Doing Less With Less

     From Federal News Radio:

Social Security managed to escape most of the impacts of sequestration. Other agencies, like the Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have furloughed people. Social Security cut back office hours and is doing more with fewer people. It's had two budget cuts in the last two years, and Congress — when it gets back from its latest extended vacation — may or may not approve a new budget. 

In the meantime, Acting Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin has sent an all-hands message to staffers asking them to hang in there. Effective now, she said, "We are facing our toughest fiscal challenge in 30 years...we anticipate lengthy debates over our budget...Congress may not reach agreement before Sept. 30, which means we may enter a new fiscal year under a continuing resolution and under the continued effects of sequestration." 

Colvin, a veteran fed with four decades of service, noted that SSA has lost 10,000 employees in the last three years, and this has resulted in imbalances in different offices.

She said she is telling SSA bosses to "provide for broader empowerment at the staff level," greater delegation of both "accountability and responsibility" — while asking each employee to come up with "game-changer" processes, rules, procedures or systems that make it easier to do more with less.

AARP Calls For New Commissioner

     The AARP has issued a press release calling for the President to nominate a new Commissioner of Social Security.

Taitz Not Going Away

     Orly Taitz is still going strong at the "World's Leading Obama Eligibility Challenge Web Site." She's now mostly making Freedom of Information Act requests to the Social Security Administration for documents concerning the President's mother!  Among Taitz' findings are these gems:

It is not clear, why did Ann Dunham [the President's mother] apply for a change from Dunham to Dunham Obama in 1963, when she divorced Barack Obama senior. One would expect her to change her name in February 1961, when she reportedly married Obama, not in 1963, when she divorced him. This application for SSN change for Ann Dunham was released for the first time today. 

It is not clear, why did Ann Dunham apply for yet another change of her SSN card in June of 1995. This June 1995 application for a change of the SSA card was released for the first time in SSA July 29 2013 letter to Taitz and was received today. This change was made only a few months before Ann Dunham passed away on November 7, 1995. Incidentally, November 7 happens to be the day when the Communist revolution in celebrated in Russia. Ann Dunham passed away at home with only her two children present. There was no attending physician at the time of her death, no autopsy by a coroner. Her remains were cremated and buried at sea. Typically there is a requirement for a permit for a burial at sea. There is no record of such permit ever being granted or requested.

Not Necessarily Social Security Disability But Still ...

     From KGW in Portland, OR:

Several Portland neighborhoods were outraged after fliers were left on doorsteps in the middle of the night targeting people with disabilities.

The fliers accuse people who receive disability benefits of destroying democracy, and the person behind the fliers is now promising to post the names of all people in specific neighborhoods that receive disability benefits.

Just In Britain?

     From a press release issued by Kent University in England:

Misleading news coverage, driven mostly by the policy process, is preventing thousands of people in need from claiming vital welfare benefits, according to a new report by University researchers on behalf of the charity Turn2us.

The report, titled Benefits Stigma in Britain, reveals that one in four eligible people had either delayed claiming or refused to do so completely due to the perceived stigma attached to applying for state support. ...

The research, which included an analysis of media coverage since 1995, shows that disproportionate coverage of fraud and misleading news stories are linked to rising stigma, with people who read more stigmatising newspapers perceiving higher levels of deception and demonstrating more reluctance to claim, even when they are experiencing abject need.

Dr Baumberg said: ‘The study also highlights a discernible shift in public attitudes, with claimants seen as less deserving than they were 20 years ago, when the fraud and scrounger rhetoric really started to take hold in media discourse. Looking at trends over time, non-take-up of benefits has risen concurrently with stigma. ...

Rob Tolan, Head of Policy at Turn2us, said: ‘At a human level, stigma is resulting in thousands of elderly, sick and disabled people skipping meals or keeping the heating off, lest they be tarred with the “scrounger” brush. One lady we helped, who was left disabled by a brain tumour, ate porridge five nights a week, rather than ask for help. ...
The research found that only 15% of people think that they would be treated with respect when making a claim for benefits. ...

Broomell A Special Employee

     From the Washington Post: 

David Broomell, a longtime Social Security programmer and project manager, has been instrumental in creating new ways to make visits to Social Security offices more customer-friendly through innovative information technology solutions. At the same time, he has developed new computer tools for employees, allowing them to offer more timely and efficient assistance to beneficiaries. ... 

Going back more than a decade, Broomell helped transform an inefficient manual system used to check in and process visitors at Social Security offices nationwide by creating an automated intake process. He continually upgraded the system to include touch screen monitors, TV wait-time displays and real-time management of information. ... 

Broomell, who works near Minneapolis, currently is collaborating with IT colleagues at the Social Security headquarters in Baltimore on a nationwide rollout of a new centralized web-based customer-intake process. This will replace Broomell’s visitor process system, which has operated through separate computer servers housed at each individual Social Security office around the country. ... 

He created a web-based application to identify administrative appeals involving Social Security disability claims that had been decided but were not fully processed and therefore delayed the reporting of the judicial rulings. Broomell’s system replaced a labor-intensive, manual process fraught with errors that enabled the agency to clean up its records and report the appeal decisions in a fraction of the time.

Glad We Got Solutions To Those Problems!

     The Cato Institute, a right wing "think tank", has issued a set of what it calls "essays" on "downsizing" Social Security (lots of quotation marks here but they're all merited):

Social Security Retirement: Social Security faces a huge financing gap because of its pay-as-you-go structure and the aging of the U.S. population. It should be transitioned to a system of personal savings accounts, which would increase individual financial security and help to avert future tax increases.   

Social Security Disability Insurance: Growing numbers of Americans are receiving disability benefits, and the system is subject to major abuses. Policymakers should tighten eligibility for the program and explore ways to move it to the private sector.   

Supplemental Security Income: This program for low-income and disabled individuals suffers from similar abuses and overspending problems as Social Security Disability Insurance. The financing and administration of Supplemental Security Income should be devolved to the states.

An Omission Noted

     From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The House Ways and Means Committee has invited members of the public to comment on the Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin plans to restore solvency to Social Security.

But there’s a glaring omission:  from reading the committee’s description of the two plans — and its draft bills — you’d never know that both Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin urged significant increases in Social Security taxes.