Social Security News

Jun 20, 2014

Colvin Gets Nomination To Become Commissioner Of Social Security

The President has nominated Carolyn Colvin to become the next Commissioner of Social Security. Colvin was confirmed as Deputy Commissioner of Social Security in 2011. That term has ended but she may remain in office until a successor is confirmed. She became Acting Commissioner when Michael Astrue resigned as Commissioner last year. Colvin will remain as Acting Commissioner until she is confirmed. No one has yet been nominated to become Deputy Commissioner.

Still Crazy After A Year; New Policy On Same Sex Marriages

The Justice Department has finally advised Social Security on how it must treat same sex marriages. It only took them a year after the Windsor decision! Social Security has been recognizing same sex marriages ever since Windsor as long as the parties to the marriage live in a state that recognizes same sex marriage but has been putting a hold on cases where the parties live in a state that doesn't recognize same sex marriages. The Justice Department has now told Social Security that it may recognize same sex marriages if a party to the marriage gets on benefits based upon that marriage while living in a state that recognizes same sex marriages but then moves to a state that doesn't recognize same sex marriages. As an example, let's say a same sex couple from my state, North Carolina, which doesn't recognize same sex marriages, travels to the District of Columbia where they can be legally married. The couple returns to North Carolina and eventually one of them applies for Social Security benefits based upon that marriage. Under this policy, they won't get the benefits. They would if they had stayed in the District. However, if they had lived in the District after the marriage and one of them had gotten benefits based upon the marriage and then they had moved to North Carolina, they could keep their benefits. This sounds crazy enough but it gets worse. What if they get married in the District but later separate, with one living in the District but the other in North Carolina and only become eligible for benefits after the move? Under this policy, the one who stays in the District is married and can get benefits based upon the marriage but the one who moves to North Carolina isn't married and can't get benefits based upon the marriage.

This is nuts. Either the Supreme Court must decide that people have a Constitutional right to marry a person of their same gender or Congress needs to pass a law requiring that Social Security accept same sex marriages nationally. What we've got now is unworkable.

Social Security Has A Massive Service Delivery Problem

From a report by the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Aging (footnotes omitted):

The impact of these service reductions [at Social Security] has been felt in field office waiting rooms and on the phone. In March 2013, SSA [Social Security Administration] estimated that in a single week nearly 12,000 visitors to field offices would have to wait over two hours to be served, a figure that had almost tripled in the previous four months. Between FY [Fiscal Year] 2010 and January of FY 2013, the average wait time for field office visitors without appointments increased by 40 percent. NCSSMA [National Council of Social Security Management Associations] reports that in FY 2013, the percentage of visitors who waited over three weeks for an appointment was over 43 percent, compared to only 10 percent a year earlier. According to NCSSMA, as of early 2014, the average wait time for visitors to SSA’s field offices was 31.5 minutes, an all - time high and 240 percent longer than it was three years ago.

From FY 2011 to FY 2013, the agent busy rate experienced by callers to SSA’s 800 - number increased from 3 percent to 12 percent, with SSA projecting that in FY 2014, 14 percent of callers would get a busy signal when they tried to call. In the beginning of FY 2014, 800-number callers who were able to get through were waiting an average of over 17 minutes – more than three times as long as the average waits of five minutes in FY 2012, according to NCSSMA ...

It Must Be Obama's Fault!

From Bloomberg:

The cost of long-term disability claims rose for at least a fifth straight year as expenses tied to the aging workforce drove payments higher for insurance companies. ...

“On average, older people have higher wages and it’s harder for them to get back to work,” [Council for Disability Awareness] CDA President Barry Lundquist said in a phone interview. “When you think about the baby boomers and how old they are now, they have a much higher chance of becoming disabled -- maybe a four or five times higher chance in a given year than someone that’s in their twenties or thirties.”

Why would private insurance companies be unable to hold down their long term disability costs? I thought that was just a problem for the Social Security Administration. How do Republicans spin this as being Obama's fault?

Jun 19, 2014

Press Attention For Senate Hearing

Yesterday's hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Aging on the decline of service at Social Security has received plenty of media coverage.

Why Service Sucks At Social Security

An extract from the written testimony of Scott Hale, the President of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), to the Senate Select Committee on Aging:

Here are the abbreviations used:

TSCs -- Teleservice Centers -- where the 800 number phone calls go
ODAR -- Office of Disability Adjudication and Review -- where the Administrative Law Judges work
PSCs -- Program Service Centers -- where benefits, other than Supplemental Security Income, are computed and authorized
SSA -- Social Security Administration
FO -- Field Office -- your local Social Security office

Jun 18, 2014

Apropos Today's Hearing

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at the Social Security Administration. By the way, I'm not posting these numbers just because of today's hearing. OPM just released this report.

March 2014 60,820
December 2013 61,957
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

Field Office Closures And Staffing Reductions To Be Subject Of Senate Hearing

From the New York Times:

The Social Security Administration is closing field offices and reducing services to the public even as demand for those services surges with the aging of the baby boom generation, according to a bipartisan Senate committee report.

The report, to be issued Wednesday by the Senate Special Committee on Aging, says the agency has closed more than two dozen field offices in the last year, generally without considering the needs of communities and without consulting beneficiaries or field office managers. ...

The Social Security Administration is closing field offices and reducing services to the public even as demand for those services surges with the aging of the baby boom generation, according to a bipartisan Senate committee report.

The report, to be issued Wednesday by the Senate Special Committee on Aging, says the agency has closed more than two dozen field offices in the last year, generally without considering the needs of communities and without consulting beneficiaries or field office managers. ...

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the committee, said that despite a growing caseload, “in the past five years, Social Security has closed 64 of approximately 1,245 field offices — the largest field office reduction in its history — and shuttered 533 temporary mobile offices.”

Members of Congress get very upset by field office closures -- and they are a big deal -- but the bigger problem is inadequate staffing at the remaining field offices, teleservice centers, payment centers, hearing offices and the Appeals Council. That affects everyone who interacts with Social Security, not just those who live in areas where a field office has closed and everyone eventually interacts with Social Security.
The Aging Committee is holding a hearing this afternoon at 2:15 on this issue. Here's the witness list:

Tammy DeLong, Aroostook Area Agency on Aging
Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social Security Administration
Scott Hale, President, National Council of Social Security Management Associations
Brenda Holt, Commissioner, Gadsden County