Delay In Saul Confirmation?

     There was a Senate Finance Committee hearing yesterday on the nomination of David Black to become Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. The opening statement of Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, contained this interesting language:

... This morning, while we consider this nomination for SSA deputy commissioner, I also want to remind the committee that Social Security has not had a confirmed commissioner in place since February 2013. Bottom line, that’s far too long for the top position to go unfilled. Just like any government agency or any private business, SSA runs best when it has strong leadership with a vision for how to improve. In my judgement, the Senate should not confirm a deputy commissioner before confirming the commissioner.

Andrew Saul’s nomination to serve as commissioner has been approved by this committee twice. I hope he’s able to get on the job soon. I also note that, in terms of going forward on the Senate floor, it would be appropriate to take up the nomination of the commissioner before taking up the nomination of the deputy commissioner. ...

     Obviously, Wyden wants Andrew Saul confirmed as Commissioner and he's worried that there will be a delay in that confirmation even though he's not expecting delay in Black's confirmation as Deputy Commissioner. I wonder what's going on. Democrats can't hold up nominations in the Senate very long these days. Republicans changed the rules.

Social Security Scams Escalating

     From the New York Times:

Move over, Internal Revenue Service. Criminals now prefer the Social Security Administration as their cover agency when they try to swindle Americans over the phone.

The I.R.S. has long been a popular choice for telephone scammers, who call pretending to be federal tax representatives to extract money, personal information or both from consumers. 

But federal authorities say they have seen fraudulent calls from Social Security Administration impostors “skyrocket” over the past year, overtaking the fake I.R.S. calls.

“In the shady world of government impostors,” the Federal Trade Commission said in a report in April, “the S.S.A. scam may be the new I.R.S. scam.” ... 

People filed over 76,000 reports about Social Security impostors in the 12 months ending in March, with reported losses of $19 million, according to the F.T.C., which investigates consumer fraud. About 36,000 of the complaints and $6.7 million of the losses were reported in February and March. 

By comparison, the agency said, consumers reported $17 million in losses to the I.R.S. scam at its peak, during the 12 months that ended in September 2016. The data comes from the F.T.C.’s Consumer Sentinel Network database, a pool of millions of consumer complaints. ...

OHO Caseload Analysis Report

       This was obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter, which is not available online:

Click on image to view full size

72,100 Hours?

     From The Tennessean:

The Social Security Administration is best known for running the nation's largest retirement program. But it's also responsible for deciding whether millions of Americans qualify for disability benefits.

If you want to understand how those decisions are made, it's going to cost you: $2.3 million.

That was the administration's response to a USA TODAY NETWORK request for public information. Reporters are trying to scrutinize the performance of doctors hired in each state to review federal disability applications, including their workload and how fast they reviewed application files.

The agency's extraordinary price tag indicates that Social Security has no central database, but rather allows each state to manage doctors differently — a policy that, in at least one state, led to an unusually high denial rate and hefty doctor paychecks.  ...

In October, the USA TODAY NETWORK submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking doctor performance data for each state. 

The agency responded in April, indicating they would need 72,100 hours to get such information. That’s the equivalent of nearly 60 employees working full-time on the request for a full year – without taking vacation or holidays off. ...

Democratic Leaders Express Opposition To Disability Proposal

     From a press release issued yesterday:

Top Democrat Committee leaders in the House and Senate today called on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to withdraw a proposed rule, “Removing Inability to Communicate in English as an Education Category.” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA), House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John B. Larson (D-CT), House Ways and Means Worker & Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Senate Finance Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sent the letter to Acting SSA Commissioner Nancy Berryhill.

“In [the proposed rule], SSA makes a harmful and unjustified attempt to deny Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability benefits to older workers with long-term or fatal medical impairments who are severely limited in their functional capacity and who cannot communicate in English. We request that SSA withdraw this proposed rule,” the members wrote.

House Members Object To Anti-Union Actions

     From Government Executive:

A bipartisan group of more than 150 House lawmakers last week urged the Social Security Administration to rescind a number of “anti-labor” proposals from its contract negotiations with a federal employee union, citing their similarity to provisions of three controversial executive orders that a federal judge ruled unlawful last year.

In a May 1 letter to acting Social Security Commissioner Nancy Berryhill, 157 lawmakers, led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said they were “dismayed” by the agency’s adherence to a number of collective bargaining proposals that have led to a “breakdown” in negotiations with the American Federation of Government Employees.

The lawmakers cited proposals to evict AFGE from its offices within Social Security Administration buildings, the confiscation of all computers and printers used by employees during representational work, and requiring union employees to request permission in advance to use official time. The lawmakers described these provisions as “extreme and similar in anti-union tone to certain provisions” of a series of workforce executive orders that were struck down last August by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Trump administration has appealed that decision. ...

     I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but it bothers me that career employees are doing this. This may not be a good career move. I'm sure that AFGE is taking down names.

Some Worry About Making A Living; Others Worry About Bad Publicity

     From Law 360 (emphasis added):

... A U.S. Supreme Court ruling [in Culbertson v. Berryhill] earlier this year created a uniform method for allocating fees across judicial jurisdictions, ensuring attorneys will have access to higher fees regardless of where they practice. Practitioners are mixed on the impact of the ruling but hope it will attract more attorneys to the field of Social Security disability law so more people like Gammon can get help. 

They also hope it will secure them enough money to sustain their practices' financial health, which can be precarious due to the nature of accepting jobs without a guaranteed fee.

Gammon's attorney, Rick Culbertson of Orlando, Florida, is the one who brought the fee dispute to the Supreme Court , and he said that's what he hoped for.
"Those of us trying to make a living doing this, it'll make it more likely we'll be able to get by. We still won't get rich, but we'll be able to get by helping people who need us," he said. ...

"Lawyers who want to maximize their earning capacity don't do Social Security law. They would be crazy to do Social Security law," said Charles Martin of the Law Offices of Martin & Jones, an Atlanta disability attorney who has been practicing in the field for decades. ... 

"I'm worried it will be bad publicity for Social Security attorneys. It'll make it seem like [they] are greedy," said Barbara Silverstone, executive director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives. ...

 

Weak Funding For SSA Operations To Continue

     From a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summary of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, which includes Social Security, reported out of subcommittee in the House of Representatives:

Social Security Administration (SSA). The bill would raise SSA’s operating budget by about $300 million to $11.4 billion. This increase is welcome but would barely enable the agency to keep up with inflation and wouldn’t offset years of underfunding. SSA’s operating budget fell nearly 11 percent between 2010 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation, even as the number of beneficiaries grew by more than 16 percent. This disinvestment has forced the agency to close field offices, shorten office hours, and shrink its staff, undermining customer service as costs and workloads grow. Even with the proposed increase, funding would still be more than 10 percent below the 2010 level, adjusted for inflation.

     And this is the House version of this appropriations bill. The Senate bill is likely to be much worse.