Social Security Administration Fairness Act

     Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the "Social Security Administration Fairness Act." Here are the chief provisions of Sanders' proposed Act:

• Automatic appropriation to the Social Security Administration of an amount equal to 1.5 percent of expected annual benefits and payments administered by SSA to pay for all administrative costs incurred by SSA in fiscal years 2019 and thereafter. 
• Eliminate the 5-month waiting period for Social Security disabled worker benefits and disabled surviving spouse benefits.
• Eliminate the 24-month waiting period for Medicare coverage for individuals who have become entitled for Social Security disability benefits. 
• Create a temporary moratorium on the consolidation of SSA field offices and hearings offices.

      Sanders asked the Office of the Chief Actuary at Social Security to determine what effects the proposed Act would have on the Social Security Trust Funds if enacted. The actuaries found that the proposal would not change the exhaustion date of the combined Trust Funds. That date would stay at 2034.

     This can't get passed until there's a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. That's unlikely to be the case next year but it's not out of the question. Whenever Democrats get the majority on both Houses of Congress, I predict there will be Social Security legislation. Sanders' proposal could easily be part of it. It's not that costly.
     While we're talking about Senator Sanders, he was able to get new staffers for Social Security field offices in Vermont.

Happy Independence Day!

For Real Experts Only

     What's a "smartmand case"? I'm seeing that term show up on an SSA-831 that was issued more than six months after a request for hearing. If it helps, the claimant has died. I don't even see any determination indicated on the SSA-831 but the claimant's survivors say they have been told by the field office that the claim has been approved.

Offended By Washington Post Editorial

     From Dean Baker writing for the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

The paper owned by the man who got incredibly rich by avoiding state and local sales taxes is upset because workers are getting Social Security disability payments that average less than $1,300 a month. Since the U.S. has one of the least generous disability programs of any wealthy country, this might seem like a strange concern. Here's the picture from the OECD.

Click on image to view full size

Of course the Post is also a paper that gets hysterical over the prospect that truck drivers will get pay increases. In short, these are folks who practice crude class war. They are okay with some crumbs for the poor, but anything that is good for ordinary workers means giving up money that could be in the pockets of the Bezoses of the world.

Schumer Asks For Better Staffing At Social Security

     From the Syracuse Post-Standard:

The nearly two-year wait for a Social Security appeal hearing in Syracuse could get even longer if the federal agency does not beef up its staff soon, Sen. Charles D. Schumer, D-NY, warned today.

Congress included an addition $440 million in the federal budget approved in March to help Social Security address chronic delays that have plagued the agency for years.

Schumer said the agency's Syracuse field office should get some of that money first because its hearing office has 9,028 pending cases, the biggest backlog in the state. He discussed the issue at a news conference at the Cicero Senior Center. ...

     Unfortunately, as I'm sure Senator Schumer knows, that $440 million isn't enough to do much good. It's going to take budget increases well over a billion dollars a year to noticeably improve service at Social Security.

Washington Post Returns To Its Campaign Against Social Security Disability Benefits

     From a Washington Post editorial:

... Just three years ago, in July 2015, the Obama administration warned that the [Social Security Disability Insurance] program’s reserves were so low that it might not be able to cover expected benefits in 2016. Now, the trustees say the program will be solvent until 2032. Declining disability insurance receipts may be one reason that labor force participation by “prime-age” workers, those between the ages of 25 and 54, has ticked up from 80.6 percent in September 2015 to 81.8 in May 2018. ...

What does not explain the decline is any structural reform to the program. The fact that disability rolls decline when the economy improves, and vice versa, reflects no intended purpose of disability insurance, because there’s no intrinsic connection between macroeconomic conditions and the likelihood of becoming disabled. Instead, SSDI has functioned as de facto long-term unemployment insurance, fraught with inefficiencies and perverse incentives. In particular, SSDI’s rules require that applicants be unable to engage in any significant paid work, giving them every incentive to cease working completely to qualify and to avoid rehabilitation — that is, to exit the labor force for good. The rules need to change so applicants face something other than a binary choice between work and benefits, perhaps by allowing benefits to phase out gradually as earnings from employment rise. ...

     Sure, convert the earnings test from a cliff to a slope but the subtext of this editorial is that there really is no such thing as disability or, perhaps I should say, "disability." I mean, what more proof do you need than Stephen Hawking that anybody who wants to work can work? Those people on Social Security "disability" aren't really disabled. They're just lazy and a lot of them are drug addicts. Not only is Social Security disability not needed but it is an evil program that destroys lives by paying benefits for sloth. Needless to say, that's not my view but it is the view of those who believe that Social Security disability is the "soft underbelly" of Social Security. Take out Social Security disability and you're one step closer to the holy grail of the right wing, abolishing Social Security itself.

Seven Months For Conn Associate; 15 Years For Conn

     From WLEX:

An accomplice of Eric C. Conn was sentenced Friday to prison time for helping the disgraced former attorney flee prosecution in a Social Security fraud scheme.

Curtis Wyatt pleaded guilty to conspiracy to escape in March. He is a former employee of the attorney. The FBI says Wyatt, under Conn’s direction, assessed security at US-Mexico border checkpoints, bought Conn’s getaway car with cash and registered it under a dummy corporation and also had an aluminum lined bag sent to his house in Pike County that scrambles GPS signals.

Conn was eventually recaptured in Honduras at a Pizza Hut restaurant.

Wyatt was sentenced to 7 months, with credit for 3 months of time served. He also was fined $500. 

The judge took Wyatt's background into consideration. His background is spotless.
As for Conn, a federal judge approved a plea deal where Conn could face an addition 15 years in prison for his escape to Honduras.

NADE Newsletter

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of the people who make initial and reconsideration determinations on disability claims for the Social Security Administration, has issued its Summer 2018 newsletter.