Tales Of Life On The Lam

     From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

To the saga of Eric C. Conn’s journey from wealthy Eastern Kentucky attorney to fugitive felon captured at a Pizza Hut in Central America, add this nugget:

Conn says he used a puppy to cross the border from Mexico into Guatemala, thinking it would help him get past security officers....

In his first communication with the media since being captured, Conn, 57, sent the Herald-Leader a 42-page, two-part handwritten letter with his account of why he decided to flee sentencing ...

Conn, who is in solitary confinement in the Grayson County jail while awaiting trial on escape and other charges, also called the newspaper from jail.

It’s a tale worthy of Conn’s larger-than-life persona, including how he pretended to be engaged to a woman so authorities wouldn’t check his identification while on a bus, and how he says police in Honduras, where he was captured Dec. 2, offered to let him go in return for a bribe he couldn’t cover.

Conn said having to look over his shoulder while a fugitive was miserable.

“Honestly, honestly, it was horrible,” he said. “I never got one true minute of relaxation.” ...

In his letter, Conn called his decision to abscond foolhardy, but he said he did it after becoming terrified of the prospect of being raped in prison. ...

Conn said he started reading about sexual abuse in prisons and became so fearful that one night, he “began to shake all over like a man on the verge of frostbite.” ...

     If you read this account, it's obvious that Conn had essentially no plan for what he would do after he crossed the border into Mexico. It's a wonder he got as far as he did.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article193706559.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article193706559.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article193706559.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article193706559.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article193706559.html#storylink=cpy

The Numbers Are In

     Social Security has posted final numbers on disability claims filed and approved in 2017 as well as the number drawing disability benefits. Claims filed decreased by 6% in 2017. This was the seventh straight year of declining claims. There's been a 26% decline in the number of claims filed since the peak in 2010. The number of claims approved actually went up by 2.4% in 2017, the first yearly increase since 2010. Still, the number of claims approved is down 28% from the peak. The number of claimants in current payment status declined by 1.29% in 2017. The termination rate increased to 9.30% which is the highest of any year presented. However, it should be noted that many of those terminations were because claimants had aged off disability benefits and on to retirement benefits.

 

Nope, Sorry, This Letter Won't Do Any Good Because The Backlogs Aren't Due To Incompetence Or Lack Of Caring

     From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Four Philadelphia-area congressmen sent a letter Monday to the acting chief of the Social Security Administration asking that the agency address the sometimes years-long delays for Philadelphia-area residents seeking disability-benefits hearings.

The letter to acting Commissioner Nancy Berryhill, signed by U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, Dwight Evans, Robert Brady, and Donald Norcross, all Democrats, came in response to an article in Sunday’s Inquirer that reported that applicants in the city are waiting an average of 26 months for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) appeal hearings. That’s the longest average waiting time for any city in the country. Applicants in adjacent counties in South Jersey and Pennsylvania also are experiencing average wait times of 20 months or longer.

“While we are certainly sympathetic to the budgetary constraints of your agency, we are deeply concerned by the number of individuals subject to undue stress and health risks brought on by reports of bureaucratic inefficiency,” the letter said. ...

What's The Alternative?

     From Salon:

Nearly five months after an unprecedented security breach at the credit rating firm Equifax exposed Social Security numbers and other data, making some 147 million Americans vulnerable to potential identity theft and fraud attacks, the Social Security Administration continues to use an identity security system devised by Equifax for the MySocialSecurity online portal.

Equifax was awarded a no-bid $10 million contract back in early 2016, as the company boasted at the time, “to help the SSA manage risk and mitigate fraud for the mySocialSecurity system, a personalized portal for customers to access some of SSA’s services such as the online statement.”  ...

[Social Security] Press officer Mark Hinkle would only tell Salon that “Equifax is not, and has never been, responsible for the authentication of mySocialSecurity users, or building, maintaining or supporting any of Social Security’s platforms.” 

That response suggests that, in fact, all the financially strapped SSA actually got from Equifax for its $10 million was a bunch of security questions to ask those trying to prove their identity before accessing the online customer portal.... Based on the questions actually found on the site, it would appear that Equifax offered a duplicate version of the questions it uses for its own flawed and hacked customer access security system for use by the SSA’s MySocialSecurity Portal, and no doubt the IRS’ online portal too. ...

     The Social Security Administration has been under enormous pressure to move its operations online. There are Congressional hearings where members of Congress seem incredulous that the agency even has field offices. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) keeps pressing to move everything online. If Uber can do it, why can't Social Security? This is based upon a naive belief that Social Security's operations are relatively simple which they might be if the agency only had to take retirement claims. However, many of Social Security's operations -- like disability, survivor and SSI claims -- are way too complicated to be handled online. It's sort of like insisting that a funeral parlor move all its operations online. Sorry, but there's that pesky body you have to deal with somehow as well as bereaved relatives who demandTLC.
     The EquiFax situation isn't as dire as this article suggests. EquiFax isn't getting any data from Social Security. It all goes in one direction from EquiFax to Social Security. =
     I can't say whether the authentication process Social Security is using is adequate but I don't know what the alternative would be other than to give up on online services. That would be fine with me as long as Congress gives Social Security adequate resources but that's not going to happen.

Attorney Advisor Program Extended

     From today's Federal Register:

We are extending for six months our rule authorizing attorney advisors to conduct certain prehearing proceedings and to issue fully favorable decisions. The current rule is scheduled to expire on February 5, 2018. In this final rule, we are extending the sunset date to August 3, 2018. We are making no other substantive changes.

     However, there have been few attorney advisor decisions in recent years and none recently. If Democrats were to take control of the House of Representatives in this November's election, expect the attorney advisor program to ramp up quickly. The reason is pretty clear. Social Security officials know that Congressional Republicans don't really care about backlogs but do want as few disability claims approved as possible.

The Hearing Backlog And MS

     The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting on the effects of Social Security's horrible hearing backlog. Note that the article focuses on the case of a young woman suffering from multiple sclerosis. Where I practice they seem to be turning down almost all the MS cases at the initial and reconsideration levels. Maybe ten years ago I might take on one MS case a year. Now I may take on one a month.  That's me personally. I'm sure my firm takes on many more than I take on personally. The disease didn't change. The definition of disability didn't change. The agency's regulations didn't change in a way that would especially affect MS. Social Security never announced a change. However, it's clear to me that some person or persons decided to change the agency's practices and then used the secretive quality assurance process to effect the change. In the end, I win the vast majority of the MS cases but there's way too much unnecessary suffering in the meantime and too many claimants who get so discouraged that they drop their cases without ever consulting with an attorney. They don't go back to work. They just rely upon other income or on family and friends. More than a few just get poorer and poorer for years before finally becoming so desperate that they file a new claim and pursue appeals.  MS isn't a rare disease but it's not so common that I should be seeing about one new MS each month.  This is a terrible way to treat very sick people.

Senator Warren Challenges Social Security Information Exchange With Department Of Education

     From a letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren to the Inspector Generals at the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration (footnotes omitted):

I write to request that you inspect and examine whether the Department of Education ("the Department" or ED) violated its information exchange agreements with the U.S. Social Security Administration ("SSA") in order to establish a scheme to limit relief to thousands defrauded borrowers under its Borrower Defense for Repayment ("Borrower Defense") authority.

On December 20th, 2017, the Department announced a new plan and formula to limit debt relief to former Corinthian College students and other defrauded student borrowers by comparing their average earnings to students who graduated from similar vocational programs of study.

The Department stated in its press release that, "[s]tudents whose earnings are at 50 percent or more of their [Gainful Employement] program peers will receive proportionally tiered relief to compensate for the difference and make them whole." It appears the Department plans to use federal earnings data produced from federal tax records to calculate partial relief for defrauded student borrowers. The Department obtained these federal earnings data through an information exchange agreement between the Department and SSA for aggregate earnings data.

I have a number of concerns with this plan, including whether it is allowed under the current information exchange agreement between the Department and SSA. On December 20th, 2017, The Washington Post reported that SSA provided an "unofficial, non-legal, staff-level" opinion that SSA staff"do[es] not believe (the Education Department] would be authorized to use earnings information [SSA] provide[s] under any current agreement to make decisions about whether or not to grant debt relief to borrowers in certain vocations. "

I am troubled by the Department's potential misuse of federal earnings data acquired from SSA through an information exchange agreement in order to limit loan relief for defrauded students....

OHO Workload Analysis Report

     This was obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter, which isn't available online:

Click on image to view full size

     I'll draw your attention to four things:

• The agency had, on average, 51,444 hours of overtime per month in fiscal year (FY) 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, but only an average of 35,869 hours per month in October and November 2017. That's 30% less. This hurts productivity. Why the reduction in OT? It's the appropriations situation. The federal government, including Social Security, is operating on a continuing resolution rather than a real appropriation. They're supposed to be spending at the FY 2017 rate. That's already a reduction in spending power because of the effects of inflation. However, the Senate is threatening to cut Social Security's operating budget below the FY 2017 level in absolute terms. I'll speculate that Social Security is being cautious and is only spending at a rate consistent with the Senate appropriations bill. The first thing that gets cut is OT. If the agency gets the same dollar amount as in FY 2017 (which, again, is, in effect, a cut because of the effects of inflation), expect a sudden surge in overtime. In general, Social Security is addicted to OT. They can easily turn the OT spigot on and off allowing them to quickly adjust to the ever changing appropriations situation. That's no way to run a business. OT costs more. OT reduces productivity. You can only assign so much of the blame to Congress. If you're still using a lot of OT even in a bad budget situation, as is the case now, you need to hire more employees. Yes, they take time to train but you need more employees. By the way, it's not just OHO that depends on OT. There's beeen a noticeable slowdown throughout the agency since October 1.
• The senior attorney decisions have gone down from nearly nothing in FY 2017 to completely nothing in October and November.
• The number of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) available was only 1481 as of November. Social Security likes to talk about all ALJs they're hiring. They don't like to talk about the fact that all they're doing is replacing ALJs who retire, quit, become disabled or die.
• The Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) staff is having trouble adjusting to its new name. This report is labeled "ODAR Workload and Performance Summary." By the way, seriously, don't pronounce OHO as Oh-Ho. That  pronunciation has very unpleasant connotations for Spanish speakers.