Resumption Of No Match Letters

     From the New York Times:

The Trump administration is notifying tens of thousands of employers that the names of some of their employees do not match their Social Security numbers, a move that is forcing businesses across the country to brace for the loss of thousands of workers who lack legal status.

The Social Security Administration has mailed “no-match letters” to more than 570,000 employers since March, sending shock waves through the hospitality, construction and agriculture industries, which rely heavily on undocumented workers. The letters have left many employers conflicted, uncertain whether to take action that could result in losing workers or to risk fines down the road. ...

“There is a high level of anxiety over these no-match letters,’’ said Angelo Amador, regulatory counsel at the National Restaurant Association, which represents about one million food-service establishments. He said the association has been barraged with emails and phone calls from concerned companies. ...

The government officially suspended the use of no-match letters in 2012, although the practice had actually been discontinued years earlier, after the government faced litigation. The resumption appears to be a response to the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order signed by President Trump to protect American workers and reduce illegal immigration. ...

Mark Hinkle, the Social Security Administration’s acting press secretary, did not respond to a question about whether the administration was sharing its data with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. ...

That New Obesity Ruling

     It's hard to evaluate the new Social Security Ruling on the evaluation of obesity on its face. It's only precise when it sets forth what Social Security won't do -- find any particular level of obesity to even be a severe impairment much less an impairment that significantly affects function or exacerbates the effects of other impairments such as osteoarthritis. This is the sort of thing that's standard in these Rulings. The agency wants to say something on a subject but also wants to be very sure that no one can say that the agency has established a standard that it can be accused of not having followed.

     To find the real intent of this Ruling, you have to contrast it to its predecessor, Social Security Ruling 02-01p. When you do, you notice a couple of things that were in 02-01p that didn't make it into 19-2p. The old Ruling specifically said that failure to follow prescribed treatment would rarely, if ever, be grounds for denying a claim based upon disability. That language didn't make it into the new Ruling. Also, the old Ruling said that "... if the obesity is of such a level that it results in an inability to ambulate effectively, as defined in sections 1.00B2b or 101.00B2b of the Listings, it may substitute for the major dysfunction of a joint(s) ... and we will then make a finding of medical equivalence." Again, that language didn't make it into the new Ruling. 
     The problem with the old Ruling is that it established standards that the agency could be accused of not having followed. They couldn't have that so the Ruling was changed.

New Ruling On Obesity

     A new Social Security Ruling, SSR 19-2p, is out on "Evaluating Cases Involving Obesity." My initial reading is that the Ruling will have limited practical effect. What do you think?

Annual Statistical Supplement Out

     The Social Security Administration has issued its annual grand compendium of statistical information, the Annual Statistical Supplement For 2018. 

     By the way, did you know that 60,293 people are receiving benefits under the U.S.-Japan Social Security totalization agreement? That's more than even the U.S.-Canada agreement, the most of any country.

The South Likes Ava But The West Likes Emma; Liam Is Big In A Lot Of States

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You Might Want To Do Something About This

     From Work-Related Overpayments to Social Security Disability Insurance Beneficiaries: Prevalence and Descriptive Statistics by Denise Hoffman, Benjamin Fischer, John T. Jones, Andrew McGuirk, and Miriam Loewenberg, published in the Social Security Bulletin (emphasis added):

For decades, Social Security Administration (SSA) efforts to increase employment among Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries have been a focus of considerable interest among both policymakers and researchers. However, beneficiary work activity sometimes results in benefit overpayments, and research on the extent of those overpayments—and the characteristics of affected beneficiaries—has been relatively limited. ...

DI overpayments account for a substantial sum of money and create administrative and fiscal management challenges for SSA. Work-related overpayment amounts ranged from $831 million in fiscal year 2010 to $980 million in fiscal year 2012. ...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that overpayments and their aftermaths can be traumatic experiences for beneficiaries and may function as disincentives to work. ...

[W]e find that overpayments are probable among at-risk beneficiaries (of whom 71 percent were overpaid). The median duration of work-related overpayments was 9 months and the median amount they accrued was $9,282. Overpayments were most prevalent among traditionally disadvantaged or vulnerable populations, including beneficiaries who are black or Hispanic, those with low monthly DI benefit amounts, those for whom medical improvement is not expected, and those with less than a high school education, holding other characteristics equal. ...

     I don't know all of what should be done about this but, I guess, the first step would be to acknowledge that, in the main, this is a systemic problem rather than the fault of claimants trying to cheat. I think the second step would be to acknowledge that collection of these overpayments should not be the priority. The system is too complicated. We can't keep blaming the claimants for these overpayments. Most of these overpayments should be quickly waived if we want to avoid discouraging attempts to return to work. 

     Social Security's Inspector General, in particular, needs to give some serious thought to the pressure it puts on the agency to aggressively find and collect any and all overpayments.

FCEs Are Still Invalid

     There's long been a desire to determine disability with "scientific" tests of functional ability. There are people who designed and administer such tests, usually referred to as Functional Capacity Evaluations or FCEs. In the real world, such testing is usually paid for by insurance companies who are trying to limit how much they pay for workers compensation benefits.  There have been those who want Social Security to use FCEs. You can guess what goal they're trying to achieve.
     The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently did a study of these function assessments for Social Security. The report is basically an elaboration of what was already known by anyone who has taken a look at these tests -- they're unreliable. The biggest problem is what I'll call the marathon problem. These tests take at most a few hours. Thus, at most, they show what an individual can do over a relatively short period of time. However, work is something you do five days a week every week. Relying upon a short test is like saying that someone who can run 100 meters at a certain pace can run a marathon at the same pace. You can no more determine how fast a person can run a marathon from how fast they run 100 meters than you can determine how a person can work day in and day out from testing them for a few hours.

     This study was a waste of money. It only tells us what anyone who had looked at this kind of testing already knew. FCEs have, at best, highly limited validity and cannot be used as a shortcut for disability determination.

How Do Other Countries Handle Vocational Factors In Disability Determination?

     The most recent edition of the Social Security Bulletin, the Social Security Administration's scholarly journal, contains an article titled Vocational Factors in Disability Claim Assessment: A Comparative Survey of 11 Countries by David Raines and Tony Notaro. Basically, they find what you might expect -- significant differences among the countries. Here's a table from the piece.

Click on image to view full size. OECD is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

     Here's the authors' summary of how the U.S. compares to other countries:

...[W]e note the following significant differences between U.S. disability programs and those of most of the other sampled countries:

• U.S. programs do not extend eligibility to claimants with partial and/or temporary disabilities;
• Workers in many other countries receive sickness benefits for 1 year or longer before becoming eligible to claim long-term disability benefits;
• Although SSA assesses residual work capacity in the later stages of the five-step U.S. process, many of the other countries conduct their assessment in the initial determination phase; and
• Several other countries involve the claimant's employer in the assessment process.

We also note the following significant attributes that the U.S. disability programs share with those of other countries:

• The assessment is carried out in sequential steps (although agencies in other countries do not always spell out those steps quite as definitively as does SSA); and
• Medical experts are consulted to confirm diagnoses and evaluate disablement....

 To briefly summarize our findings on each VF [Vocational Factor], we observe that:

Age is not used in the disability determination processes of most of the countries we survey. The use of age as an explicit factor in determining whether certain claimants are disabled (as in step 5 of the U.S. sequential evaluation process) is rare. However, age is considered in determining eligibility for certain sickness and partial- or long-term disability programs. In general, advancing age is thought to increase the likelihood of disablement, and therefore increase the claimant's chance to receive a benefit. Sweden uses age in determining program eligibility and Australia uses age in deciding the frequency of reassessment for disability benefit eligibility.

Education is generally not directly considered during disability determination. The United States is the most notable exception, directly considering education in step 5 of its sequential evaluation process. Likewise, Denmark and the Netherlands consider education in determining the claimant's ability to perform other work in the general economy. In the same way, formal schooling or training may suggest a claimant's ability to undertake available vocational or rehabilitative options or employment opportunities.

Work experience is considered in the disability determination processes in each of the surveyed countries. Work experience is a central factor in assessing a claimant's transferable skills, which in turn constitute a central component of the RFC assessment that drives many disability assessment procedures.