Former Social Security OGC Attorney's Nomination To MSPB In Trouble

     From Government Executive:

The [Merit Systems Protection Board, MSPB] that determines federal employees’ challenges to adverse actions will likely to continue to be rendered impotent into next year, as the Senate appears unlikely to approve a slate of nominees to the panel before the legislative session ends.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee scheduled a vote on Wednesday for three individuals President Trump nominated to sit on the Merit Systems Protection Board, but ultimately the committee failed to advance the nominations. The senators present were deadlocked on the nomination of Andrew Maunz, the most controversial of the nominees, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting no by proxy. ...

Trump nominated Maunz to MSPB after he served as an attorney in the Social Security Administration’s general counsel office. His nomination troubled Democrats and some board observers, in part because his office was once found by a federal court to be “dysfunctional and under the management of supervisors whose management skills and performance were deficient in many respects, including unfavorable treatment of older women working in the office, compared with younger women and male attorneys." Maunz, representing SSA’s general counsel office in the case, launched a “vigorous attack” on an employee seeking redress for violations of the Civil Rights Act, according to the judge. The court ultimately ruled in the employee’s favor. ...

     There's no way to discipline Administrative Law Judges without a functioning MSPB.

Update: Since I first posted this, Government Executive has somewhat altered the article I quoted. See the link for the revised article.

Preview Of Oral Argument In Biestek v. Berryhill

     SCOTUSblog has an excellent preview of the December 4 oral argument before the Supreme Court in Biestek v. Berryhill, a case presenting the issue: 

Whether a vocational expert’s testimony can constitute substantial evidence of “other work,” 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(a)(4)(v), available to an applicant for social security benefits on the basis of a disability, when the expert fails upon the applicant’s request to provide the underlying data on which that testimony is premised.

     How will things be different if Biestek prevails? I don't know if the Social Security Administration or its vocational experts (VEs) are ready for the day after such a Supreme Court opinion. If VEs aren't able to provide the underlying data, and they won't, can a federal court affirm a Social Security decision denying the claimant on the basis of that VE testimony? How does Social Security respond to such a situation? Social Security has been delaying and delaying its new vocational information system. How does that fit into this?

The Grand Compromise Fantasy Never Goes Away

     Some excerpts from a piece by Paula Span in the Health Section of the New York Times:

We’ve long heard warnings that the Social Security program that 52 million Americans rely on for their retirement benefits could one day run out of money.

Analysts say that’s not going to happen — if only because older people are such a powerful voting force — but this year the system has hit a worrisome milestone: the Social Security Administration reported that the retirement benefits paid out each month exceeded the tax revenues and interest that fund the program. ...

Making adjustments to keep Social Security solvent, crucial as that is, represents only one of the issues confronting Congress. It could also correct outdated aspects of a program that serves nearly 90 percent of Americans over 65. ...

The fixes will likely include changes designed to bring more money in and pay less out. Imposing a higher payroll tax or raising the level of earnings subject to Social Security taxes (as of January 1, they will apply to the first $132,900, already an increase) would bolster revenues.

Money-saving measures could include reducing benefits for high earners and trimming the number of years that workers collect benefits by raising eligibility ages. ...

Working longer and claiming benefits later — trends already well underway — pay off in ways that extend beyond Social Security itself. “It’s good for people, it’s good for government tax revenues and it could fuel economic growth,” Dr. Johnson [of the Urban Institute] said.

But as his report points out, living longer doesn’t always mean people can work longer. Higher-income professionals may opt to stay on the job, he said, but “health problems are increasingly concentrated among less educated workers and they’re falling further and further behind” economically. Moreover, even those who could work often discover that “employers don’t seem eager to hire 62 year olds.”

By their early sixties, his analysis of national survey data found, a quarter of high school graduates and 37 percent of those without a high school diploma report work limitations related to their health. Many say their jobs require substantial physical effort. ...

While some think tanks and congressional staffs are exploring ways to strengthen Social Security financially, others are looking into outmoded provisions that penalize beneficiaries, primarily women.

Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has introduced legislation intended to help widows, widowers and divorced spouses qualify for higher payments and receive benefits earlier if they’re disabled. ...

Speaking of women and Social Security, another effort would award work credit for those who temporarily leave the labor force because of caregiving responsibilities. ...

     Let me make it clear. I oppose raising full retirement age or any other cut in Social Security. Raising full retirement age would have a devastating effect on working men and women who often can't make it to the current full retirement age which never should have been raised from 65. I have zero trust in any scheme dreamed up to alleviate this problem. Not only can this country easily afford the Social Security benefits currently available but this country can easily afford enhancements to those benefits. The cap on the payroll tax can be raised. Other tax revenues, such as an enhanced estate tax, can be devoted to Social Security. Solving the financing problem is easy if you really want to. If Democrats control Congress and the White House after the 2020 election it's a fantasy to think that they're going to push for some great compromise that cuts Social Security benefits. The Obama Administration's efforts to compromise with Republicans on health care are a vivid memory. GOP Senators stalled and drug out negotiations in bad faith. They never had any intention of voting for health care reform. No Democratic president will make that mistake again any time soon. Social Security reform will have to be accomplished solely with Democratic votes and on Democratic terms.

Nobody Is Even Talking About "World Class Service" Any More

     From the New York Times:

... Social Security has closed 67 field offices since fiscal 2010 in rural and urban areas alike. For the public, the cuts have meant less access to field offices, and ballooning wait times in the remaining 1,229 offices and on the agency’s toll-free line. It also has meant long delays in hearings on disability insurance appeals and in resolving benefit errors. ...

From 2010 to 2018, Congress reduced the agency’s operating budget 9 percent in inflation-adjusted terms; at the same time, the number of beneficiaries rose 17 percent, according to agency data. ...

In March, Congress made a down payment on reversing years of cuts. Lawmakers ignored the Trump administration’s request for a small increase in fiscal 2018, instead raising the agency’s administrative budget by $480 million, or 4.6 percent. And in September, Congress overrode the administration again, approving a $40 million increase in Social Security’s operating budget for 2019 [which isn't enough to cover the agency's increased expenses due to inflation], rather than the cut of over $400 million proposed by the White House. For fiscal 2019, the agency’s operating budget is $11.1 billion. ...

The average wait time to see a claims agent in field offices was 26.5 minutes in fiscal 2018 — 37 percent higher than in 2010, according to the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, an organization composed of field office and telecommunications service center managers.

And the wait times can be much longer.

“People line up early at Social Security offices around the country,” said Christopher Detzler, who manages a field office in Vancouver, Wash., and is the council’s immediate past president. “Sometimes the lines wrap around the building, even for offices with more reasonable wait times.”

Contacting Social Security through its toll-free number can be difficult, and 15 percent of callers heard a busy signal when calling during fiscal 2018, according to the council.  ...

“Hot Women And A Respectable Life”

     I had missed this one. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Hot women and a respectable life. 

That was the prospect disgraced disability attorney Eric C. Conn dangled in front of a former employee as he urged the man to join Conn’s flight to Central America to avoid prison. 

The former employee, Curtis Lee Wyatt, was facing charges for helping Conn escape when Conn sent him an email last October, according to documents filed this week in federal court. 

Conn said he was saddened by the charges against Wyatt and tried to persuade him to sneak away and meet Conn. 

“Here you will have a respectable life and live well,” Conn told Wyatt. “Further, the women here are hot, hot.”

More Same Sex Marriage Litigation

     From YubaNet.com:

Lambda Legal today filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on behalf of a 65-year-old gay man seeking spousal survivor’s benefits based on his 43-year relationship with his husband, who died seven months after Arizona began allowing same-sex couples to marry. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Michael Ely in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona argues that SSA’s imposition of a nine-month marriage requirement for social security survivor’s benefits is unconstitutional where same-sex couples were not able to be married for nine months because of discriminatory marriage laws.

They Don't Give Up; Neither Can We

     It won't surprise anyone familiar with the publication but the National Review has posted a piece calling for Social Security disability "reform." The "reform" they have in mind is ending Social Security disability and letting the states handle disability benefits, if they choose. You know the same people arguing for letting the states handle it would then argue that the states shouldn't handle it.

     Don't worry. This wouldn't have happened even with Republicans in control of Congress and it's definitely not happening with Democrats gaining control of the House of Representatives in a few weeks but the right wing doesn't give up. They keep coming back with the same bad, hugely unpopular ideas.

Expect To Hear More About This Once The New Congress Convenes

     From the New York Times:

.. The average wait time to see a claims agent in [Social Security] field offices was 26.5 minutes in fiscal 2018 — 37 percent higher than in 2010, according to the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, an organization composed of field office and telecommunications service center managers. 

And the wait times can be much longer. 

“People line up early at Social Security offices around the country,” said Christopher Detzler, who manages a field office in Vancouver, Wash., and is the council’s immediate past president. “Sometimes the lines wrap around the building, even for offices with more reasonable wait times.” 

Contacting Social Security through its toll-free number can be difficult, and 15 percent of callers heard a busy signal when calling during fiscal 2018, according to the council. (Appointments for phone conversations or in-person visits can be scheduled in advance by calling the toll-free number or a local field office.) 

Most of the workers who have departed were among Social Security’s longest-serving employees. All 3,400 field office staff reductions since 2010 have come through attrition, Mr. Hinkle [a Social Security spokesperson] said. 

“It’s not just lost head count, but lost institutional knowledge,” says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group, and a member of the Social Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan, independent federal agency that advises the government on Social Security policy and its administration. ... 

Social Security serves one million more beneficiaries each year. If its budget had kept pace with the Consumer Price Index since fiscal 2010, it would be $1.3 billion higher in fiscal 2019 than the $11.1 billion that has just been allocated, Ms. Romig [of the Center on Budget and Policy Prioritied] said. And that is a conservative figure, because costs for big items, like office rent and health care, tend to rise more quickly than the C.P.I. [Consumer Price Index]...