Major Downturn In SSI Awards

      From David Weaver, writing for The Hill:

... In May, June, and July of this year, SSA awarded 5,038, 4,572, and 5,122 elderly individuals SSI benefits, respectively. The June award figure is the smallest number of monthly awards for the elderly in the last 20 years. The May and July figures are the second and third smallest in the last 20 years. Further, the total number of awards in these three months is 42 percent lower than the number of awards to the elderly for the comparable 3-month period in 2019.

Problems have now materialized for the disabled groups as well. In July of this year, SSA awarded SSI benefits to 25,200 disabled adults ages 18 to 64. That is the lowest monthly award figure in the last 20 years for this group. It is also 40 percent lower than the figure for this group for July of 2019. ...

     Weaver is blaming the downturn on lack of outreach. Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that having the field offices closed to walk-in traffic is a bigger factor. You certainly can't blame this downturn on disability determination since this includes a major downturn in people qualifying on account of age alone. Those claims don't go through disability determination.

New List For Service Of Process

      The Social Security Administration has announced a new list of addresses for service of process. 

     For non-attorney readers, I'll explain. Social Security gets sued a lot -- something like eight or ten thousand times a year, if I remember correctly. Mostly, these are denied claimants appealing. When you sue someone, you have to tell them they've been sued. That's called service of process. Generally, this isn't that difficult. You deliver it to the person's residence or to the headquarters of a business or other entity. However, Social Security gets sued enough that their attorneys who respond to these lawsuits are broken down into Offices of Regional Counsel as well as the Office of General Counsel in Baltimore. They want service of process to the office that will be responding to the lawsuit. The assignments to these components change from time to time so they have to put out new lists to tell you where to serve process on them.

Regs On Overpayment Waivers During Pandemic Coming Tomorrow

      The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has already approved Interim Final Regulations on "Waiver of recovery of certain overpayments accruing during the COVID-19 pandemic period." They are being published in the Federal Register tomorrow. Read them today.

     The weird thing about these regulations is that they apply to overpayments that occur between March 1 and September 30, 2020 and which are identified by December 31, 2020. Does Social Security seriously think it will be able to fully process its workloads by the end of September? Why would the agency automatically waive an overpayment based upon when the overpayment is identified rather than when it occurred. From the point of view of the claimant, that makes no sense. I don't see how it makes any sense even from Social Security's point of view.

     The regulations fail to identify which overpayments they apply to. They merely refer to overpayments occurring "because of the actions that we took in response to the COVID-19 national public health emergency, including the suspension of certain of our manual workloads that would have processed actions identifying and stopping certain overpayments." Could you be a little more specific? As an attorney representing claimants I don't like a standard that sounds like "We'll waive 'em if we want to and if we don't, you can't complain about it because we never promised you anything."

     Even under the circumstances I think the agency should have thought these regulations through a bit better. I'd call this sloppy. At least the public can comment on them. My guess is that there will be comments and that the agency will have to modify them before we're done with this issue.

Don't Let Anybody Tell You Social Security Is Getting All Its Work Done During Covid-19

      I was having a discussion -- via e-mail -- with several legal assistants at my law firm recently about their experiences over the last few months trying to communicate with PC3, that is, Social Security's Third Payment Center, the one in Birmingham, AL, which handles much of the business of computing and authorizing benefits in the Southeastern United States. Here's what they had to say:

• Horrible, 19 out of 20 times no one answers.  Actually, even that stat is high.
• They never answer for me.  I have been asking for help from DO [District Office] to send Mgr [manager] to mgr messages.
• I haven’t been able to get through to anyone there since March. I have the DO send mgr to mgr messages to them and still don’t get any results.
• It is terrible.  I have called repeatedly and I can never reach anyone.  It does not allow you to leave a voice mail.  The only time I have seen action is if the DO requests that they do something or if I send a fax.  Sometimes I have aggravated people at other PCs that have contacted PC3.  
•  PC 3 is horrible

I'll Have To Put On A Suit!

      I understand from the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) that Social Security is hoping to offer video hearings to claimants from their homes or their attorneys' offices starting as early as November.

TV Show Tonight On Eric Conn Case

      A press release:

Eric Conn, the convicted mastermind of the largest U.S. Social Security fraud in history vanishes and is apprehended, but leaves thousands of his former clients struggling to survive…until a whistleblower uncovers startling new evidence that could help them regain their disability benefits. Catch new facts, new updates, and new reporting on "American Greed: Biggest Cons" Monday at 10P ET on CNBC.

     From what I’ve heard they may be overselling the “startling new evidence.” I think this is an update of something that CNBC did in 2018.

     This may not be the only show coming on the Conn fiasco.

Proposed Amendments To Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure To Specifically Address Social Security Cases

      The Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States has produced a lengthy set of amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate, Bankruptcy, Civil and Criminal Procedure. These include amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to specifically address Social Security cases. The proposed changes concerning Social Security begin at page 231 of this 280 page document. 

     At first reading, these do not seem concerning to me but as lawyers know, any procedural rules have the potential to be outcome determinative.

     The public has until February 16, 2021 to file written comments on the proposed changes. There will be public hearings on the proposed amendments to the civil rules on November 10 and January 22. After this process, the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Judicial Conference and the Supreme Court must all agree before these proposals come into effect.

"Reposturing" Plan

      I don't think it's realistic to expect that the Social Security Administration would have a reopening plan at this time. There are too many unknowns. Will there be a vaccine? If so, when will it become available? If it becomes available, how quickly will it become available to the entire population? How effective will a vaccine be? How many people are willing to be vaccinated? However, Social Security management is thinking about the subject of reopening. They've come up with a "Reposturing Plan." I don't think this plan gets them very far but I expect they know this. You have to start somewhere. At least it's a sign that there's nothing devious in the works at this time.