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| Conn on the lam as seen on a security camera in New Mexico |
... As of January 2017,
SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] management information showed that teleworking FOs performed slightly less as well as the non-teleworking FOs while TSC teleworking staff performed slightly better than non-teleworking staff. Finally, as the number of hearing office teleworkers increased, hearing office productivity declined in three of the four metrics ODAR monitored. SSA explained that multiple factors affect productivity, regardless of telework.
- 4,526 (16 percent) of the 27,530 FO [Field Office] employees were participating in the telework pilot at 317 (26 percent) of the 1,213 FOs;
- 831 (19 percent) of the 4,298 TSC [Teleservice Center] employees were teleworking at 17 (68 percent) of the 25 TSCs; and
- 5,541 (64 percent) of the 8,725 hearing office employees were teleworking across all 164 hearing offices, National Case Assistance Centers, and National Hearing Centers.
SSA managers and staff recognized various telework challenges, and SSA told us it was working to resolve them. SSA needs to establish a business plan that monitors telework productivity to ensure it will timely identify and correct trends that may negatively affect customer service. ...
Ted Grohowski spent five days during a recent week in the hospital suffering from tender, infected ulcers on his feet — his sixth overall visit for the issue. The blisters are so painful, they often make him unable to stand up or walk.
But for the 64-year-old, it is only one ailment on a laundry list of illness and injury.
Some 14 years ago, Grohowski had a knee replacement that is now starting to fall apart. Last August, his left kidney was removed because of a cancerous tumor.
He has a rotary cuff tear in his right shoulder that sometimes makes him unable to lift his head.
So, when Grohowski walked into the Yonkers Social Security office in April to file for disability, he thought it was a no-brainer. Two months later, however, the office sent him a letter rejecting aid, stating he “did not meet our standards.” ...
For most of his adult life, Grohowski sold jewelry in midtown Manhattan. While he enjoyed the work, the days were filled with long hours standing on his feet. After a while, it proved to be too agonizing, and he stopped working altogether more than a year ago.
He plans on appealing the Social Security Administration’s decision, which means he’ll have to go to court and state his case. But according to the disability adjudication and review office, Grohowski could wait as long as two years before he can appear before a judge. ...
Yes, I know, he can get his early retirement benefits while he's waiting but most claimants can't.One of the reasons there is such a backlog of cases ... is because of the federal government’s continual budget cuts to the Social Security program. President Donald Trump already has proposed another $64 million cut to the disability agency’s $813 billion budget. ...
The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the long-term financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds. The combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds are projected to become depleted in 2034, the same as projected last year, with 77 percent of benefits payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund will become depleted in 2028, extended from last year’s estimate of 2023, with 93 percent of benefits still payable.
In the 2017 Annual Report to Congress, the Trustees announced:
- The asset reserves of the combined OASDI Trust Funds increased by $35 billion in 2016 to a total of $2.85 trillion.
- The combined trust fund reserves are still growing and will continue to do so through 2021. Beginning in 2022, the total annual cost of the program is projected to exceed income.
- The year when the combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted, if Congress does not act before then, is 2034 – the same as projected last year. At that time, there will be sufficient income coming in to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.
The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of personnel involved in making disability determinations for Social Security, has released its most recent newsletter, focusing on NADE's recent conference in Portland.
NADE members attending the conference heard a presentation on Social Security's effort to create a new occupational information system to replace the outdated Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) used in disability determinations. There are a couple of items of interest from the write-up. The number of occupations listed will go down from the DOT's 12,000 to 1,000, which means that each job title will be even more of a composite. Composite jobs are broader and can only be described in more amorphous ways. Training on the new occupational information system is supposed to begin sometime in 2016.Here's a little something from the newsletter of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (not available online) concerning the organization's conference in Washington in June 2017 where Bea Disman, Acting Chief of Staff of the Acting Commissioner of Social Security, spoke:
Disman also discussed SSA’s work with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to update the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. She indicated that they have ended the first year of a multi-year effort by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to complete an Occupational Requirements Survey SSA can use in a replacement for the DOT.Wait, what? In October 2015, the DOT replacement was so nearly done that it could be described, so nearly done that training was scheduled to begin shortly. However, in June 2017, the DOT replacement project had just begun with completion many years into the future. Anybody at Social Security want to explain that one?
