Annual Statistical Supplement Issued

     The Social Security Administration has issued its Annual Statistical Supplement for 2016. As always, it's crammed full of all the statistics about Social Security that you could want except that it includes only limited information on Social Security Administration operations, such as wait times at field offices, length of backlogs to obtain a hearing, Administrative Law Judge reversal rates, etc. I've always found this odd since otherwise these Annual Statistical Supplements are incredibly comprehensive. Want to know how many people are receiving U.S. Social Security widows and widowers benefits who live in Serbia and Montenegro? What about the percentage distribution of persons receiving both a retired-worker and a secondary benefit with and without reduction for early retirement, by sex and primary insurance amount? They're all there in the Annual Statistical Supplement. 

     It does include this table which may be of interest to readers of this blog:

Table 2.F3 Number of work years, fiscal years 1995–2016

Year	Full-time permanent staff a	Total work years b
1995	62,504	67,063
1996	62,133	66,726
1997	61,224	69,378
1998	59,943	67,210
1999	59,752	66,459
2000	60,434	65,521
2001	61,490	65,562
2002	61,914	65,742
2003	63,569	65,343
2004	63,186	c 66,154
2005	63,696	d 68,026
2006	61,692	66,878
2007	60,206	63,939
2008	61,920	64,358
2009	65,203	67,170
2010	67,548	70,758
2011	64,744	69,936
2012	62,943	67,208
2013	59,823	64,601
2014	62,956	64,006
2015	63,466	67,004
2016	62,685	65,798
SOURCE: Social Security Administration's Payroll Reports.
a. On duty at end of fiscal year; includes seasonal employees.
b. Includes full-time, part-time, and temporary employees; employees in special programs; and overtime hours worked.
c. Includes 178 work years for activities related to Medicare Modernization Act.

We're Number Nine!

     Social Security ranks 9th on the list of best large federal agencies to work for in 2016, which is the middle of the pack. NASA ranks first. DHS ranks last. Social Security suffered the largest decline in rating between 2015 and 2016 of any large agency. In fact, it looks like Social Security has been in a fairly steady decline since 2010. While Senior Executive Service (SES) employees at Social Security are happier than employees generally, they are actually quite a bit less happy than SES employees at agencies generally. The agency's leadership scores generally compare poorly with other agencies

     By the way, all the other large agencies have cabinet rank but not Social Security.

We're Doing A Poor Job Of Helping Disabled Young People Make The Transition From School To Work

     From a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) primary approach for encouraging employment for transition-age youth (ages 14 to 17) with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is work incentives that allow them to keep at least some of their SSI benefits and Medicaid coverage while they work. But few transition-age youth benefit from these incentives. ... The work incentive targeted specifically to younger SSI recipients is the Student Earned Income Exclusion (SEIE), which allows income to be excluded from benefits calculations if a recipient is a student under age 22. However, less than 1.5 percent of all transition-age youth — and generally less than half of those with earnings —benefited from SEIE in 2012 through 2015. ... Data also show that almost no youth benefited from other incentives that allow them to exclude earnings used for specific purposes, such as the Impairment-Related Work Expenses incentive. The effectiveness of SSA-administered work incentives may be further limited because, according to SSA and other officials, youth and their families are often unaware of or do not understand them, and may fear that work will negatively affect their benefits or eligibility. ... 

SSA does not have a systematic way to connect transition-age youth on SSI to state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agencies that provide training and employment services under the VR State Grants program administered by the Department of Education (Education). Although youth receiving SSI are generally presumed to be eligible for VR services, GAO found that less than 1 percent had an open VR service record in 2015 in four of the five states from which GAO collected VR data. ...

We recommend that the Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration take the following actions: 

1. Analyze the SEIE data to determine why a large proportion of transition- age youth on SSI with reported earnings did not benefit from the SEIE and, if warranted, take actions to ensure that those eligible for the incentive benefit from it. 
2. Analyze options to improve communication about SSA-administered work incentives and the implications of work on SSI benefits, with a goal of increasing understanding of SSI program rules and work incentives among transition-age youth and their families. This should include, but not necessarily be limited to, updating SSAs procedures for staff meeting with SSI applicants, recipients, and their families to regularly and consistently discuss – when applicable—how work incentives can prevent reductions in benefit levels and how work history is considered during eligibility redeterminations. 
3. Work with the Secretary of Education to determine the extent to which youth on SSI are not receiving transition services through schools that can connect them to VR agencies and services. 
4. Explore various options for increasing connections to VR agencies and services , including their potential costs and benefits. One option, among others, could be to expand the Ticket to Work program to include youth.

     The report addresses an important topic. I have a few thoughts on this:

• Transition services are vitally important to disabled youths who are about to leave school. I have seen far too many cases where young people who urgently needed VR had no idea that VR exists. When I see clients in this situation, I tell them and their parents about VR but, of course, most disabled young people never see a Social Security attorney.
• Some years ago, at least in North Carolina, schools worked with VR to identify disabled young people in need of help and made sure they were offered that help. That seemed extremely effective. That's not happening now. (What about other states?) I'm pretty sure the problem is lack of VR funding. I'm not sure why the school systems don't at least give the disabled young people and their families the phone number for VR although as I discuss below state Vocational Rehabilitation may be of only limited value at this point.
• Sheltered workshops are a vital part of vocational rehabilitation for disabled young people trying to make the transition from school to work. Sheltered workshops have almost completely disappeared in North Carolina. I'm pretty sure it's due to lack of funding. (What about other states?)
• What I've seen over the last decade or two is declining effectiveness of North Carolina VR. They seem to be able to do little other than pay for community college courses. Disabled young people trying to make the transition from school to work typically need far more help. (What about other states?)
• Social Security's work incentives are far, far too complicated. That's not the agency's fault. Congress wrote the work incentives, not Social Security, but don't expect simplification to help much. There's plenty of evidence that work incentives have little value.
• Social Security lacks funding to do much to help disabled young people making the transition from school to work. I suppose the agency could send out mailings but they would need additional appropriations to do anything more. I think the money might be better spent elsewhere.
• I think additional funding for VR along with provisions requiring VR to coordinate with school systems would work better than anything the Social Security Administration can do.
• Finally, don't expect miracles. Most disabled children won't work on a regular basis no matter what anyone does. Many people who work at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) or who represent claimants get the mistaken impression that almost all children receiving SSI benefits have psychiatric or cognitive impairments that are of less than overwhelming severity. That's because that group is vastly over-represented in the population requesting hearings on SSI child disability claims. Most disabled children on SSI have physical problems and most of those problems are so overwhelming that the disability claims are approved quickly. Work is unlikely to ever be in the picture for most of these children. Many of those suffering from psychiatric disability have schizophrenia. While Social Security is denying too many schizophrenics, it's still a fact that most schizophrenia claims are being approved fairly quickly. The vast majority of schizophrenics won't be able to work no matter what anyone does for them.

Where We Stand

     Social Security's budget for the current fiscal year declined by $60 million from the previous year. By contrast, NASA received an increase of $226 million for outer planet exploration. I've got nothing against outer planet exploration but still ....

Social Security Wants To Give Priority To Terminating Disability Benefits

     From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

Statutory benefit continuation allows an individual to continue receiving disability benefits during the appeal of a medical cessation determination at the reconsideration or ALJ hearing levels. If the cessation determination is upheld after appeal, the Social Security Administration (SSA) considers the payments received during the appeals process overpayments the individual must return to SSA. ...

We project SSA overpaid approximately $682.5 million to individuals in our population who continued receiving disability benefits during the appeals process but for whom ALJs upheld the cessation determinations from October 1, 2013 through July 8, 2016. This comprised $138.5 million overpaid to DI beneficiaries and $ 544 million overpaid to SSI recipients. 

We estimate, as of August 2016, SSA was in the process of collecting 28 percent of the amount overpaid to DI beneficiaries. It had collected only 4 percent, waived or terminated collection action on 17 percent, and posted another 37 per cent to the beneficiaries’ records but did not take action to collect, waive, or deem them uncollectible. SSA had not posted about 14 percent to the beneficiaries’ records for collection. Likewise, for the amount overpaid to the SSI recipients, SSA was in the process of collecting 61 percent. It had collected 2 percent, waived or terminated collection action on 13 percent, and had posted another 17 percent to the recipients’ records but did not take action to collect, waive, or deem them uncollectible. SSA had not posted 7 percent to the individuals’ records for collection. The average processing time for medical cessation appeals had increased from our prior reviews. Specifically, processing times were 766 days for sampled DI beneficiaries and 831 days for sampled SSI recipients — increases of 18 percent and 20 percent, respectively. If SSA prioritizes medical cessation appeals, it could increase DI and SSI programs’ financial performance. For example, we project SSA could have avoided $69.7 million in DI overpayments and $266 million in SSI overpayments had it completed the appeals process for medical cessation s within its processing time goals totaling 394 days. ...

     The agency's response to the suggestion that it should prioritize cutting people off benefits because that would save money was to say "We agree."

Congressional Hearing On Use Of Social Security Numbers

     From a press release: 

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) and House Oversight and Government Reform Information Technology Subcommittee Chairman Will Hurd (R-TX) announced yesterday that the Subcommittees will hold a joint subcommittee hearing entitled, “Protecting Americans’ Identities: Examining Efforts to Limit the Use of Social Security Numbers,” on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 2:00 PM in room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building. At the hearing, Members and witnesses will discuss the efforts made by federal agencies to reduce the use of Social Security numbers and protect Americans’ identities. 

Treasury Will No Longer Seize Tax Refunds To Satisfy Ancient Social Security Debts Of Relatives

     From Myinforms, whatever that is:

After three years of complaints and pressure from taxpayers, the federal government will stop seizing the tax refunds of Americans whose long-dead parents had incurred debts to Social Security many years earlier.

In an emergency message to its staff late Friday, the Treasury Department announced that it will immediately stop confiscating money from hundreds of thousands of people whose forebears had been overpaid by Social Security decades earlier.

The change, which applied only to debts from 2002 or earlier, follows Washington Post articles that chronicled the impact of the seizures on taxpayers who never knew that their parents had had debts to the government....

     Apparently, there was an article about this in the Washington Post but it's behind a paywall.

     The fact that this ever happened is a sign of just how bizarre things got after the GOP took over the House of Representatives. Overpayments, which were usually due to either mistakes that the Social Security Administration made or honest errors by claimants, were always conflated with fraud. The insistent demand from Congress was to do anything, literally anything, to collect these overpayments. Nothing was too extreme. Forty year old overpayments? Go all out to collect them. Don't worry about the fact that the agency lacks proof that an overpayment actually occurred decades ago. The person who was overpaid is dead? Just collect it from any relative of the person who was overpaid.

That Five Day Rule Isn't Being Implemented Uniformly

     An e-mail I received recently from another Social Security attorney:

Judges have been inconsistent with the application of the 5 day rule in my experience so far.

Judge _____ in ODAR Office A refused to consider records that arrived the day of hearing, despite my timely submitted 5 day notice.  I explained to the judge that the regs say that claimant must inform judge of evid not submitted before 5 biz days, and the regs do not require good cause showing for evid that the claimant has informed the judge 5 days before the hearing.  He told me that he feels (and he has spoken with other judges and they also feel) that the claimant needs to not only show good cause, but also provide documentation of good cause.  Basically, my explanation provided in the notice was not sufficient, he needed something to back up what I was saying.  He thinks that a fax confirmation of the med record request etc may be sufficient. 

He did allow a statement submitted by one of client’s providers, saying that he would do so because it is short and it would not delay decision. He did comment that it was not mentioned in my notice.  (I did not include it in my notice because that statement did not exist when I submitted my notice, it was dated about 3 days before hearing.)

He added that in another case just prior, he refused to look at new evidence submitted after the 5 day mark even though there were information in the records hurting the claimant’s case.

Another judge in ODAR Office B also seemed to think a good cause determination needs to be made despite 5 day notice.  A 3^rd judge in ODAR Office B not only allowed me additional time to submit the evid mentioned in my 5 day notice, but also allowed me to submit other evidence posthearing (claimant told me of additional treatment the date of hearing). 

     Social Security hastily drafted these proposed regulations. They completely ignored comments made about the proposed regulations and adopted them in haste. Hey, if attorneys oppose them, they must be good, right? The agency gave its staff no meaningful explanation, much less training on the regulations. No one should be surprised when Administrative Law Judges start interpreting the regulations in ways never imagined by those who drafted them. What is happening is exactly what I expected. I expect that all of us who represent claimants were expecting this.