Why A Supreme Court Decision Extending SSI To U.S. Territories Matters, Regardless Of Where You Live In The U.S.

     I'll post soon about the status of the litigation on the constitutionality of the prohibition on SSI payments for residents of most U.S. territories, particularly Puerto Rico and Guam, and what may be done about the practical problems this may cause. For now, just take it from me that there's a real chance that by this time next year the Supreme Court will have held that the prohibition on payment of SSI benefits for American citizens residing in U.S. territories is unconstitutional.

     Suddenly extending SSI to all U.S. territories is a big deal even if you live in Boise or Biloxi or Boston. There are estimates that as many as 700,000 Puerto Ricans could qualify for SSI and 24,000 Guamanians could qualify. There would also be some in the smaller Virgin Islands. If this happens as a result of a Supreme Court decision, all of them will become potentially eligible all at once. They won't all file claims the next day but an avalanche of claims won't be long in coming. There are a lot of poor people in these territories.

     Social Security's resources on the ground in these territories isn't ready. The field office employees in the territories probably haven't been trained in taking SSI claims and doing SSI income and resource determinations. They're certainly not experienced. How long do you think it will take to get them up to speed with windfall offsets? The local field offices, Disability Determination Services (DDS) and hearing offices may need to more than double in size just to handle their normal workload after the huge backlog of cases is processed.

     The only way to handle this avalanche of cases will be for mainland employees to help out but how much slack have you noticed at Social Security?

     One particular problem with this possible influx of cases is language. Social Security has plenty of employees who speak Spanish for its normal workload but would there be enough to handle the avalanche of Puerto Rican cases? Guam presents the problem of people who only speak Chamorro or Tagalog.

     Speaking of Guam, they're on the other side of the International Date Line. Their time zone is 10 hours later than Eastern Time, 7 hours later than Pacific Time. I suppose that Guamanians will be encouraged to call in the evening their local time but the time zone difference is significant.

     The strains for the Social Security Administration caused by a sudden extension of SSI to U.S. territories won't just be experienced locally. If this happens, it will cause staffing shortages all over the country and there will be increased backlogs at teleservice centers, field offices, DDS offices and hearing offices all over the country.

     If this happens as a result of a Supreme Court decision the agency will not have two or three years to prepare for the onslaught. Social Security can't just do nothing about these cases until it can get an increased appropriation, rent more office space and hire and train new employees. If these claimants have a constitutional right to benefits, they have a constitutional right to the same treatment as other U.S. citizens -- and, yes, those born in these territories are U.S. citizens.

     Coming tomorrow: What's the status of the litigation over SSI for U.S. territories?

They're Baaaaack!

     From WSB in Atlanta:

The Social Security Administration is demanding a Georgia woman should have to pay for a government mistake the agency made more than four decades ago. ...

Ginger Snowden was just 14 years old back in the 1970s when the SSA now says it mistakenly overpaid her father social security benefits.

Now, long after his death, the federal government wants her to pay back the money.

Federal officials are standing by the claim, telling [WSB] that they have a legal right to demand payment. ...

The alleged overpayments to Snowden's father -- nearly $3,000 -- were from 1973 when she was still a child.

"It was like, 'How can you collect money from me?'" Snowden said. "I just kept saying over and over again that I was 14 years old."

According to officials, Snowden lived in the same house with her father at the time, and therefore received some benefit from the money.

The Snowdens are not alone. ...

Back in 2014, Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter blasting the Social Security Administration for going after decades-old overpayments, writing, "The actions raise serious questions about whether it is collecting debt properly or fairly."

After the criticism, the Social Security Administration temporarily stopped those controversial collection efforts.

But now, the SSA tells [WSB]: "Our review found we correctly applied the law and our regulations, policies and procedures.

In 2018, they say the once again started attempting to collect the old debts. ...

Do Not Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate

How many are now familiar with that once familiar phrase, “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”?

Punch card operations at Social Security in 1930s

Political Appointments At Social Security

     One of the items that Social Security recently posted is a list of Non-Career Senior Executive Service employees as of last September. See below. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe these are the political appointments at Social Security that's don't require Senate confirmation.

     By the way, I had posted about Mr. Sliwka before. I didn't realize he was a political. At least nominally, he's the person in charge of Covid-19 preparedness. You never know about politicals, though, particularly in the Trump Administration.

Draft Bill Gives Little New Funding To SSA But Does Protect ALJs

     From a press release:

The House Appropriations Committee today released the draft fiscal year 2021 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) funding bill, which will be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation includes funding for programs within the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and other related agencies, including the Social Security Administration. ...

$13 billion for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) operating expenses, with an increase of $100 million above the FY 2020 enacted level to hire additional staff at field offices, teleservice and processing centers and improve public services. ...

• Continuing Disability Reviews—The bill includes a new provision prohibiting the Social Security Administration from finalizing or implementing a new rule that would significantly increase the number and frequency of CDRs, cutting benefits to Social Security and SSI disabled beneficiaries.   
   
• Administrative Law Judges—The bill includes a new provision prohibiting the Social Security Administration from finalizing or implementing a proposed rule that would replace an individual’s right to appeal their denied application for Social Security or SSI benefits before an independent Administrative Law Judges at a hearing, with an appeal before an SSA staff attorney.

     Note that $100 million is less than 1% of the budget. Even in a time of recession, this may not be enough to cover inflation. I don't this this would lead to any new hiring.

Kiosks Coming To Field Offices

     From a Request For Information recently posted by the Social Security Administration:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is improving its field office kiosk technology for visitors to check-in and perform simple self-help services.  We seek a solution easily usable by all members of the public that visit our field offices and accessible to people with a disability.  The kiosks will be:

• Standalone, enclosed units
• Ruggedized for use in semi-supervised locations 
• Zero client based systems
• USB attached peripheral devices installed inside the kiosk cabinet 
• Meet agency accessibility and usability requirements

The agency will design and host the software on its own infrastructure.  This includes software accessibility features that rely on hardware components.  For instance, the software is designed to start a screen reader when a user inserts a headphone jack into the kiosk and this will require headphone jack sockets that include a tip switch that detects the insertion and removal of a headphone jack.

The government provided software for the check-in kiosk is nearly complete. We have an immediate need to install several hundred to a couple thousand check-in kiosks within 12-18 months. 

Because the check-in kiosk solution needs to be deployed in the near future, we are interested in cabinet designs that are already “on the shelf” and will require little modification.  If costs and timelines are not impacted, we may consider a custom cabinet design.

Why Are Simple Things So Hard?

     What's it like dealing with Social Security these days? Here's a sample. Client gets approved. The field office needs a copy of his birth certificate. Client's father was in the military and assigned overseas when the client was born, overseas. His birth was registered with the U.S. embassy of the country where he was born. That's the way these things are done. The client reports back to me that the field office told him that the Department of State birth registration form isn't good enough. I wonder if someone at the field office doesn't know that this sort of document meets the agency's requirements or if there's some other problem. It takes two weeks and several phone calls before someone at the field office calls back to say the State Department form is fine. It's just that the client faxed it to them and they need to see the original. They never told the client this was the problem. They must have given the client their fax number. We didn't. The field office suggests that the client come around to the back door of the office and knock.  Someone should be there to inspect the original and give it back to the client. We were told they were doing this sort of thing regularly. We hadn't heard they were doing this. Certainly, the client hadn't been told they were doing that. Remember, the field office gave the client their fax number and only later decided that the faxed copy wasn't good enough but then failed to tell the client what he needed to do.

     Who knows whether other field offices are doing this back door business?

     Dealing with Social Security has always been harder than it should be. It's much harder now.

ALJ Training Notebook

     As part of its long list of proactive disclosures, Social Security has released its 2019_ALJ Training Materials It's more than 1,000 pages long. The vast majority of it, if not all of it, is material that was already available to the public. Someone with more time on their hands than me may be able to comb through it and find new material. It may be a useful desk book for attorneys representing claimants since it contains most of the policies that Administrative Law Judges are supposed to follow.