But Our Customer Satisfaction Ratings Are About 80%

     From the Baltimore Sun:

Hiring by Maryland's largest employer — the federal government — has fallen by more than 40 percent nationally over four years, and the state's job market is feeling the pain. ...

One agency that has taken an especially hard hit is the Social Security Administration, headquartered in Woodlawn. New hires in Maryland fell from 1,507 in 2009 to 117 in 2013. Employment at the agency in Maryland has dropped from 12,744 in 2010 to 10,769 this year. ...

Withold Skwierczynski, president of the American Federation of Government Employees' council for employees of Social Security field offices, said attrition has led to shorter office hours and longer waits for people seeking services. "The public is getting very frustrated and angry because of the diminishment of service, and people take it out on our employees," he said. "We're really producing a shoddy product. It's not the Social Security of old." ...

Nicole Tiggemann, a spokeswoman for Social Security, said service has not deteriorated. She pointed to customer satisfaction ratings in which the agency consistently scores about 80 percent...

     Why, why, why would Social Security try to downplay its service delivery problem? That's how the Department of Veterans Affairs got in such trouble. Is denial just a conditioned reflex in the public affairs office?

Three Former Social Security Employees Charged

     From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Five women, including three former Social Security Administration employees, have been arrested in connection with what prosecutors are calling a “complex welfare, childcare and medical benefits scheme,” the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office announced Friday. 

Investigators said Sakeenah Belle, 31, Chanae Thomas, 31, Felicia Fernandez, 30, Shonda Wayman, 30, and Abigail Millian, 38, received SNAP, subsidized childcare and medical assistance benefits totaling more than $76,000 between 2009 and early 2013. ... 

Prosecutors said the Social Security Administration received a complaint March 6, 2012 alleging Belle was using the computer and hard drive assigned to her by the SSA to create bogus Leave and Earnings Statements for herself and the four other women. 

The women allegedly used the fictitious statements to gain eligibility or to remain eligible for the welfare benefits.

Social Security Sets Up Message Board For Comments On Open Data Project

     Social Security has established a message board to allow the public to offer its opinions on the agency's Open Data project which has been mandated by the White House. A number of data sets have been made available to the public as part of this project.

Social Security's Service To The Public Poll

Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com

"Dumb Ass Stupid Management"

     Alan Weiss believes his local Social Security field office has "dumb ass stupid management."

Big Dual Benefit Overpayment Problem

     A recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that "Of the 50 sample Title II beneficiaries who were receiving benefits on 2 Social Security records, we determined that SSA incorrectly paid 29 (58 percent) beneficiaries full benefits on both records." 

     Let me give an example of how this happens. A woman goes on Social Security disability benefits at age 50. A couple of years later, her husband dies. She files a claim for Disabled Widows benefits. What's supposed to happen is that the widows benefit is reduced by the amount of benefits she's already receiving on her own account. The OIG report, which is based on a fairly small sample, suggests that more than half the time, Social Security is paying the full widows benefit. That would quickly cause a large overpayment. There are many, many cases along these lines.

     OIG estimated that there were over $6 million in potentially recoverable overpayments in just the 29 cases identified in their small sample, over $200,000 per case, and that there were more overpayments that would not be potentially recoverable.

     You can look at this report and say that Social Security is run by a bunch of incompetents. Maybe. What I see here is a demonstration of how completely inadequate Social Security's data system is. Why didn't the computers stop these overpayments before they ever happened? How can anyone think that Social Security's data systems are so wonderful that the agency can dispense with field offices?

     Note that these overpayments are entirely due to agency error. The claimants would have no idea they're being overpaid. They'll be very unhappy when they're told of the large overpayments. It's not just the Social Security trust funds that are the victim here. These claimants are victims also.
     In any case, the OIG report has identified a problem that will have to be addressed. This data system problem must be definitively resolved quickly.

More From Patricia Wen On Child SSI

     Patricia Wen at the Boston Globe has written a new piece on children's disability benefits under Supplemental Security Income. The piece contains words and phrases such as "controversial", "dramatic growth" and "replaced welfare." The piece seems to have little if any new information.

    The hard numbers show that 1,083,874 children received SSI in July 2013 and 1,074,908 received the benefits in July 2014. That's not dramatic growth. That's a modest decline. Ms. Wen doesn't report this.

     Ms. Wen got a lot of attention for her original series of articles on SSI child's disability. She doesn't seem to have anything new to report on the subject but she keeps repeating what she originally wrote.

An Overpayment Story

     From WNYT in Albany, NY:

Life was complicated enough for Bruce and Sarah Whaley. they're raising three children in their Corinth home, one of them disabled, Sarah works full time, but Bruce is also disabled and has been out of work for a couple of years.

Monthly workers compensation and social security checks enable the Whaley's to make ends meet, which helps explain why, just over four months ago, Sarah thought a miracle occurred.

"When I woke up Monday morning, April 14th, I looked in my bank account and saw over $33,000 in our checking account," Sarah recalls. ...

"Social security said it's your money, take it," Sarah says. ...

"Every human being I speak to in social security has a different story on what's going on," Bruce says.

What the Whaley's eventually found out however was that someone at social security didn't realize Bruce was also receiving workers compensation from the state, and if he wasn't collecting that money, he would have been entitled to collect more money from the federal government. That misunderstanding also affected the amount being paid to the Whaley's children.

Even though the Whaley's told social security to stop sending them the money, the money kept coming.

"It all added up before they got it fixed back to his regular pay to $38,124," Sarah says.
And the plot thickens. After initially refusing any repayment, social security finally sent the Whaley's a letter now demanding the $38,000 be paid back or else Bruce's monthly checks would be cut off. ...

Finding themselves in sort of a bizzaro web of bungled burocracy, the Whaley's sent all of the money back by certified check. They have the receipt that someone at Social Security initialed, indicating social security received the checks in early August. Social Security's demand for repayment came just before the Labor Day weekend.