No Labor-Management Progress At SSA

      From Federal Computer Week:

The Social Security Administration is under fire from unions and congressional Democrats unhappy with the agency's pace in implementing the Biden administration's changes to labor-management relations, and many are seeking the ouster of the Trump-appointed agency leaders.

The American Federation of Government Employees wants a return to the bargaining table to renegotiate a contract that is based in part on limitations on union activity included in Trump administration executive orders that have since been repealed.

In rolling back those orders, President Joe Biden ordered agencies to bargain over a broader set of "permissive" topics.

"SSA is looking for any reason not to reopen the current contract," said Ralph DeJuliis, president of AFGE Council 220, which represents 29,000 SSA employees in field offices and telephone service centers. "SSA is, in our opinion, not following the Biden executive orders." ...

SSA is implementing Biden's executive order "responsively and responsibly," a SSA spokesperson told FCW. "Building collaborative working relationships with our union partners" is "critically important" to the agency.

SSA asked unions for input after receiving guidance sent out to agencies by the Office of Personnel Management. Agencies are required to review any collective bargaining agreement sections that implemented the rescinded Trump orders.

SSA's assessment should be done by April 23, the agency spokesperson said. ...

The agency and the union have made progress on official time -- the practice of permitting senior union officials to conduct union business on the job. Official time, which was nearly eliminated by the Trump executive order, has been temporarily reset to levels closer to those in the 2012 bargaining agreement, Bryant said. That temporary agreement changing that can last up to seven months. ...

     I don't understand the delay coming from Social Security. I'm sure management understands the need to reopen offices as soon as practical. They need union agreement to do so. Let's get moving. Actually, I could understand a little more trepidation about negotiations coming from union officials than management since I'm sure union members have a lot of concern about reopening.

     The current messaging from CDC to keep most things closed is confusing but temporary. Most of the population isn't yet fully vaccinated so we still need to keep things buttoned up. However, CDC's message will change as more of the population is vaccinated. That's happening rapidly. By the end of June, just about the only people who won't have been been vaccinated will be those who have deliberately refused it. I expect that the country will really start reopening by Independence Day and that just about everything will be open by Labor Day assuming there's no break through Covid-19 variant that makes current vaccines ineffective. We're not going to keep things closed just to protect fools who have refused the vaccine. Vaccine passports will help in the process. Those who refuse vaccines can yell all they want about discrimination against them because they lack vaccine passports. The vast majority of the population who have vaccine passports won't be listening. They're going to be enjoying getting back to their normal lives, not listening to cranks.

     It's going to be impossible to keep Social Security field offices closed once we get everyone vaccinated who is willing to be vaccinated. There's too much pent up demand for Social Security services. No, Social Security hasn't been getting all its work done with its offices closed. I'm on the receiving end of these services. Don't try to tell me that things have gone great with offices closed. I know better.

     Those who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 but remain frightened need to realize that to this point not a single person who has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 has ended up in the hospital much less died due to Covid-19. That's an incredible record of vaccine success. Unless something changes, once you're fully vaccinated against Covid-19, if you need to worry about any infectious disease, it should be our old friends influenza, salmonella, garden variety pneumonia, hepatitis, meningitis, etc, not Covid-19. We haven't significantly restricted our activities in the past due to these minor risks and there's no reason to do so in the future.

EM On New Musculoskeletal Listings

      Social Security has issued an Emergency Message on the new musculoskeletal Listings that went into effect last Friday. I would not say that these soften the blow much. 

     The new EM does speak to a question I had. What about claimants who use electric wheelchairs operated with one hand, as in Stephen Hawking (although his problem wasn't musculoskeletal). Since these wheelchairs don't require both hands to operate, can these claimants meet the Listings? The answer is yes, assuming the claimant couldn't get around with just one cane, for instance. Yes, these Listings are so bad that we need an answer to a question about whether someone as impaired as Stephen Hawking would meet them. 

     These Listings don't merely require that a claimant be unable to work. They require that it be immediately obvious to others that a claimant can't work. I guess people like Andrew Saul heard enough complaints from people about a neighbor or acquaintance who couldn't be "truly" disabled based solely upon limited lay observation. They wanted to make sure that disability is obvious and undeniable.

Happy Easter

 

A Poll

picture polls

Congressman Seeks To Overturn Rule Allowing AAJ Hearings

      From a press release:

Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John B. Larson (D-CT) and Worker and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Danny K. Davis (D IL) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn a harmful rule adopted by the Trump Administration. The rule, “Hearings Held by Administrative Appeals Judges of the Appeals Council” (85 Fed. Reg. 73138), changes the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) appeals hearings in ways that compromise claimants’ and beneficiaries’ due process, potentially limit their access to their earned benefits, and contradict the congressional intent of the law governing such proceedings. Specifically, the rule allows SSA to put unqualified agency attorneys in charge of appeals hearings, rather than independent Administrative Law Judges. ...

     I wish he'd try to undo the musculoskeletal Listings changes instead. The AAJ hearings seem pretty unlikely anyway. The Listings changes went into full effect today.

Stimulus Payments To Be Delivered Next Week

      There's been a delay in getting stimulus payments out to recipients of Social Security and SSI benefits The delay may or may not have involved foot dragging at Social Security. My guess is that there was no deliberate foot dragging but a lack of perceived urgency. In any case, the obstacles have been cleared out of the way and payments should be delivered to bank accounts by April 7.

FAQs On New Musculoskeletal Listings

      Social Security has released FAQs on the new musculoskeletal Listings due to go into effect on Good Friday. Here is an excerpt:

Q4: What percent of decisions do adjudicators make using these revised rules?

A4: We decide claims involving musculoskeletal impairments primarily at step 5 of the sequential evaluation process where we consider a claimant’s residual functional capacity (RFC), age, education, and work experience. Specifically, we make 90 percent of allowances due to a musculoskeletal impairment using the medical-vocational rules at step 5 of the sequential evaluation process, which have not changed. The remaining 10 percent of the people who apply for disability benefits and are found disabled after an initial review due to a musculoskeletal impairment meet (or medically equal) a musculoskeletal disorders listing. We do not expect this to change because of these final rules.

Q5: How do these changes affect vulnerable populations?

A5: Our Office of the Chief Actuary’s (OCACT) primary conclusion for these rules are that the net effect of the new listings will be very small for both Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and SSI. OCACT estimated that for SSI, there would be a very small net increase in SSI awards of roughly 180 annually. For SSDI, there would be a very small net reduction in disability awards of roughly 260 annually due to these listings.

OCACT estimated that implementation of these final rules will result in a net increase in SSI payments of $67 million over fiscal years 2021-2030, and a net reduction in scheduled Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits of $263 million over the same period, assuming implementation in January 2021. Our Office of Budget, Finance, and Management estimates administrative savings of less than 15 work years and $2 million annually.

It is important to note that while the estimated effects of changes from allowance to denial and from denial to allowance are largely offsetting, the actual net effect for either program, SSDI or SSI, could potentially be either a small cost or a small saving.

     Seriously, you're telling us these new Listings will make almost no difference in the number of claims approved? What was the point of the new Listings then? Social Security isn't claiming that these have anything to do with advances in medicine. 

    Why is the Chief Actuary's office trying to evaluate whether a change in the Listings will result in more or fewer claims being approved? It's outside their field of expertise. How is it even conceivable that these new Listings would increase the number of SSI claims approved, even in a small way? There's nothing to these new Listings other than a tightening of criteria across the board.

    Why hasn't the Chief Actuary released their study? There were repeated questions about this on a conference call I listened to yesterday and Social Security refused to answer the question, even though the Chief Actuary, Steve Goss, was on the call. Their partial answer to another question suggested that the Chief Actuary's office may have only looked at claimants age 50 and older. The largest effect of these new Listings, however, will be on claimants under the age of 50.  I guess the Actuary's projection is how they sold this to OMB and the Biden Administration, making it an important document. I think we ought to be able to see it.

    I will say this. If they start being more reasonable in determining Residual Function Capacity (RFC) at the Initial and Reconsideration levels it would be possible to offset the negative effects of these new Listings. However, prior experience tells me to expect the exact opposite. Again, there was never any point to the Listings changes other than to deny more claimants. Any other reasons Social Security has given for these changes have been nothing more than window dressing.

Sanctioned Representatives

      Social Security recently released lists of sanctioned claimants representatives. Below are the lists of those sanctioned from 2020.

Registered Representatives

LOFTUS, JOHN 

WEINTRAUB, MICHAEL 

WYSOLMERSKI, SIGISMUND 

LONG, RATHADY 

CHANDLER, ROBERT 

PAGAN, ERIC 

SWISCHER, COREY 

HOEGH, THOMAS 

 

Unregistered Representative

OEURN, SARATH