Many Field Offices Closed By Weather

     Below is a list of Social Security field offices that will be closed today due to hurricanes. I have not seen any list of ODAR office closures:

Alabama

• Alabama ADO
• Alexander City
• Andalusia
• Anniston
• Bessemer
• Birmingham Downtown
• Birmingham East
• Birmingham Mega TSC
• Dothan
• Montgomery
• Opelika
• Selma
• SEPSC PC3
• Talladega

Florida

• Allapattah
• Belle Glade
• Bradenton
• Carrollwood
• Clearwater
• Cocoa
• Dade City
• Deland
• Ft. Lauderdale East
• Ft. Lauderdale TSC
• Ft. Lauderdale West
• Ft. Walton Beach
• Ft. Myers
• Gainesville
• Hialeah
• Jackson Memorial Hospital
• Jacksonville North
• Jacksonville South
• Key West Resident Station
• Kissimmee
• Lake City
• Lake Mary
• Lakeland
• Leesburg
• Little Havana
• Little River
• Marianna
• Melbourne
• Miami Beach
• Miami North
• Miami South
• Naples
• New Port Richey
• North Broward
• Ocala
• Orlando
• Orlando SSCC
• Panama City
• Perrine
• Pensacola
• Port Orange
• Port St. Lucie
• Pt. Charlotte
• Sarasota
• Sebring
• South Broward
• South Palm Beach
• St. Augustine
• St. Petersburg
• Tallahassee
• Tampa Downtown
• Tampa TSC
• Tampa WSU
• Valrico
• Venice
• Vero Beach
• West Palm Beach
• Winter Haven 

Georgia

• Albany
• Athens
• Atlanta Downtown
• Atlanta RO
• Atlanta West
• Augusta
• Blue Ridge CS
• Brunswick
• Columbus
• Cordele
• Covington
• Dalton
• Decatur
• Dublin
• Gainesville
• Georgia ADO
• Griffin
• Gwinnett
• LaGrange
• Macon
• Marietta
• Milledgeville
• Morrow (Southlake)
• Newnan
• Rome
• Savannah
• Statesboro
• Savannah DDS
• Thomasville DDS
• Tifton
• Toccoa
• Valdosta
• Vidalia
• Villa Rica
• Warner Robins
• Waycross
• Winder

Puerto Rico

 

All offices are closed in Puerto Rico

South Carolina

 

• Beaufort
• Charleston
• Columbia
• Walterboro

Texas

• Beaumont
• Port Arthur

Virgin Islands

 

 All offices are closed in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Some History To Explain Why I Don't Trust Social Security's Occupational Informational Project

Click on each page to view full size.

Initial And Recon Allowance Rates

     This was obtained from the Social Security Administration by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) which published the document in the NOSSCR newsletter, which is not available online.

Acting Commissioner Message On Hurricanes

From: ^Commissioner Broadcast
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2017 9:02 AM
Subject: Update on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma

A Message to All SSA Employees

Subject: Update on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma

Recovery efforts continue in Texas and Louisiana.  Social Security offices in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are closed, with Hurricane Irma striking those Caribbean locations yesterday.  Due to the uncertainty of the hurricane’s path, we closed many southern Florida offices beginning yesterday as residents are either under mandatory evacuation orders or preparing to evacuate.

Most employees in the affected areas of the Dallas region have returned to work, and all offices except for Port Arthur, Texas and Beaumont, Texas have reopened.  We have employees on site in several Texas shelters to provide immediate payments for those who qualify.  Over the weekend, employees assisted about 600 individuals with their Social Security service needs in these shelters.

To keep updated on service delivery in hurricane-affected areas, please visit our office closings and severe weather pages on the Internet.

These are trying times for so many Americans, many of whom are our family, friends, and colleagues.  While we continue to deliver on the mission of the Agency, please remember those in harm’s way in your thoughts and prayers.

Nancy A. Berryhill

Acting Commissioner

Alleged SSI Fraud Found During A Terrorism Investigation

     From the Buffalo News:

When FBI agents searched Ari Elias Baum's Facebook page, they were looking for evidence of a terrorist in training.

They already knew about Baum's posting of a photo depicting a couple dressed in military garb and holding weapons, with the caption, "Husband and wife fighting for Islam. The most beautiful photos I have ever seen."

The FBI also knew about the Buffalo man's travels to Yemen and Facebook friendship with a man whose inflammatory posts had come to the attention of terrorism investigators.

Baum was never charged with any terrorism crime but he will stand trial later this month for Social Security fraud, and the government would like to resurrect the terrorism claims as part of its prosecution.

That was until a federal judge said no. ...

He ordered prosecutors to stay away from any mention of the terrorism investigation but allowed them to get into Baum's travels overseas, as well as make general references to his religion. ...

Baum is charged with Social Security fraud and making false statements, and the evidence against him was uncovered as part of the FBI's terrorism investigation. The evidence includes an alleged Facebook conversation between Baum and his stepfather while Baum was traveling overseas.

"How is your money holding out?" asks his stepfather, Dr. R. Bruce Baum.

"Life is cheaper here but I will lose the SSI eventually if I stay here because they will find out that I am out of the country," Baum replied. ...

The FBI's investigation into Baum became public shortly after his arrest on fraud charges three years ago. The four-count indictment against him claims he stole $4,277 in Social Security disability benefits over a four-month period in 2013. ...

     To explain, while benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, that is, benefits based upon FICA contributions, are payable to those who are traveling or living outside the U.S. (with one rare exception), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits are not supposed to be paid in a month in which an individual is outside the United States (except in one extremely rare circumstance). These rules are not well understood by SSI recipients. I don't think a prosecution would be common for something like this because there would be no proof that the SSI recipient was intentionally breaking the law. In this case, maybe there is proof of what lawyers call scienter.

What Does This Mean?

     From the testimony of Bea Disman, Acting Chief of Staff, Social Security Administration, to the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee:

... To ensure our decisions remain accurate, we are developing a new Occupational Information System (OIS) that will be the primary source of occupational information used in our disability adjudication process. We are working closely with the DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and will have our first complete set of occupational data in 2019 after BLS completes its third year of data collection. We plan to implement the OIS in 2020 with the introduction of a Vocational Information Tool that adjudicators will use to decide claims. Working with us, BLS will immediately begin a new data collection cycle that will allow us to update the OIS at regular five-year intervals. 

Parallel to our efforts to develop the OIS, we are working on updating our Medical-Vocational Guidelines, which were issued in 1978. At step five of our sequential evaluation process, we evaluate an individual’s ability to adjust to other work that exists in the national economy. The Medical-Vocational Guidelines are a crosswalk used by adjudicators when considering an individual’s RFC in relation to age, education, work experience, and work that exists in the national economy. We are currently considering potential evidence-based approaches to updating these guidelines to ensure we remain current with changes in medical and vocational practice, technology, and the workforce. We are closely coordinating any potential changes to how we consider vocational efforts with our development of the OIS....

     Here are some questions I'd like asked of Ms. Disman:

• There have been endless, unexplained delays in developing the OIS. Why? 
• Is Social Security allowing BLS to collect the data and see what it shows or is Social Security pressuring BLS to massage the data so that it meets pre-determined goals set by Social Security? 
• What would an "evidence-based" approach to updating the Medical-Vocational guidelines look like?

Actually, This Shows SSA Is Doing Good Work

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

Each month, the VA [Department of Veterans Affairs] furnishes SSA [Social Security Administration] with automated death records. Before SSA terminates benefit payments or records death information on the Numident [a major SSA database], SSA employees must independently verify the VA death information. In April 2016, we obtained data from VA identifying approximately 17 million deceased individuals. We matched the VA data against SSA’s payment records to identify potentially deceased beneficiaries in current payment status. ...

SSA issued payments to 3,925 beneficiaries who had dates of death in VA’s records. Our audit results indicated that at least 11 percent of these beneficiaries were alive, and death information in VA’s records was erroneous. However, our audit results also indicated that at least 19 percent of these beneficiaries were deceased , and death information in VA’s records was accurate....

      You can see Social Security's problem. They're receiving a lot of bad information from VA. Mistakenly declaring someone dead when they're not is a very bad thing. Not only are their Social Security benefits ceased, their bank accounts and credit cards are frozen and they can no longer receive medical care. Social Security has to independently confirm that the person has died. That can take a little time and mistakes will be made. In the end, even though Social Security received 17 million death reports from VA, OIG could only identify 19 cases where individuals had died but benefit payments were continuing. Nineteen out of 17 million is actually a pretty good record. That's an error rate of 0.00011% if my math is correct. Of course, the right wing Washington Times accuses Social Security of incompetence.

Cynical Move

     There's a Congressional hearing tomorrow on the enormous backlog of Social Security disability claims awaiting adjudication. This afternoon, Social Security adds three extremely rare conditions to its "compassionate allowance" list. The "compassionate allowance" list is and always has been meaningless. It's just a list of rare conditions for which a disability claim would be approved anyway. The list has always been a way of pretending to do something about the backlogs while actually doing nothing of consequence. The compassionate allowance list is just a fig leaf for Social Security and Congress to hide behind. If you work at Social Security and you think otherwise, you either don't understand the situation or you're fooling yourself.