Frustrated Employees

     From the Federal Times:

The latest governmentwide employee satisfaction survey indicates that budget cuts, a continuing pay freeze and relentless attacks on federal employees are sapping morale and hampering some agencies’ performance, federal managers and experts say.

At some agencies, the falloff in satisfaction was particularly severe. At the Social Security Administration, 66.5 percent of respondents this year had a positive view of their organization, down sharply from 72.3 percent the previous year.

The results “confirm that you are dedicated hard-working employees who understand how your daily contributions affect our agency’s mission,” Reginald Wells, the agency’s chief human capital officer, said in an email to the SSA workforce.

“However, your responses also show that recent challenges such as increasing workloads, pay and hiring freezes and budget cuts, have affected your satisfaction with your jobs,” Wells added.

The Social Security Administration is in the third year of a partial hiring freeze, during which time its workload has grown.

In fiscal 2012, the agency lost more than 1,600 employees, and more reductions are in store under current funding levels, according to a recent inspector general’s report. As a result, the agency expects customer service on its toll-free 800 number “will deteriorate significantly because it will not have a sufficient number of employees to answer calls,” the report said. To save money, SSA officials last month began closing field offices to the public 30 minutes earlier; and starting in January, the agency’s approximately 1,230 offices will shut down to the public at noon on Wednesdays.

Steve Clifton, president of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, which represents managers in SSA field offices and teleservice centers, said his members are less frustrated by the 2½-year pay freeze than they are by their day-to-day challenge of tackling a growing workload with less staff and budget resources.

Still Waiting

     Today is a month since President Obama was re-elected. He has not yet nominated anyone to replace Michael Astrue as Commissioner of Social Security. Astrue's term as Commissioner ends on January 19. Astrue does not continue in office until a successor is confirmed. Once his term ends, he's gone. His replacement is an Acting Commissioner.

     Obama has been careful about his appointees. There have been remarkably few bad Obama appointees. However, the pace of Obama's appointments has been slow. At the moment, he's still deciding on his nominees for State and Defense for his next term. There's no telling when he'll announce a nominee for Commissioner of Social Security. After he announces a nomination, it will probably be a few months before the Senate takes action on the nomination -- and that's assuming the nomination is uncontroversial.

AARP Opposes COLA Cut

     From the Huffington Post:

On Wednesday, AARP volunteers and staff will visit Capitol Hill to deliver a strong message to Congress on the fiscal cliff: leave Social Security and Medicare off the table. ...

"Americans have spoken and they don’t want Congress or the President to make changes to Social Security or Medicare in any last minute deficit deal,” AARP’s volunteer president Rob Romasco said in a statement....

Specifically, AARP opposes changes to Social Security's cost of living adjustments, or COLAs. The fiscal deal proposal offered by Republicans on Monday suggests changing the way inflation is calculated, which would reduce COLAs by over $100 billion over the next decade according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"Reducing Social Security benefits by moving to a chained consumer price index (CCPI) –- estimated to take $112 billion dollars out of the pockets of current and future Social Security beneficiaries in the next 10 years alone – is inappropriate and unwarranted," AARP CEO A. Barry Rand wrote in a letter to lawmakers earlier this month.

A Sad Story

     There is a long article in the Tampa Bay Times that deals in part with Social Security disability. I will not try to pick out excerpts. Here are some pertinent facts from the article to give you some idea of what it is about:

• Gretchen Molannen files Social Security disability claim.
• Ms. Molannen's disability claim is denied. She appeals and has a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
• The ALJ denies Ms. Molannen's disability claim.
• Less than three months after receiving the ALJ decision, Ms. Molannen commits suicide.
• Ms. Mollanen's alleged disabling impairment was persistent genital arousal disorder.

Couldn't They Afford A Freezer?

     From the Zachary Plainsman-News:

A woman who helped stuff a dead man into an ice chest in order to keep his Social Security checks coming will serve three years in prison.

Heidi Todd, 45, pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful disposal of human remains, mutilating or disinterring human remains and theft.

Police said about $34,000 collected by her and Debra Fisher, 58, in the two years after Debra’s father, Charles Fisher died of heart disease and their plot was discovered.

The roommates put Fisher, 83, into a 160-quart ice chest and kept it in the apartment they and the dead man shared.

Debra Fisher’s trial is scheduled Dec. 10.

Religious Leaders Speak Out In Support Of Social Security Disability Benefits

     From a press release:

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition gathered on Capitol Hill today to speak out in support of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits program. The program, an important lifeline for Americans unable to work due to illness or injury, has been under attack from critics. The two groups will dispel myths about the program being widely abused and wasteful and push to ensure that SSDI is not a victim of fiscal cliff negotiations. 

 The briefing featured presentations from two former SSDI recipients who were able to return to full-time employment after suffering tragic accidents that rendered them unable to work. ...

 Kathy Ruffing, a Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, discussed her recent report: Social Security Disability Insurance is Vital to Workers With Severe Impairments. Additionally, Curtis Ramsey-Lucas, of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, closed the event with an interfaith prayer. 

 "As a nation, we need to be committed to ensuring that when Americans become unable to work due to illness or accident, there is a safety net," said Rabbi Steve Gutow, President and CEO of JCPA. "SSDI is literally a lifeline for millions of Americans. People who collect disability insurance have paid into the system and therefore it is critical that the benefits they have earned are available in their time of need. Recent political attacks on SSDI are misguided at best. And now, as Congress and the President find ways to negotiate away from the fiscal cliff, we hope they will remember that SSDI is a critical program that must be protected."

Picketing At Social Security Office Scheduled For December 5

     From Federal Daily News:

A coalition of labor groups and public interest organizations plans to conduct informational pickets this week outside Social Security Administration offices in 22 states.

According to media alert from the American Federation of Government Employees, the effort will involve “thousands of Social Security employees at more than 100 Social Security offices across the country and representatives from a 200-plus member organization coalition…”

The event, labeled “an effort to save Social Security and Medicare from extinction,” is slated to occur Dec. 5 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. ...

“Cutting Social Security’s budget or making modifications to Medicare and Medicaid should not be part of a grand bargain to reduce the deficit,” Witold Skwierczynski, president of AFGE’s National Council of Social Security Field Operations Locals (NCSSFOL), said in a statement.

AGFE said that an NCSSFOL study determined that sequestration, if implemented, would require SSA to reduce its budget by 5.5 percent, leading to a hiring freeze across most of the agency, and the loss of more than 3,500 SSA and Disability Determination Service state employees. ...

Members of the coalition include the Alliance for Retired Americans, Social Security Works, MoveOn.org, Common Cause, Gray Panthers, American Federation of Teachers, National Council of Negro Women, NAACP, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and other unions and groups. 

According to AFGE, the picketing will take place at SSA offices in Alaska, Alabama, California, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

A Good Summary Of The Fiscal Cliff Situation

     From Daniel Gross writing in The Daily Beast:

The reality should be seeping in to viewers of the Sunday shows that the Republicans don’t have a game plan. They don’t have a single, specific proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. And even if they had one, they don’t have a roadmap to get there. They keep expecting Obama to come back with something more to their liking, which they’d also reject. Many Republicans literally don’t understand what is happening. Sen. Charles Grassley tweeted over the weekend that he was frustrated that President Obama hadn’t embraced the recommendation of the Bowles-Simpson Commission. Apparently, he is one of the many people in Washington who doesn’t understand that Bowles-Simpson recommended letting the Bush tax rates on the wealthy expire, while also proposing to cap or eliminate deductions primarily enjoyed by the wealthy.

Above all, the Republicans have yet to grasp that the field is tilted against them. Republicans have every reason to expect, based on their scouting of past Obama performances, that he will start moving toward them and then, essentially, bargain with himself. But now he doesn’t have to. Right now, the policy choice isn’t between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and a preferred Republican proposal. No, the choice is between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and the fiscal cliff, which Republicans would like even less and the Democrats could live with for a while.

The Republicans are losing, and time is running out. But instead of putting the quarterback on the field and rolling out an aggressive two-minute drill, they seem to be preparing to punt.

     Update: House Speaker Boehner has come up with a "proposal." It would take the sequestration that would cut funding so much that it would render the federal government, including the Social Security Administration, inoperable and increase it by 30%! To quote John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!"