To The ALJ Association

     Dear ALJ Association:

      Take a look at the sort of thing that comes from claiming that because Social Security pressures you to hold more hearings and issue more decisions that the agency is forcing you to approve more disability claims. You're not getting back at your enemy, Social Security. You're not reducing the pressures you face to hear and decide cases. You're only aiding those who really want to influence how you decide cases or who just want to do away with your jobs altogether. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend.

     I'm writing this as someone who agrees with you that ALJs are expected to hear and decide too many cases and that this reduces the quality of the process. I encourage you to stick to that message. I think it's a message that most people involved with the program have sympathy for. The "I'm being forced to approve claims" message is ridiculous.

One Of The Reasons Social Security's Death Master File Is Made Public

     From the AP:

More than $1.1 billion in unclaimed life insurance benefits have been recovered nationwide after an investigation, New York regulators said Wednesday.

The state's Department of Financial Services said many insurance companies were not using lists of recent deaths from the Social Security Administration to determine whether a policy holder had died. That meant if family members did not know there was a life insurance policy or forgot to file a claim, the policy went unpaid.

New York regulators say they directed insurers to use the Social Security master file to investigate unclaimed policies -- just as insurers used the list of recently deceased to determine when to stop annuity payments.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said state investigators working with insurance companies were able to make payments to 100,000 consumers nationwide, including more than 25,000 New York residents. The oldest claim dated to a death in 1960.

Unemployment And Social Security Disability; Also, What Are The Chances Of Chained CPI Being Adopted If The Chairman Of The House Ways And Means Committee Is Afraid To Even Use The Term "Chained CPI"?

     From a press release issued by the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee:

Yesterday, Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) introduced H.R. 1502, “The Social Security Disability Insurance and Unemployment Benefits Double Dip Elimination Act of 2013.”  The legislation would keep people from receiving both Social Security disability benefits and unemployment benefits at the same time.  A similar proposal was included in the President’s FY2014 budget with estimated savings of $1 billion over 10 years.

     In addition, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is reporting that the House Social Security Subcommittee has introduced legislation to switch Social Security to the Chained CPI method of computing the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). There is a press release from the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee obliquely suggesting that this is under consideration. The word "bipartisan" is used over and over in this press release but the term "Chained CPI" is never mentioned.

Work Incentives Fail Everywhere

     Great Britain decided that there were too many people drawing disability benefits under their social security system. Their plan to deal with this was to get one in six disability recipients back to work. Their definition of "back to work" was quite modest -- holding down a job for three months or more -- yet according to The Guardian newspaper all they have been able to achieve is about one in twenty returning to work. If you were to apply that British definition of a successful return to work to recipients of U.S. Social Security disability benefits, I think we'd already be returning 5% or more of disability benefits recipients to work.
     Returning large numbers of disability recipients to work isn't doable, no matter what you try. I keep harping on this point since members of Congress keep pursuing the return to work dream despite the overwhelming evidence that they're wasting their time.

Man Found Guilty In Shooting Outside SSA Headquarters

     From the Baltimore Sun:

A Baltimore County man was convicted Wednesday in the nonfatal shooting of an employee outside the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn in 2011.

Gary Stokes, 23, was found guilty by a Baltimore County jury in the shooting that caused the Social Security complex on Security Boulevard to go on lockdown for more than an hour.

Police said Stokes robbed Obie Blackmon of his cellphone and then shot him in the arm as he was taking an afternoon walk in woods near the campus.

Former Lawmaker Pleads Guilty To Social Security Fraud

     From CNS:

Raymond E. Salva, a former Democratic member of the Missouri House of Representatives, has pleaded guilty to illegally taking $58,816 in federal disability payments while he was working as a state legislator earning $30,000 a year, according to the Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration. ...

In May 2003, about five months after he started working as a state representative, the SSA conducted a review to find out whether Salva was still eligible for disability payments. “As part of that review, Salva completed a form in which he affirmed that he was not able to return to work and that he had not done any work since being disabled,” reads a press release from the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). ...

Sympathy For Binder And Binder?

     Take a look at Jillian Kay Melchior's snarl on National Review Online. She's mostly targeting Charlie Binder of Binder and Binder but she goes way beyond him. The whole piece is just incredibly angry and mean-spirited. Among other things, Melchior says that Social Security pays a lot of money to people who never claim to be disabled. I suppose that's true if you're talking about retirement and survivor's benefits but it's certainly not true if you're talking about disability benefits. She mostly writes about a book published by Charlie Binder on Social Security disability benefits. I haven't read the book but it certainly sounds harmless. However, Melchior describes it as a "rotten little book" and says that it shows that Binder has a "radical political stance" basically because Binder thinks that Social Security, particularly disability benefits, is a good idea and because he suggests that Social Security is not always fair to disability claimants. She objects to Binder advising claimants who go before an Administrative Law Judge to answer only the questions they are asked. Melchior must have had no experience with lawyers. This is standard legal advice for anyone testifying in any sort of legal proceeding. I expect that it's been standard advice literally for centuries. I have to repeat that this piece is just incredibly angry and mean-spirited. Even if you're no fan of Binder and Binder, you'll find this attack disgusting.

Senate Moving Forward With Appropriations Bill Covering Social Security

     From the summary of a bill pending before the Senate Appropriations Committee:

Social Security Administration (SSA): The bill includes nearly $12 billion, an increase of $534 million, for SSA’s administrative expenses. This includes a $441 million increase for program integrity activities and a $93 million increase in core administrative expenses for SSA to keep pace with an aging population and record-high workloads.

     This bill was marked up in Subcommittee yesterday. It will now go to the full committee.
     The House of Representatives has yet to produce a draft appropriations bill covering Social Security. However, the House's budget plan for the Labor-HHS appropriations, the one that covers Social Security, is 25.9% lower than the Senate Labor-HHS appropriation bill.
     The Senate bill would worsen service at Social Security. A 25.9% decrease in Social Security's operating budget would lead to unimaginable consequences.