When A Miss Becomes A Mrs.

     It's slow in Social Security News these days. Nobody wants to say or do anything interesting with an election coming.

Little Green Men And Social Security

     From Tom Margenau:

About 40 years ago, a national organization conducted a poll of people in their 20s and asked them this question: “In the future, do you think you are more likely to see a Martian or to see a Social Security check?” 

It may not surprise you to learn that a vast majority of the respondents picked the Martian. Young people back in the 1970s thought it was more likely that they would encounter little green men from outer space than a little green government check with their name on it. 

Well guess what? Those folks (who are still alive) are now all in their 60s. Not a one of them has ever seen a Martian, but almost all of them see a little green government check each month. (Well, they see a notice from their bank indicating that a Social Security check has been deposited into their account.)

There's Still Recovery Act Money To Spend

     Did you know that the Social Security Administration still has money to spend under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the economic stimulus plan that was adopted early in the Obama Administration? As of earlier this year the agency still had $100 million to spend. Most of the Recovey Act funds that Social Security is still spending appear to be going to technology projects such as this, many of them related to the agency's new National Data Center, which was funded with Recovery Act money.

Pete Peterson's Project To Cut Social Security Disability Asks For Proposals

     The Pete Peterson "project" to cut Social Security disability benefits, fronted by former Congressmen McCrery and Pomeroy, has put out a call for proposals for "innovative ideas to improve" Social Security disability benefits. The "project" has listed a number of suggested topics but nothing about removing the cap on the F.I.C.A. tax or transferring monies between Social Security's Trust Funds. The deadline for submitting proposals is November 1, suggesting that the "project" already knows which proposals it's interested in and is already committed to paying people to write those proposals. Proposals from others won't get funding and are unlikely to be published.

     This isn't about improving Social Security disability. It's about using the possible funding shortfall in the Disability Trust Fund as a pretext for cutting Social Security disability benefits. This "project" is designed to place a bipartisan veneer over a right wing plan to cut disability benefits.

Social Security Still Trying To Make People Pay Ancient Debts They Didn't Incur And That The Agency Can't Prove

It's Got To Be Opioids And Fraud!

     The Birmingham, AL News recently ran an article trying to explain the fact that Alabama has one of the highest rates of Social Security disability benefits receipients in the country. The explanations that the newspaper came up with were high rates of opioid usage, high percentage of the labor force in manufacturing jobs, fraud and the fact that many people qualify for Social Security disability benefits based on "muscle pain." Apparently, the authors of the article didn't understand exactly what the word "musculoskeletal"means.

     All newspaper articles are reductive. This one is more so than most. The reporters really should have concentrated more upon one factor they identified, the high percentage of the Alabama labor force in manufacturing jobs. The article doesn't explain the connection, perhaps because the reporters didn't understand it; perhaps because they were in a rush to get to drug abuse and fraud as possible explanations. It's simple, though. Manufacturing jobs are more physically demanding than office jobs. They put workers at greater risk for workplace injuries and repetitive motion disorders, like worn out shoulders, carpal tunnel syndrome, bad knees, etc. It's harder for a sick or injured worker to return to a manufacturing job because of the higher physical demands of the work. See, that's not hard to explain. It's not a bit controversial, either. Also, the reporters should have talked about the low educational attainments and poor work skills of the Alabama population and the poor health care available to low income people in the state. All of those contribute mightily to the incidence of disability but why bother talking about such boring explanations when you can talk about drugs and fraud? And, by the way, workplace injuries and repetitive motion disorders tend to be painful. Opioids are often prescribed for such disorders for good reason.

Rep Payee Problems

     The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on problems in Social Security's representative payee system.

I Warned You But You Didn't Listen

     When it proposed new regulations to force a claimant to make a decision on whether to accept a video hearing soon after a request for hearing is filed -- and long before a hearing is actually scheduled -- Social Security was implicitly making a bet that the result would be a decrease in the number of claimants objecting to video hearings. I warned at the time that the result would probably be the exact opposite, an increase in objections to video hearings. Those early choice letters started going out in my area in the last week or so. What I'm hearing so far from other attorneys and from claimants themselves suggests that Social Security is going to lose the bet it made. In my area, I looks like there will be vastly more objections to video hearings.
     So, what's next, mandatory video hearings with all the Administrative Law Judges herded into a huge warehouse where they only do video hearings and can be completely overseen by wise central office taskmasters?