OIG Study Of CDR Recons

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) did a recent study of delays in processing requests for reconsideration for disability claimants who are being threatened with benefit termination due to medical improvement. Generally, the claimants receive continuing benefits as their appeals continue through the hearing level so delays cost the agency money. 

     The thing about this is that almost all the causes of delay discussed in this report also apply to those applying for benefits and have the same underlying cause, lack of sufficient personnel to get the work done in a timely manner. The OIG report discusses these delays as if they have been caused by bungling, when for the most part, the fault lies Congress and the White House, which have failed to give the Social Security Administration adequate administrative funding.

     I hope that OIG isn't implying that Social Security should prioritize cutting people off benefits over processing new claims for disability benefits but that does seem to be the attitude of Congressional Republicans.

I Keep Making The Same Boring Point: An Inadequate Operating Budget Wastes Money

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

... SSA [Social Security Administration] conducts redeterminations, which are reviews of SSI [Supplemental Security Income] recipients’ non-medical factors of eligibility, such as income, resources, and living arrangements. The redetermination process is a way of detecting any unreported changes in circumstance that would affect a recipient’s SSI eligibility. Redeterminations are scheduled annually if a change in circumstance is likely or once every 6 years if a change in circumstance is unlikely. We identified 53,744 SSI recipients (from 1 of 20 segments) who had not had a redetermination completed in longer than 10 years. We analyzed a random sample of 275 cases. ...

We estimated about 1.1 million SSI recipients — about 1 in 8 recipients — had not had a redetermination completed in longer than 10 years because SSA only did a limited number of redeterminations each year based on its budget. As a result, we estimate d about 77,060 SSI recipients might be overpaid approximately $381.5 million because SSA had not completed a redetermination in longer than 10 years. ...

     I keep making the same point again and again: Failing to adequately fund SSA costs money. An adequate administrative budget would at least pay for itself by reducing overpayments. Instead, Republicans pursue a wasteful "starve the beast" strategy. It’s ideology over common sense.

OHO Caseload Analysis Report

     From the newsletter of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), which is not available online to non-members:

Click on image to view full size

     Note the continuing decline in receipts and backlogs. I can't see the national picture but I know locally that one reason for this is that cases are piling up at  the initial and reconsideration levels. You can't ask for a hearing until you've been denied at initial and reconsideration. Increased backlogs at that level, at least where I am, has led to decreased backlogs at the hearing level. 

     Note also the large amount of overtime used as well as how highly variable overtime usage is from month to month. I'd say that such heavy usage of overtime in a program that deals with only very minor seasonal fluctuations in workload is bad management. I think that if they were honest that Social Security managers would agree but would blame it on the uncertain budget situation they face. 

     By the way, I think it's time to change the caption on this report from "ODAR Workload and Performance Summary" to "OHO Workload and Performance Summary". It's been quite some time now since they changed the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) to the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).

Kavanaugh Would Hold That Social Security Commissioner Is Unconstitutional

     Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has no history of rulings directly in Social Security cases as best I can tell. There just aren't that many Social Security cases arising in the D.C. Circuit where he has been a judge. However, he has opined on an issue that could directly affect the Social Security Administration. He believes that it is unconstitutional to have an independent agency with a solitary head, such as the Social Security Administration. He's a fan of the "unitary executive" theory who believes that we're all safer if the President has largely unlimited power over the Executive Branch. Since the President can't simply fire a confirmed Commissioner of Social Security, the agency, as presently constituted, would be unconstitutional in Kavanaugh's view. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, expect litigation over the constitutionality of the Social Security Commissioner, assuming a Commissioner is also confirmed.

Happy Labor Day — 2018 Style

     From the New York Times:

The Trump administration seemed to suffer a major setback recently when a judge rebuffed its efforts to impose tighter labor rules in federal agencies. 

But the judge largely found fault with the means by which it had acted, not with the ends it was pursuing: to make it easier to fire federal employees and limit the power of their unions. 

As a result, the administration may yet achieve the same goals. And according to workers and union officials, the effort has already created a climate of anxiety across much of the government. ... 

Few agencies epitomize this approach better than the Social Security Administration. Union officials say that while management has generally taken a more confrontational posture since the George W. Bush administration, the atmosphere has been poisonous at times under President Trump. ...  

[U]nion leaders worry that the Social Security Administration will seek to enact the same provisions through a short-circuited bargaining process. Under that approach, the agency could declare an impasse, opening the door for an outside panel — a body composed of presidential appointees — simply to impose most of what management had sought. ...

Happy Labor Day!

A Milestone

     Social Security benefit payments are supposed to exceed $1 trillion for the first time next year. By way of comparison, the Trump tax cut is about $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

A Sad Story Of Insanity, Guns And Bad Policing

     The Miami Herald reports on the sad story of how Social Security Administrative Law Judge Timothy Maher ended up killing himself after an armed standoff with police. There's no question about it. This sad story shouldn't have ended like this. Maher should have been involuntarily committed. There was ample evidence to justify an involuntary commitment well before the armed standoff began.