No, It's Not The Same Thing, You Ninny!

     Last week, Phillip Swagel wrote a piece in his Economix column in the New York Times saying that there should be no problem getting an agreement to rescue Social Security from long term doom. Liberals want to increase benefits for the poor. Conservatives are willing to increase benefits for the poor as long as benefits for the wealthy are reduced. So, hey, no problem, let's just do what the conservatives want and everybody will be happy. The column was so silly in my estimation that I didn't bother to link it here.

     Swagel writes this week to say that he just can't understand why people don't like his proposal. He notes that liberals seem to like eliminating the cap on earnings covered by the FICA tax as a solution to long term Social Security funding but, somehow, he just doesn't like that. He blows off the concerns of liberals that cutting benefits for the wealthy would undermine public support for Social Security as something that just doesn't interest an economist like him. Really? I thought that economists realized that politics was an inherent part of economic policy. More important, Swagel blows off the idea of lifting the FICA cap since as far as he's concerned lowering benefits for the wealthy would have the same "lifetime" effect as raising the cap. That notion is ridiculous. Lowering Social Security benefits for the wealthy would have little effect on the wealthy, the 1% and above, since Social Security benefits will never be more than a tiny percent of their retirement income. Lifting the FICA cap, however, would have a significant effect on the 1% since the FICA tax would cover all of their salary income. In any case, there's no way of balancing the books long term by cutting benefits for just the wealthy. The cuts would have to extend way down the ladder, especially if you're increasing benefits for the poor. Dramatic benefits cuts are politically impossible, no matter who's in power in Washington. Lifting the FICA cap is impossible only so long as Republicans control the White House, the Senate or the House of Representatives and that's not going to last forever.

     Really, Swagel, if raising the FICA cap and cutting benefits for the wealthy have the same "lifetime" effect, what's your problem with raising the FICA cap? You never explain this.

FOIA Processing At Social Security

     The Center for Effective Government has released a report on agency processing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The Social Security Administration had the highest overall rating of any agency.

Agency	Processing Results	Disclosure Rules	Quality of FOIA Website	Overall Score
Social Security Administration	107% (A+)	46% (F)	70% (C-)	83% (B)

Ending Social Security Number Printouts

     An announcement from the Social Security Administration:

To meet the increasing demands for our service, we need to make changes to how we provide some services to our customers. To protect the integrity of the Social Security number and prevent fraud, we will discontinue providing Social Security number printouts effective August 1, 2014. If you need proof of your Social Security number and you do not have your Social Security card, you will need to request a replacement Social Security card by completing the Application for a Social Security Card ( Form SS-5 ) and providing the required documentation. 

Also, effective October 1, 2014, Social Security will stop providing benefit verification letters in our offices. You will still be able to get an instant letter online with a personal my Social Security account or you may call us toll-free to request a letter by mail.

     I think that ceasing the agency had already announced the end of benefit verification letters but I believe that ending Social Security number printouts is new.

President's Budget Would Restore Some Of Social Security's Workforce

     Social Security would be in for a significant restoration of its workforce if the President's budget for fiscal year 2015 is adopted but it won't since Republicans still control the House of Representatives.

Social Security Administration

2014 Estimated 62,200

2015 Estimated 64,100

▲ 3.1 percent

      This would still be well below the 70,000 peak achieved just before Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.

President's Budget Proposing To End "File And Suspend"?

     Fox News is saying that the President's budget proposes to end "file and suspend." I don't recall seeing that. Is this report accurate?
     Even though I was planning to do this myself, I don't know that ending it is necessarily a bad idea. So few people know about file and suspend that it may be nothing more than a hidden treat for the unusually sophisticated. Can there be any significant amount of money involved in ending file and suspend? I thought that only a few were employing this strategy.

Dealing With An SSI Overpayment

     A mother writes about the difficulty she's had dealing with a Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayment to her son.

The Appeals Council Is A Mess

    From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (emphasis added):

In FY [Fiscal Year] 2013, AC [Appeals Counsel] request for review dispositions exceeded FY 2007 dispositions by about 102 percent. However, receipts were greater than dispositions during the same period, resulting in a tripling of pending cases from about 53,000 to about 157,000 cases by the end of FY 2013. The increase in pending claims resulted in longer average processing times (APT) at the end of FY 2013, with claimants waiting about 364 days for an AC action , up from 227 days in FY 2007.

While SSA had an APT goal for AC workloads in prior years, SSA ended its annual reporting on APT in FY 2012. During this same period, t he AC focused its efforts on processing the oldest cases in the backlog under the Agency's Aged Case initiative and made progress in reducing the average age of its pending claims. Moreover, the growth in the number of dispositions over this 7-year period follows the addition of adjudicators and staff as well as efforts to increase the productivity of analysts and staff supporting adjudicators. While OAO [Office of Appeals Operations] established numerical productivity goals for analysts, it did not establish similar productivity goals for AC adjudicators, although it did have timeliness goals for its adjudicators. In FY 2012, AAJ [Administrative Appeals Judges] annual dispositions ranged from 780 to 3,471 cases. We found a similar range with AO [Appeals Officer] adjudicators. The lack of productivity goals and cap s for AAJs or AOs, particularly given the wide range in the number of dispositions each AAJ and AO issued, increases the risk that OAO may miss opportunities to increase production as well as identify potential quality issues. Finally, while OAO executives had created internal, division-level productivity goals for every DPA division and communicated those goals with OAO manager, some managers and staff were confused as to how those internal goals were determined. ...

In SSA’s FY 2013 APP, SSA explained that it eliminated the APT goal because “We have successfully reduced Appeals Council average processing time over the last few years and want to now focus on eliminating Appeals Council cases pending 365 days or over.”  However, as shown in Table 1, APT had increased over the last few years. ...

[W]e found the number of dispositions per adjudicator dropped in FY 2009 before rising annually through FY 2012. However, by the end of FY 2012, adjudicator productivity had not reached the FY 2008 disposition level ...

Social Security Headcount Decline

      The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at the Social Security Administration.

• September 2013 62,543
• June 2013 62,877
• March 2013 63,777
• December 2012 64,538
• September 2012 65,113
• September 2011 67,136
• December 2010 70,270
• December 2009 67,486
• September 2009 67,632
• December 2008 63,733
• September 2008 63,990
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521

     Since the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in January 2011, the number of employees at Social Security has gone down by  7,727, an 11% reduction, in the face of a rapidly increasing workload.

     As a result of the recent budget agreement, Social Security is currently doing some hiring. It's unclear to me whether this will add to Social Security's head count or just slow down the decline in the agency's workforce.