A Little Good News

     The Continuing Resolution (CR) passed yesterday by the House of Representatives allows federal agencies to continue spending at the same rate as in the fiscal year that ends on September 30 -- less 0.0554%. §101(b). However, the Social Security Administration is exempted from the 0.0554% reduction. §114 (b)(2).

Pete Peterson Launches Another "Bipartisan" Attack On Social Security

     From a press release:

Former Congressmen Jim McCrery (R-LA) and Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) today launched the McCrery-Pomeroy SSDI Solutions Initiative, a bipartisan effort to identify potential improvements to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. 

The goal of the initiative is to provide policymakers with a menu of options to improve the SSDI program well in advance of the program’s 2016 projected insolvency date. The initiative will solicit ideas for concrete and practical reforms that improve various aspects of the SSDI program. The proposed ideas will be subject to a rigorous review process, be presented at a conference in 2015, and then published along with recommendations from the initiative co-chair. 

McCrery and Pomeroy both served as chairmen of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee during their time in Congress and have retained an interest in the SSDI program. The co-chairs will be advised by an Advisory Council of experts representing a diverse range of experiences and perspectives.

     This is coming from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). CRFB tries to appear bipartisan but it always favors budget cuts over increased revenues. It has a history of ties to tobacco interests and is heavily involved with Pete Peterson, a billionaire, who has been tirelessly and fruitlessly working for decades to undermine Social Security. This initiative will produce a report recommending slashing Social Security disability benefits.
     What is it with Earl Pomeroy? If you don't nominate me to become Commissioner of Social Security, I'll just switch teams?

An OIG "Special Report"

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a "Special Report" on The Social Security Administration's Ability to Prevent and Detect Disability Fraud. There are some small bits of news in the "Special Report" but it's mostly a stale rehashing of old news in an attempt to placate Congressional Republicans who want proof that fraud is rampant in Social Security's disability programs. Three isolated instances of alleged small scale schemes to defraud Social Security do not constitute proof of rampant fraud. It's merely a sign that there are stupid people who make the mistake of thinking that it's easy to defraud Social Security.

     Anyway, here's the few nuggets of news that I found in this "Special Report":

• "The Acting Commissioner and others have consistently and inaccurately cited a 2006 OIG report as the “best-available evidence” that the rate of fraud in the disability program is less than one-tenth of one percent. We are currently updating that 2006 report, and expect that our findings will give us more insight into fraud and abuse in the disability programs." Later in the report, OIG says, basically, that even though there's a report they issued some years ago that can be interpreted in the way that the Acting Commissioner interpreted it that she shouldn't have because maybe there are some overpaid claimants that OIG doesn't want to prosecute but who OIG still wants to label as fraudsters. Is it reasonable to call something fraud if you're not willing to prosecute it as fraud?

• "The Agency’s dated systems, combined with the diverse and unintegrated systems of 54 DDSs, provide little protection against the cookie - cutter approach to large - scale DI fraud conspiracies such as those in New York and Puerto Rico, where only vigilant DDS analysts were finally able to detect signs of a scheme after millions of dollars were paid to fraudulent beneficiaries."
• "This year, SSA began an initiative to develop predictive analytics to detect disability fraud."
• "SSA is currently working with three vendors: Northrup Grumman and SaS on the use of the predictative analytics tool, and Accenture regarding a joint anti-fraud unit."
• OIG has noticed that scanned images of documents don't contain searchable fields, meaning it's impossible to turn the powerful software that Northrup Grumman and SAS wants to sell the agency loose on all those scanned documents so why is the agency considering buying the software? That means that humans, who are actually pretty good at noticing patterns, will probably have to be the ones noticing the patterns.
• OIG wants "a comprehensive tracking and review process for all claimant representatives."
• "SSA is currently working with the Disability Researth Consortium and the Library of Congress in a literature review to look at how other disability systems factor in age, education and work history. The agency intends to update the vocational grids, used to establish disability and to identify other work that a claimant could perform."
• "In FY 2007, 19.6 percent of ALJs allowed more than 85 percent of their cases; in FY 2013, that percentage dropped to 2.9% of ALJs ..." What does this have to do with fraud? Also, did the percent of ALJs denying a huge percentage of the cases they heard go down in a similar way?

Social Security Statement Mailings To Resume

     From a Social Security press release:

Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, today announced the agency will resume the periodic mailing of Social Security Statements—once every five years for most workers-- while encouraging everyone to create a secure my Social Security account to immediately access their Statement online, anytime. ...

Beginning this month, workers attaining ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 who are not receiving Social Security benefits and who are not registered for a my Social Security account will receive the Statement in the mail about 3 months before their birthday.  After age 60, people will receive a Statement every year.  The agency expects to send nearly 48 million Statements each year.

Colvin Nomination Moving Forward

     The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled an "Open Executive Session" for September 18 to consider reporting out the nomination of Carolyn Colvin to be confirmed as Commissioner of Social Security. Although it appears that there is no opposition to the Colvin nomination, it is far from clear that she will be confirmed. There may not be enough time for full Senate to confirm her before it adjourns for the election. If Republicans win a majority in the election, they will almost certainly try to run out the clock on all nominations in the lame duck session after the election. It's judicial nominations they'll be aiming at but she may get caught in the crossfire.

Why Are So Many Student Loans Being Collected From People On Social Security Disability Benefits?

     The Government Accountability Office (GAO) did a recent study on the collecting of student loan debts from Social Security benefits. The chart below is from that study.

     Obviously, most of the student loan debt that the Social Security Administration collects comes from disability benefits. Under the Department of Education's own regulations, these student loan debts are supposed to be discharged if the debtor is "permanently impaired." The Department of Education has interpreted "permanently impaired" to include anyone found disabled by the Social Security Administration who has a five to seven year review date, a group that Social Security classifies as Medical Improvement Not Expected (MINE). That's a fair number of younger disabled people. It would be easy for Social Security to identify student loan debtors who are in the MINE category and notify the Department of Education so that no more money would be improperly withheld from the Social Security disability benefits of these disabled people and, indeed, so that all other collection efforts would be ended for this group of people. I'm pretty sure this isn't being done. Why not? If data matches can be done to collect debts, why can't data matches be done to stop inappropriate debt collection?

Women And Social Security Disability

     The National Women's Law Center has produced a fine fact sheet on women and Social Security disability benefits. This chart is from that fact sheet.

Phased Retirement For SSA Employees In Doubt

     From the Federal Times:

Federal employees at the Social Security Administration may have to wait longer for phased retirement — if the agency decides to implement it at all.

Dorothy Clark, SSA spokeswoman, told Federal Times that the agency was still deciding if it was going to implement the program.

“We are currently evaluating OPM’s [Office of Personnel Management's] regulations and what would be required if the agency decides to implement a phased retirement program,” Clark said. “If SSA decides to implement a program, it will not be implemented until calendar year 2015 or later.”