easy for Orszag to propose. He's making millions of dollars a year on Wall Street.

Termination Determinations Not Always Being Implemented

     From a study by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (footnotes omitted):

We identified populations of 25,564 DI [Disability Insurance] beneficiaries and 67,943 SSI [Supplemental Security Income] recipients who received medical cessation determinations during Calendar Years (CY) 2005 through 2010 but continued receiving monthly benefit payments more than 2 months after the medical cessation determination. We reviewed samples of 250 DI beneficiaries and 250 SSI recipients. We found some individuals who received improper payments because their disability benefits were not terminated 2 months after the cessation determination per SSA policy. Specifically, we found the following.
     • Of the 250 DI beneficiaries, 76 (30 percent) and their auxiliaries improperly received payments after their medical cessation determinations because benefits were not terminated timely. Accordingly, we project that 7,771 beneficiaries in our population received improper benefit payments of approximately $48.9 million.
     • Of the 250 SSI recipients, 41 (16 percent) improperly received payments after their medical cessation determinations because payments were not terminated timely. Accordingly, we project that 11,143 recipients in our population received improper payments of approximately $34.7 million. ...

Despite SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] actions to resolve the causes of untimely terminations, there were still instances where SSA continued improperly paying DI beneficiaries and SSI recipients because of additional systems limitations. In addition, according to SSA, in June 2009, resource limitations and other work priorities caused the Agency to stop routinely identifying cases where benefits were not terminated timely following a medical cessation determination.