SSNs Criticized

     From Nextgov:

Government and industry rely on Social Security numbers as a fail-safe way to ensure people are who they claim to be, but massive data breaches have led cybersecurity experts to argue the nine-digit identifier is past its prime. ...

With so many numbers floating in the online wilderness, cyber advocates on Thursday told a House panel agencies and companies could no longer trust them as a certain means to verify people’s identities.

“Social Security numbers are so deeply compromised and so widely available to the public...that they can no longer be used as an authenticator,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a cybersecurity expert at the R Street Institute, before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security. While he and other witnesses largely agreed the number can still work as a unique government ID, the days of using it to prove someone is who they say are long over. ...

Acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Nancy Berry said the agency is open to exploring new authentication methods, but noted advanced solutions often come with a high price tag. Grobman pushed back hard against this notion, highlighting the “staggering” price of doing nothing outweighs the cost of building a new system. ...

Lawmakers and witnesses debated the pros and cons of several alternative authenticators—like ID-embedded cards, biometric data and blockchain tech—but agreed on the need for change as recent breaches rendered Social Security numbers essentially public information.

“It’s clear [Social Security numbers] aren’t a secret anymore, and it’s time to stop pretending they are,” said Chairman Sam Johnson, R-Texas.

     The thing is that just as soon as Social Security goes to a different unique identifier, government and industry will start to use that new unique identifier and it, too, will quickly become just as compromised as the Social Security number.
     If the U.S. does want to go to some other unique identifier, it could do a lot worse than to copy India's Aadhar cards. Yes, poverty stricken India is probably the world's leader in this department. However, the idea of a government-issued biometrically-based identification system in the U.S. seems awfully unlikely for many reasons. The black helicopter people would go nuts or, perhaps I should say, nuttier than the already are.

Peak Royal Wedding Fever

     If you thought there wasn't even a tenuous connection between the royal wedding and Social Security, you were wrong.

Doc Indicted For Social Security Fraud

     From the Shreveport Times:

A federal grand jury indicted a Shreveport surgeon Wednesday for stealing disability benefits ... 

John T. Owings, 58, of Shreveport, was charged with one count of theft of government property and one count of concealing that he was ineligible for Social Security benefits. According to the indictment, Owings applied for Social Security disability benefits in March of 2007. After being awarded the benefits, he was required to report if he began working again. He began working in 2012 as a surgeon for the University of California-Davis where was paid $22,000 a month. He was hired in 2013 as an employee of LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport where he is Endowed Chair and Professor of Surgery to oversee the trauma center and where he is being paid $41,400 a month. Based on his employment, Owings was ineligible to receive disability benefits. However, he concealed the employment changes from the Social Security Administration, and as a result, he received more than $200,000 in government money that he was not entitled to. ...

The Old Blame It On GSA Excuse

     From the Baltimore Sun:

The Social Security Administration office at the Rotunda in North Baltimore is scheduled to close next month, the latest in a recent string of field office closures decried by activists and lawmakers. ...

The owner of the Rotunda has been redeveloping the property with apartments and new retail. Tiggerman said the original Social Security space was “repurposed.”

The General Services Administration, which serves as Social Security’s real estate agency, was unable to find a suitable replacement space, Tiggemann said. ...

The GSA could not be reached for comment.

An Actress In California?

     From the Dothan Eagle (emphasis added):

An Alabama woman who lied to employees at Dothan’s Social Security office in order to obtain fraudulent benefits for her son was sentenced along with her husband to federal prison recently. ...

According to court testimony, Nakia Palmer falsely informed Social Security employees in Dothan that she was an actress living in California and had left her minor son in her husband’s exclusive custody so that Social Security would not consider her income in determining whether her son was eligible for benefits. Nakia Palmer, however, was not an actress living in California, but an employee of the Social Security office in Montgomery. Prosecutors contend the Palmers did not use the fraudulently obtained benefits to support the minor son, but used the money to finance a new vehicle. ...

Service Complaints

     From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is getting heat from inside and outside the agency stemming from scores of field-office closures and poor customer service. ...

In letters to SSA and the General Services Administration (GSA) on Monday, Sens. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) and Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.), the chairwoman and ranking Democrat, respectively, of the Senate Special Committee on Aging said, “as some 10,000 seniors turn 65 each day and file for Social Security and Medicare, we should be expanding access to services, not reducing access.”

Instead, Social Security has closed about 125 field offices since 2000 and, the senators said, “service hours at field-office locations have also been cut while wait times have risen and hearing backlogs have grown.” ...

Useful Compendium

     A recent addition to Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) contains this useful summary of citations from the agency's Social Security Rulings (SSRs) on the effects of various sorts of limitations upon the ability to perform ranges of work.

1. Standing/Walking

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
83-10	Lifting and carrying—light work Standing/walking—sedentary and light work	“Even though the weight lifted in a particular light job may be very little, a job is in this category when it requires a good deal of walking or standing—the primary difference between sedentary and most light jobs.”
83-10	Standing/walking—light work	“Many unskilled light jobs are performed primarily in one location, with the ability to stand being more critical than the ability to walk.”
96-9p	Standing/walking—sedentary work	“If an individual can stand and walk for a total of slightly less than 2 hours per 8-hour workday, this, by itself, would not cause the occupational base to be significantly eroded.”
96-9p	Alternate sitting and standing	“An individual may need to alternate the required sitting of sedentary work by standing (and, possibly, walking) periodically. Where this need cannot be accommodated by scheduled breaks and a lunch period, the occupational base for a full range of unskilled sedentary work will be eroded.” (This suggests that if scheduled breaks and a lunch can accommodate the need to alternate positions, the full range of unskilled sedentary work is intact.)
96-9p	Medically required hand-held assistive device—sedentary work	“For example, if a medically required hand-held assistive device is needed only for prolonged ambulation, walking on uneven terrain, or ascending or descending slopes, the unskilled sedentary occupational base will not ordinarily be significantly eroded.” “Since most unskilled sedentary work requires only occasional lifting and carrying of light objects such as ledgers and files and a maximum lifting capacity for only 10 pounds, an individual who uses a medically required hand-held assistive device in one hand may still have the ability to perform the minimal lifting and carrying requirements of many sedentary unskilled occupations with the other hand.”

2. Lifting/carrying/pushing/pulling

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
83-10	Lifting/carrying—medium work	“Being able to do frequent lifting or carrying of objects weighing up to 25 pounds is often more critical than being able to lift up to 50 pounds at a time.”
96-9p	Lifting/carrying—sedentary work	“For example, if it can be determined that the individual has an ability to lift or carry slightly less than 10 pounds, with no other limitations or restrictions in the ability to perform the requirements of sedentary work, the unskilled sedentary occupational base would not be significantly eroded.”
96-9p	Pushing/pulling—sedentary work	“Limitations or restrictions on the ability to push or pull will generally have little effect on the unskilled sedentary occupational base.”

3. Postural limitations

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
83-10	Stooping—sedentary work	“By its very nature, work performed primarily in a seated position entails no significant stooping.”
83-10	Stooping—light work	“The lifting requirement for the majority of light jobs can be accomplished with occasional, rather than frequent, stooping.”
83-14	Stooping and crouching—light and sedentary work	“However, to perform substantially all of the exertional requirements of most sedentary and light jobs, a person would not need to crouch and would need to stoop only occasionally.”
83-14	Climbing, kneeling and crawling—medium work	“In jobs at the medium level of exertion, there is more likelihood than in light work that such factors as the ability to ascend or descend ladders and scaffolding, kneel, and crawl will be a part of the work requirement. However, limitations of these activities would not significantly affect the medium occupational base.”
83-14	Climbing, kneeling, and crawling—light work	“On the other hand, there are nonexertional limitations or restrictions which have very little or no effect on the unskilled light occupational base. Examples are inability to ascend or descend scaffolding, poles, and ropes, inability to crawl on hands and knees; and inability to use the fingertips to sense the temperature or texture of an object.”
85-15	Climbing and balancing	“Where a person has some limitation in climbing and balancing and it is the only limitation, it would not ordinarily have a significant impact on the broad world of work.”
85-15	Stooping and crouching— sedentary and light work	“If a person can stoop occasionally (from very little up to one-third of the time) in order to lift objects, the sedentary and light occupational base is virtually intact.” “This is also true for crouching.”
85-15	Crawling and kneeling	“However, crawling on hands and knees and feet is a relatively rare activity even in arduous work, and limitations on the ability to crawl would be of little significance in the broad world of work.” “This is also true of kneeling.”
96-9p	Postural limitations—sedentary work	“Postural limitations or restrictions related to such activities as climbing ladders, ropes, or scaffolds, balancing, kneeling, crouching, or crawling would not usually erode the occupational base for a full range of unskilled sedentary work significantly because those activities are not usually required in sedentary work.”
96-9p	Stooping—sedentary work	“A complete inability to stoop would significantly erode the unskilled sedentary occupational base and a finding that the individual is disabled would usually apply, but restriction to occasional stooping should, by itself, only minimally erode the unskilled occupational base of sedentary work.”

4. Manipulative limitations

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
83-10	Reaching, Handling, Fingering—light work	“They require use of arms and hands to grasp and to hold and to turn objects, and they generally do not require use of the fingers for fine activities to the extent required in much sedentary work.” (“They” refers to many unskilled light jobs.)
83-10	Reaching, Handling, Fingering—medium and sedentary work	(The quote refers to manipulative activities common in medium work as opposed to sedentary.) “Use of the arms and hands is necessary to grasp, hold, and turn objects, as opposed to the finer activities in much sedentary work, which require precision use of the fingers as well as use of the hands and arms.”
85-15	Fingering	“As a general rule, limitations of fine manual dexterity have greater adjudicative significance—in terms of relative number of jobs in which the function is required—as the person’s exertional RFC decreases.”
85-15	Feeling	“However, a VS would not ordinarily be required where a person has a loss of ability to feel the size, shape temperature, or texture of an object by the fingertips, since this is a function required in very few jobs.”
96-9p	Feeling—sedentary work	“The ability to feel the size, shape, temperature, or texture of an object by the fingertips is a function required in very few jobs and impairment of this ability would not, by itself, significantly erode the unskilled sedentary occupational base.”

5. Special senses limitations

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
85-15	Vision	“As a general rule, even if a person’s visual impairment(s) were to eliminate all jobs that involve very good vision (such as working with small objects or reading small print), as long as he or she retains sufficient visual acuity to be able to handle and work with rather large objects (and has the visual fields to avoid ordinary hazards in the workplace), there would be a substantial number of jobs remaining across all exertional levels.”
96-9p	Hearing and speaking	“Basic communication is all that is needed to do unskilled work. The ability to hear and understand simple oral instructions or to communicate simple information is sufficient. If the individual retains these basic communication abilities, the unskilled sedentary occupational base would not be significantly eroded in these areas.”

6. Environmental limitations

85-15	Hazards	“A person with a seizure disorder who is restricted only from being on unprotected elevations and near dangerous moving machinery is an example of someone whose environmental restriction does not have a significant effect on work that exists at all exertional levels.”
96-9p	Cold, heat, wetness, humidity, vibration, unusual hazards—sedentary work	“In general, few occupations in the unskilled sedentary occupational base require work in environments with extreme cold, extreme heat, wetness, humidity, vibration, or unusual hazards…. Even a need to avoid all exposure to these conditions would not, by itself, result in a significant erosion of the occupational base.”

7. Mental limitations

SSR	Issue	Statement from SSR
85-15	Mental	“Where there is no exertional impairment, unskilled jobs at all levels of exertion constitute the potential occupational base for persons who can meet the mental demands of unskilled work. These jobs ordinarily involve dealing primarily with objects, rather than with data or people, and they generally provide substantial vocational opportunity for persons with solely mental impairments who retain the capacity to meet the intellectual and emotional demand of such jobs on a sustained basis.”1

Side By Side Comparison Of Proposed And Current Musculoskeletal Listings

     See below for side by side versions of Social Security's proposed new musculoskeletal Listings and the current Listings -- just the Listings. There are also considerable changes in the Listing preambles. Click on each page to view full size. You can also download a PDF of the whole thing. Notice that in every case the proposed new Listing is longer than the current Listing.