Quite A Backlog There

     Here is a note in my firm's database from a legal assistant who had called one of Social Security's payment centers on February 19 about a fee petition, that is a request that the agency approve an attorney fee, that had been submitted in a case won at the reconsideration level:

Spoke w/ Kathy. Once I gave her the ssn, she said they have it but the BA [Benefit Authorizer] has not had a chance to get to it. There's 70 cases that are ahead of this one. Told her this one is from April 2018 and she said they have cases they haven't worked from 2017.

     I can't take that fee until the agency approves it. I don't usually use the fee petition process but sometimes I have to. Many, perhaps most, attorneys take on no fee petition cases because of hassles like this. That leaves some claimants unrepresented. I don't understand anyone who says that the fee petition process is a reasonable alternative to the fee agreement cap. The only realistic alternative to the fee agreement cap is to leave the practice.

More Than Six Years Without A Confirmed Commissioner

     Michael Astrue, the last confirmed Commissioner of Social Security, left office on January 19, 2013. The Social Security Administration has been led by Acting Commissioners for more than six years now. I'm not sure that I want Andrew Saul, who has been nominated by President Trump, to be confirmed as Commissioner but I do wish that the agency had a confirmed Commissioner.

     As a general matter, this long interregnum without a confirmed Commissioner is proof that the whole idea of Social Security as an independent agency has failed. The agency has not been removed from the political sphere. Either make Social Security a cabinet level department or fold it back into HHS.

Problems For Another Widow

     I had posted recently about the problems a widow faced after she reported her husband’s death to Social Security and a Social Security employee recorded it as if the husband had died a year earlier than he did. Now comes a second report of another widow who dutifully reported her husband’s death and another Social Security employee recorded it as if both husband and wife had died instead of the husband!

     These reports could be signs of a systems problem.

Nice Try

     From the Bangor Daily News:

A former Maine man was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland to 18 months in federal prison for lying in August 2017 to obtain a new Social Security number.

Lachlan Olen Granite, formerly known as Scott Edward Bounds, 54, of Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, believed that getting a new Social Security number would allow him to avoid paying alimony and child support, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. ...

The investigation into Granite’s past began after he sought a Social Security number claiming he had never had one before or received government benefits, according to the prosecution version of events to which he pleaded guilty. Granite told the Social Security worker in the Saco office that he had recently moved to Maine after being excommunicated from an Amish community in Illinois. ...

I Won't Even Try To Guess What The Problem Was Here

     From WIVB:

Due to a lower back injury, Melvin Sanders' says he has been unable to work since 2013.
He initially filed for Social Security Disability. However, because it could take a long time to get those benefits, he was approved for Social Security supplemental income. ...

Social Security officials put Melvin's case to an administrative law judge in Manhattan, via satellite, in December 2017. The judge ruled in Melvin's favor a few days later.

As of last week, Melvin had not received a dime of his benefits, "the wait has been very long, the pain has been terribly excruciating, seeing that my life has been in limbo for quite some time" ...

Sanders received a check for $4,300 last Friday. 

The check Melvin got in the mail last week works out to a small downpayment on what he is actually owed. When his claim was approved by the judge in Manhattan, it was retroactive to when Melvin was ruled to be disabled in 2013. ...

Central Offices Closed By Snow

     The Social Security Administration has announced that its offices in the Baltimore and Washington area will be closed on a Wednesday because of snow.

Important Change For Disabled People With Federal Student Loans

     I missed that the big tax bill passed at the end of 2017 contained a change that benefits some disabled individuals. You were already able to get a federal student loan discharged if you are disabled and Social Security had set a five to seven year re-examination date for you. However, the discharge of the debt was considered income to the disabled person which often meant that the discharge could cause an expensive tax liability, which defeats the purpose of giving the discharge in the first place. That was changed at the end of 2017 by 26 U.S.C. §108(f)(5)(A), which provides that the discharge of a student loan debt for this reason is not income. However, this sunsets after 2026 but I doubt it will be allowed to end then.

     Unfortunately, the five to seven year re-examination date requirement limits the value of this. I don't know what the numbers are but I'm pretty sure that few who are found disabled by Social Security get a five to seven year re-examination date even though very few have a realistic hope of getting better. I don't know that there are any re-exam dates that long for any sort of mental illness other than profound brain injury.

Full Retirement Age To 80?

     A Forbes contributor thinks that Social Security’s full retirement age should be raised to 80!