Social Security Legislation Coming Next Year?

      From the New York Times:

… Mr. Biden campaigned on increasing Social Security benefits for many Americans and moving to shore up the program’s finances, funded by higher payroll taxes on workers who earn $400,000 or more.

But his $4 trillion agenda has thus far excluded those efforts, which were also excluded from his first formal budget request as president. Administration officials have suggested privately that Mr. Biden will wait to push Social Security changes later in his term, once he has completed work on infrastructure and other efforts to remake the American economy with a larger role for government.

Mr. Brady and Mr. Crapo [two Republican Senators] alluded to that proposal in their reaction to the firing. “We are concerned that this politicization of the Social Security Administration is just the beginning of efforts to raise payroll taxes,” they said, “and seriously undermines bipartisan efforts to save Social Security for future retirees.

     Do Republicans want to filibuster a bill that would increase Social Security benefits in an election year? Is opposing an increase in the FICA tax that would only apply to those with high incomes a political winner for the GOP?

An Interview With Acting Commissioner

      From a May interview with Kilolo Kijakazi, the new Acting Commissioner of Social Security:

… Less access to application support services from community-based caseworkers to help their clients with the disability application process, needed medical care, and the associated medical records are all potential barriers that research suggests are more likely in communities of color and can prevent people from applying for federal benefits, for which they are eligible. Other research has shown that access to local Social Security offices can affect applications. …

Don't Know What They Don't Know About Social Security

      From a survey done by Nationwide Insurance:

Click on image to view full size

President Fires Saul And Black

      With no fanfare, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice issued an opinion yesterday that the President may remove the Commissioner of Social Security from office notwithstanding the statutory provisions limiting removal from office. An opinion had been requested by the Deputy Counsel for the President.

     Update: Senator Grassley has tweeted that he's hearing that the President may oust Andrew Saul from his position as Commissioner. Senator McConnell has retweeted this saying "httI agree with @ChuckGrassley. This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration."

     Further update: I've received several reports that there was a blast e-mail to Social Security employees at 4:30 today from an Acting Commissioner of Social Security indicating that Saul and Black are gone.

     And another update: The Washington Post reports that Saul still believes he’s Commissioner and plans to report for work on Monday — remotely from his home in New York city. Who’s going to break it to him?

ps://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1413584718684168197?s=20

Paycheck Problem Affects 922 Social Security Employees.

      From Government Executive:

More than 900 Security Administration employees were left wondering Thursday how much of their regular paycheck they would receive at the end of the week, after a mishap caused their internal payroll software to report they would receive deposits of $0.00 for the pay period that ended July 2. ...

On Thursday, Social Security Administration spokesman Darren Lutz said the agency were still working with the Interior Business Center, which provides payroll services to around 150 federal agencies, on determining the cause, but that all 922 affected employees would receive at least a partial paycheck by Tuesday, SSA’s “official” pay day. ...

Not Such A Good Place To Work

     The Partnership for Public Service does an annual survey to determine the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The 2020 results are out and Social Security didn't do well at all. The agency came in as the 15th best place to work out of 17 large agencies.

    They also rated agency components.  Here are the rankings for Social Security's components, out of 411 total agency components:

• Deputy Commissioner for Analytics Review and Oversight -- 290

• Deputy Commissioner for Budget, Finance, Quality, Management -- 135

• Deputy Commissioner for Communications -- 256

• Deputy Commissioner for Hearing Operations -- 389

• Deputy Commissioner for Human Resources -- 252

• Deputy Commissioner for Operations -- 318

• Deputy Commissioner for Retirement & Disability Policy -- 267

• Deputy Commissioner for Systems -- 192

• Office of the General Counsel -- 101

• Office of the Inspector General -- 382
  

Tomorrow Is Deadline For Preliminary Reopening Plans

 

     I had earlier cited a Government Executive article saying that federal agencies were supposed to submit draft plans for return to new normal post-pandemic operations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by June 18 with final plans due by July 19. I had wondered why we had heard nothing about those draft plans. Now, there's a new Fedweek article saying the draft plans are actually due by tomorrow, July 9, with the final plans still due by July 19. Apparently, the deadline for draft plans was extended.

Balance Needed

      From Nancy Altman writing for The Hill:

“Program integrity” is the sort of technical term that sounds good. Who wouldn’t want to run Social Security with integrity? But unfortunately, in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Washington-speak, the phrase doesn’t mean what you think.

Administering Social Security with integrity sounds as if it means ensuring that the right payments go to the right people in the right amounts. You would think it means that the Social Security Administration (SSA) helps working families get the benefits that they have earned. Instead, it means the opposite.

“Program integrity” is insider-code for saving money. How is money saved? By going after people who have done nothing wrong. By going after people with serious disabilities who must prove over and over again that they are unable to support themselves. By going after people whose benefits SSA claims were wrongly paid out, often because of mistakes made by SSA itself. ...

SSA must return to its roots, to its core mission of helping everyone get the benefits for which they are eligible. It should devote at least as much effort to underpayments as it does to overpayments. It should focus more on educating the public about the benefits for which they are eligible and less on challenging previously-awarded benefits. ...

     It has become clear that Social Security advocates are working to improve Social Security's administrative budget difficulties by liberalizing what "program integrity" funds can be used for. At the moment, Social Security doesn't have enough money to answer its phones or to put people on benefits in a timely manner but it has abundant funding to cut people off benefits. We need balance.