Benefit Verification Letters To Continue

     From an announcement from Social Security:

Today, the Social Security Administration announced that local Social Security offices would continue to provide benefit verification letters until further notice. ...

“We appreciate the feedback from members of Congress, our community stakeholders and agency partners. We want to ensure that we meet the needs of our customers in a way that is convenient for them and also cost-effective and secure for all,” Acting Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin stated. “I believe that government agencies can work closer together to assist our mutual customers.”...

     In a sense this is great news. Social Security should be providing benefit verification letters. In another sense, it's Congress insisting that Social Security offer a level of service that Social Security does not have the personnel to provide. Continuing benefit verification letters means further delays in everything else. Congress also insists that no field offices be closed so they stay open but that just makes staffing more and more inadequate at all field offices. Of course, the Acting Commissioner should be sensitive to the concerns of members of Congress even if she's not trying to get confirmed as Commissioner but at some point, you have to say no, we don't have the funding to do that. Remember that the VA got in trouble by pretending to offer better service than it was capable of delivering. If you're working in the higher reaches of Social Security and you can't see the parallels between VA and Social Security, you really lack imagination.

Some People Who Are Alleged To Have Been Overpaid Are Just The Victims Of Identity Theft

     The summary of a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) study:

GAO's analysis of wages reported in the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) initially showed that the Social Security Administration (SSA) made $19 million in potential overpayments to 10,187 recipients through its Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in fiscal year 2010. Using a different methodology that includes additional causes of overpayments not considered in GAO's analysis, SSA estimated it made $3.3 billion in SSI overpayments in fiscal year 2010. The majority (70 percent) of the estimated overpayment amount GAO identified showed indications of possible Social Security number (SSN) misuse, such as employers reporting wages for recipients in multiple locations during the same quarter. For example, GAO determined that wages for 2,399 SSI recipients were reported solely by employers outside the recipient's state of residence. As the figure below shows, one individual in California had wages reported from 11 different employers in seven other states during the same quarter of calendar year 2010. This suggests that multiple individuals may be using the SSI recipient's SSN and name for work. The exact number of individuals who received overpayments and the exact amount of overpayments made to those individuals cannot be determined without detailed case investigations by SSA. GAO analyzed five recipient cases and provided the results to SSA.

     Some of the people who have wages reported in other states actually did the work and some may be complicit in the misuse of their identity but you'd have to think that in most cases the claimant is just the innocent victim of identity theft and the overpayment isn't really an overpayment since the claimant didn't actually receive the wages.

No One Could Have Predicted It! Closing Social Security Field Offices Unpopular In Rural Areas , Even With Republicans!

     Reducing Social Security's field office presence may be unpopular in rural areas, even with Republicans.

Disability Examiner Picked As State Poet Laureate

     The governor of North Carolina has chosen as the state’s new poet laureate, Valerie Macon, who works as a disability examiner for the state Disability Determination Service, which makes disability determinations at the initial and reconsideration levels for the Social Security Administration. The pick is controversial since Ms. Macon’s oeuvre consists only of two self-published poetry collections and because the governor did not consult with the NC Arts Council which has overseen poet laureate picks in the past.

     Update: This is so peripherally related to Social Security but so irresistible. Here's the latest:

"One of my objectives is to open up the availability of all appointments to people that typically aren't inside the organized groups," [NC governor] McCrory said. "We've got to open up opportunities for people that aren't always a part of the standard or even elite groups that have been in place for a long time. And it's good to welcome new voices and new ideas." ... 

He also said he was unaware of the N.C. Arts Council protocol followed by previous governors in selecting a poet laureate. 

"We were not aware of the traditional process that was in place, it wasn't written down anywhere on the walls," McCrory said, surprising reporters who told him it was online last week. 

"Well, we must have missed that web site, sorry," he said. "Listen, I'm reviewing the entire process."

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/07/16/4010185/mccrory-poet-laureate-position.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/07/16/4010185/mccrory-poet-laureate-position.html#storylink=cpy

No UI Offset In Senate Finance Version Of Highway Bill

     The Senate Finance Committee has reported out the Highway bill without adding an Unemployment Insurance offset for Social Security disability, as was feared. There is still a risk that this will be added at some later point.

Common Sense

     Rebecca Vallas on The Zero Hour talks some common sense about Social Security disability.

An Overpayment Case

Sue Farrar

     Republican members of Congress equate Social Security overpayments with fraud. When I see Social Security overpayments they're mostly like the case of Sue Farrar, a woman whose $31,000 overpayment was entirely due to a mistake the agency made. Ms. Farrar was then faced with dealing with an agency which is increasingly becoming incommunicado, an agency which seems determined to leave her with no income. She only gets something like relief after the intervention of the news media. There is nothing unusual about Ms. Farrar's case. It happens every day all across the country with one exception. Normally, there is no media intervention.

From 1937