I See Dead People

      From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

... To identify and prevent payments after death, SSA established a program under which States can voluntarily contract with SSA to provide it death data to match against its records. Through Electronic Death Registration (EDR), States electronically submit death reports to SSA. If the decedent’s data match SSA records, SSA posts the State death information to its Numident file and terminates payments to deceased beneficiaries. In addition to EDR, SSA receives death information from other sources, such as family members and funeral directors.

We obtained data files that provided the personally identifiable information of approximately 7 million individuals Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois recorded as deceased between January 1978 and December 2018. We matched the data against SSA payment records and the Numident.

We estimate SSA issued approximately $79 million in payments after death to 1,127 beneficiaries and 4 representative payees who died in Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois between January 1978 and December 2018. Identifying and correcting these discrepancies will prevent approximately $14 million in additional improper payments after death over a 12-month period.

We also identified 53,486 non-beneficiaries who were deceased according to Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois records but whose death information was not in SSA’s Numident. Resolving these discrepancies will improve the accuracy and completeness of death information the Agency shares with other Federal benefit-paying agencies.

    I don't understand. Social Security is marking these people as dead when it receives notice from the states that they're dead but when OIG matches state death records with Social Security records, they find a number of people who are dead but who are not marked as dead in Social Security records. Social Security seems to be relying upon the same records as OIG but OIG finds more dead people. Is the problem at Social Security or is the problem with the data the states are providing Social Security? The report doesn't deal with this question although the answer seems to be crucial for preventing the problem from continuing.

     I'm sure that Social Security officials have asked themselves for years, "How did we get roped into the death master file business?" It's nothing but endless headaches. There's no obvious reason why Social Security should be doing this instead of some other agency. Many, many other agencies and private businesses rely on the death master file.

If You Want Social Security Service, Fly Off To The Caribbean!

      From a press release:

... A representative from the Federal Benefits Unit at the US Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic will be available at the Embassy in L’Anse Aux Epines, St George [Grenada] to discuss all social security matters, including non receipt of payments, direct deposits, social security applications, retirement applications and general inquiries, by appointment only from 29 June to 2 July. ...

     I think the Federal Benefits Units people are employed by State Department. In any case, it seems odd that a U.S. citizen can get an appointment to discuss Social Security matters with a federal employee at a U.S. Embassy overseas but the same U.S. citizen can't get a similar appointment with Social Security in the U.S.

More On Collins v. Yellen

      I don't know how I missed this from Justice Kagan's concurrence in Collins v. Yellen:

... Consider the hundreds of thousands of decisions that the Social Security Administration (SSA)makes each year. The SSA has a single head with for-cause removal protection; so a betting person might wager that the agency’s removal provision is next on the chopping block. ... But given the majority’s remedial analysis, I doubt the mass of SSA decisions—which would not concern the President at all—would need to be undone. That makes sense. ... When an agency decision would not capture a President’s attention, his removal authority could not make a difference—and so no injunction should issue. ...

     So, if Justice Kagan is correct, the Commissioner of Social Security should enjoy no protection from being discharged from his position by the President but it's going to be extremely difficult to come up with standing to bring a legal action to challenge the Commissioner's tenure in office. Perhaps a company that didn't get a major contract or a labor union that wishes to dispute a decision made directly by the Commissioner would have standing. Even then the Commissioner might say "But I cleared it with OMB."

Andrew Saul's Hold On Office Looking Even More Tenuous

      From the Supreme Court's opinion today in Collins v. Yellen:

... But the nature and breadth of an agency’s authority is not dispositive in determining whether Congress may limit the President’s power to remove its head. The President’s removal power serves vital purposes even when the officer subject to removal is not the head of one of the largest and most powerful agencies. The removal power helps the President maintain a degree of control over the subordinates he needs to carry out his duties as the head of the Executive Branch, and it works to ensure that these subordinates serve the people effectively and in accordance with the policies that the people presumably elected the President to promote. ...  

Courts are not well-suited to weigh the relative im-portance of the regulatory and enforcement authority of dis-parate agencies, and we do not think that the constitution-ality of removal restrictions hinges on such an inquiry.

 And from a footnote:

Amicus points to the Social Security Administration, the Office of Special Counsel, the Comptroller, “multi-member agencies for which the chair is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to a fixed term,” and the Civil Service. ... None of these agencies is before us, and we do not comment on the constitutionality of any removal restriction that applies to their officers.

     And from the concurrence of Justice Kagan:

... Without even mentioning Seila Law’s “significant executive power” framing, the majority announces that, actually, “the constitutionality of removal restrictions” does  not “hinge[]” on “the nature and breadth of an agency’s authority.” ... Any “agency led by a single Director,” no matter how much executive power it wields, now becomes subject to the requirement of at-will removal. ... And the majority’s broadening is gratuitous—unnecessary to resolve the dispute here....

    And from the concurrence of Justices Sotomayor and Breyer:

 Never before, however, has the Court forbidden simple for-cause tenure protection for an Executive Branch officer who neither exercises significant executive power nor regulates the affairs of private parties.

     I thought it was already clear that the President's inability to remove the Commissioner at will was unconstitutional. I think it's now quite clear where the Supreme Court is headed or, should I say, has gone. I see no reason why the President should tolerate Saul any longer. Any attempt he makes to stay in office isn't going to work.

Book Forthcoming On Labor Market And Socal Security Disability Determination

      From a notice of a book forthcoming in September:

... In Social Security Disability Law and the American Labor Market, Jon C. Dubin challenges the contemporary policies for determining disability benefits and work assessment. He posits the fundamental questions: where are the jobs for persons with significant medical and vocational challenges? And how does the administration misfire in its standards and processes for answering that question? Deploying his profound understanding of the Social Security Administration and Disability law and policy, he demystifies the system, showing us its complex inner mechanisms and flaws, its history and evolution, and how changes in the labor market have rendered some agency processes obsolete. Dubin lays out how those who advocate eviscerating program coverage and needed life support benefits in the guise of modernizing these procedures would reduce the capacity for the Social Security Administration to function properly and serve its intended beneficiaries, and argues that the disability system should instead be “mended, not ended.” 

Dubin argues that while it may seem counterintuitive, the transformation from an industrial economy to a twenty-first-century service economy in the information age, with increased automation, and resulting diminished demand for arduous physical labor, has not meaningfully reduced the relevance of, or need for, the disability benefits programs. Indeed, they have created new and different obstacles to work adjustments based on the need for other skills and capacities in the new economy—especially for the significant portion of persons with cognitive, psychiatric, neuro-psychological, or other mental impairments. Therefore, while the disability program is in dire need of empirically supported updating and measures to remedy identified deficiencies, obsolescence, inconsistencies in application, and racial, economic and other inequities, the program’s framework is sufficiently broad and enduring to remain relevant and faithful to the Act’s congressional beneficent purposes and aspirations.

Electoral Fraud With A Social Security Twist

      There have been endless baseless complaints from former President Trump and other Republicans about alleged alleged electoral fraud by Democrats. It turns out that the only recent electoral fraud case of consequence was carried out on behalf of a Republican candidate -- and that it has a Social Security connection. From a press release:

A Bladenboro [NC] man pleaded guilty today to theft of government property and Social Security fraud.

According to court documents, Leslie McCrae Dowless, 65, defrauded the Social Security Administration by concealing his work and income while receiving monthly benefits payments.  In February 2013, Dowless applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.  In the application, Dowless claimed that he was unable to work due to a disability.  Dowless received SSI benefits until July 2018, when he applied for Retirement Insurance Benefits (RIB).  In his application for RIB, Dowless stated that he did not expect to work in 2018 and had not worked in the two years preceding his application.  Dowless received RIB benefits through November 2018. Dowless was required to report certain events to the Social Security Administration, including changes in his work activity, income, or resources.

Unbeknownst to the Social Security Administration, Dowless worked as a consultant for at least two political campaigns during the 2018 Midterm Elections.  From March 2017 to November 2018, Dowless received at least 59 checks totaling $135,365.57 for consulting work. Dowless failed to report his work and income to the Social Security Administration. ...

     Political "consultant" is quite the euphemism. Dowless and confederates were collecting absentee ballots from unsuspecting voters and fraudulently signing them or even completing them. So many ballots were involved that both parties were in full agreement that the election was completely tainted and had to be revoted.

This Wasn't An Accident; All Of It Is Routine

      From KMOV in St. Louis:

A bizarre letter from the Social Security Administration had one local man scratching his head. They claimed he owed them money from nearly 50 years ago.

"You were overpaid when you received benefits as a student," the letter Rick Wosmanski got said. "I owed a total of 122.80 and I thought this is unusual .. It was 48 years ago. Give me a break," Wosmanski said. "I have a hard time remembering 48 hours ago." ...

"I was 19 years old!" Wosmanski said. He was 17 when his dad passed away and Wosmanski was entitled to his father's social security survivor's benefits. When he was no longer a full-time student, the Social Security Administration says he wasn't eligible anymore to get the money.

Trouble is, he doesn't ever remember getting paid and thinks his mom might have cashed the checks instead. "The rest is a mystery. Went to the grave with my mom," Wosmanski said. 

And now out of the blue, this letter. Even a phone call to the Social Security Administration and still they insisted he owed them money for a check he shouldn't have received.

"I said 'is there some kind of statute of limitations on this' and she said 'no, you owe us the money.' Just like that," Wosmanski said. ...

One quick email from News 4 to the government and sure enough, a change of heart. A spokesperson told us they couldn't comment on Wosmanski's situation specifically, but said "based on the information on our records, it appears we will be able to resolve this issue," saying someone would be reaching out to Wosmanski directly. ...

     This isn't some odd mistake. Trying to collect ancient overpayments is routine for Social Security. Trying to collect overpayments when there's no proof of an overpayment is routine. Immediately solving the problem for one individual when the news media asks about it is routine. This is all routine!

Why The Concentration On CDRs When Basic Service Is Suffering?

      From David Weaver, writing for The Hill:

The Biden administration recently released its first official budget plan, which recommends a 9.7 percent increase in the administrative budget of the Social Security Administration (SSA). This increase in top-line funding would partially reverse the chronic underfunding of the agency by Congress (SSA's core operating budget, adjusted for inflation, fell 13 percent from 2010 to 2021, while the number of beneficiaries SSA serves grew by 22 percent). However, problems with SSA's administrative funding go beyond insufficient funding of top-line numbers.

Increasingly, Congress has directed funding away from service delivery to disability reviews that remove individuals from the rolls based on SSA's assessment of medical improvement. ...

SSA plans to increase the number of full medical disability reviews next year by 36 percent and increase the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations by 23 percent. ...

SSA plans to accelerate disability reviews next year so the agency can rapidly get back to being "current" on conducting the maximum number of reviews allowed by regulations. However, the agency shows no similar urgency on being "current" on other program integrity workloads. ...

Congress needs to pause increases in disability reviews and redeterminations until it can study — and possibly reform — the administrative process. That will also have the beneficial effect of allowing SSA to focus on service delivery as it begins to find its footing following the pandemic.