The Predictable Response

     Rupert Murdock owned media rush to claim that fraud allegations in New York City are proof of deep seated problems with the Social Security disability programs.

     In my mind, bank robberies aren't a sign that we need to shut down our banks. Fraud on Wall Street isn't a sign that we need to shut down our financial markets. Crime is crime. You take reasonable steps to prevent it. When it happens anyway, you punish it. You don't use it as an excuse to shut down vital institutions relied upon by the public.
     And, by the way, everyone needs to remember that no one has been convicted. Anyone writing about these charges needs to use the word "alleged." It's not simply a matter of fairness to those accused. It's a shame when someone who has been convicted gets off on appeal because hostile media coverage made a fair trial impossible.

CCD Opposes Unemployment Offset

     The Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), the major umbrella organizations lobbying on disability issues, has come out in opposition to reducing Social Security disability  benefits on account of the receipt of unemployment benefits.

Don't Get Fooled

     From R.J. Eskow:

There is a highly funded campaign to cut Social Security and Medicare while distracting us from the true sources of our multi-generational retirement crisis. This narrative can be traced back to the work of conservative billionaire Peter "Pete" Peterson and his foundation, who sent minions like Alan Simpson out to stigmatize so-called "greedy geezers" for our country's retirement woes.

The Peterson crowd has worked very hard to convince Millennials that the older generation has robbed them of retirement security, a strategy they've pursued with false-front organizations like "The Can Kicks Back." A number of lazy journalists have bought into their narrative without consulting experts in the field ...

The Peterson cohort's goal was to convince Millennials that the best way to get even with their elders was by cutting Social Security -- for themselves. (Most benefit-cut proposals exempt those who are about to retire, for political reasons.) It's astonishing that they expected Millennials to fall for it -- which, according to polls they haven't. But then, it's equally astonishing how many pundits and politicians have fallen for it.

Getting Nuts

     This is getting nuts. Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney General, has announced that the United States government will recognize, for purposes of federal benefits, presumably including Social Security benefits, same sex marriages performed in Utah during the brief period of time between the date that a U.S. District Court issued an order declaring Utah's prohibition of same sex marriages unconstitutional and the date that the Supreme Court granted a stay of that order. On the other hand, Social Security will not recognize the same sex marriages of Utah residents if those marriages were solemnized outside Utah! Does that make sense to anyone?

Offsetting Disability Benefits For Unemployment Benefits

     Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times doesn't like the idea of reducing Social Security disability benefits because of the receipt of unemployment insurance benefits. As he points out, this would only estimated to save $100 million a year. That estimate almost certainly doesn't include the cost of implementation. The cost of implementing new Social Security provisions is never taken into consideration. There's also the problem of state laws that run an offset in the opposite direction potentially subjecting a claimant to double offsetting.

Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing On Alleged Fraud

     The House Social Security Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for January 16 on the alleged Social Security disability fraud in New York.

And You Thought That Sequestration Was Almost Over

     From Politico:

Senate Democrats are coming together on a proposal that would pay for a revival of emergency unemployment benefits through the fall by extending the sequester for one year, senior Democratic aides said.

Republicans are demanding that any extension of unemployment insurance be paid for and, in turn, Democrats are pitching an extension of the sequester’s mandatory savings through 2024. Along with a crackdown on people who draw both disability and unemployment benefits, the proposal would raise roughly $18 billion and fund an extension of an expired unemployment benefits through November.

     Why in the name of God would Democrats be pushing for sequestration through 2024?

OIG Recommending New Tool For Evaluating Hearing Offices And ALJs

     From Analysis of Hearing Offices Using Key Risk Factors, a report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We developed a model that measured variances among multiple risk factors . The model analyzes performance and outcome data among ALJs in the same office and uses five risk factors: (1) ALJ allowance rates, (2) ALJ dispositions, (3) ALJ on-the- record (OTR) decision rates, (4) ALJ dismissal rates, and (5) ALJ average processing time. While the Agency’s monitoring process identified a number of potential workload problems at the time of our review , such as ALJ -specific issues and productivity declines, our model offers another method to evaluate the performance of individual hearing offices. 

Using our model and FY 2012 workload data, we identified hearing offices with the highest and lowest variance score s. We believe o utlier hearing office s provide ODAR managers with indications of potential processing issues (high-variance) as well as potential best practices (low - variance). We fou nd 4 regions had 20 percent or more of their hearing offices among the 25 high- variance offices , and 4 regions had 20 percent or more of their hearing offices among the 25 low- variance offices. In discussions with ODAR regional managers, we learned that they focused their oversight on individual ALJ performance rather than variances among ALJs in hearing office s as we do in our model. 

Finally, our review of the hearing offices with the 10 highest variance scores identified an outlier ALJ who had a significant number of dispositions and OTR decisions with 1 claimant representative. We referred this case to ODAR management for additional review.

     No, they don't explain their model all that well nor do they give the variance score for any office, other than indicating that the Huntington, WV office had high variance scores in past years. The OIG model also identified the Huntington ALJ who was the subject of media attention as being an outlier. Of course, the model was probably tailored so that it would point to Huntington and that particular ALJ.