Only 7.8% Of Disability Benefits Recipients Have Bachelor's Degrees

     Social Security has just published National Beneficiary Survey: Disability Statistics, 2015. It contains a table from giving the educational backgrounds of recipients of the disability benefits it administers:

• Did not complete high school or GED 28.3%
• High school diploma 42.6%
• GED 7.7%
• Special education certificate 4.1%
• Some college or postsecondary vocational 13.7%
• Associate's degree or vocational diploma 7.5%
• Bachelor's degree 4.9%
• Some graduate work or graduate or professional degree 2.9%

I Keep Telling You The Disability Work Incentives Are Too Complicated To Administer

     Social Security has recently published National Beneficiary Survey: Disability Statistics, 2015. It contains a jarring statistic on what happens when a recipient of disability benefits returns to work. When that happens and the person's disability benefits are supposed to be adjusted because of the work, 53.2% of the time Social Security gets the adjustment wrong and overpays or underpays the claimant.

H.R. 4547 To Become Law

     The Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2018, H.R. 4547, having to do with representative payees has passed both houses of Congress unanimously and should be signed into law by the President soon.

DCPS Project Not Going Well

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

In September 2017, we reported that SSA [Social Security Administration] planned to deliver functionality [of the Disability Case Processing System or DCPS] to support all workloads — including continuing disability reviews and DDS [Disability Determination Services] disability hearings — by April 2018. Since then, SSA has discontinued rolling out DCPS to additional DDSs and re-prioritized its resources to focus on development. The Agency’s new strategy concentrates on increasing the number of DCPS users at participating DDSs and the number of cases the system processes. 

On January 27, 2018, SSA deployed another major release into production. The Agency reported this release added functionality to support most adult and child initial and reconsideration claims. As of February 28, 2018, 10 DDSs had processed 6,477 disability cases using DCPS. Based on SSA’s cost estimates, as of February 2018, cumulative costs for the new DCPS project were about $80 million. This does not include SSA’s costs to develop the prior version of DCPS. 

As of February 2018, the Agency expected development would continue beyond October 2018. In addition, SSA had not determined when it would resume deploying DCPS to additional DDSs. As of February 2018, SSA estimated its DCPS costs through Fiscal Year 2022 would be about $140 million. However, given the uncertainty of when SSA will finish developing DCPS and rolling it out to all DDSs, we could not determine whether the Agency’s cost estimate was reasonable. Furthermore, until SSA completes DCPS development and implementation, DDSs will continue incurring costs to operate and maintain their existing systems

Here's One Table From The Statistical Supplement

     The Social Security Administration has released its annual grand compendium of data, the Statistical Supplement. The data is a year old but still useful. Below is one table readers may find interesting. Note the declining Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) productivity.

Click on table to view full size

SSA Could Use CMS Data To Help Select Some Rep Payees

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

CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]data could help SSA determine the suitability of organizational payee applicants and existing organizational payees that are nursing homes. Generally, the Agency relies on information provided by organizational payees and monitoring reviews to assess 15 suitability factors. However, these sources were not sufficient in providing the Agency with reliable information to assess four of these factors. However, CMS’ nursing home data could provide SSA with useful, relevant, timely, and independent information related to 11 of the 15 suitability factors, including the 4 factors for which the Agency did not have a reliable source for evaluation. 

SSA determined that 38 organizational payees were suitable and qualified to serve beneficiaries even though CMS deemed them as chronically underperforming or assessed them the highest fines because of serious and uncorrected deficiencies. From 2012 to 2016, CMS assessed the organizational payees 1,675 deficiencies and issued them $9.5 million in penalties. Further, CMS terminated six of the organizational payees from Medicare /Medicaid for providing substandard quality care; four subsequently closed. SSA conducts monitoring reviews for organizational payees that meet certain criteria. Since 2012, SSA had reviewed 3 of the 38 organizational payees and did not identify any issues that affected their suitability. One of the organizational payees had since closed.

Funding Bill Passes -- Will Trump Sign It?

     Congress has passed and sent to the President an omnibus appropriations bill that will finally fund the Social Security Administration and other federal agencies through the end of the federal fiscal year, September 30, 2018. 

     The bill contained a last minute addition pertaining to Social Security. The agency was instructed not to close or, perhaps I should say, to reopen a Milwaukee field office that it had recently closed.

     Gun nuts are concerned that the bill would allow Social Security to again adopt regulations that would prevent seriously mentally ill Social Security recipients with representative payees from purchasing firearms. The Obama Administration had adopted that set of regulations but Congress blocked them early last year. Readoption of those regulations wouldn't happen until there's a change in the White House.

     Update: Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would sign the omnibus appropriations bill. Today, after it passes, he's threatening to veto it. There's a government shutdown beginning at midnight tonight if he vetoes it.

     Further update: Yes, Trump did sign it.

Omnibus Funding Bill Out

     The Omnibus Appropriations bill is out. The Social Security portion gives the agency an additional $480 million but earmarks $280 million of this for IT. Social Security certainly needs IT but this sounds more like an attempt to make sure that politically connected contractors get theirs before agency operations. There is a $100 million earmark for the hearing backlog but what about the agency's field offices, payment centers and teleservice centers? Good luck. Sounds like they don't get enough to even keep up with inflation.