From Emergency Message EM-21056:
... While mail continues to offer an additional channel for the public to communicate with us, you must discourage customers from mailing important documents that they should keep secure and maintain in their possession, such as driver’s licenses, passports, or immigration documents. If they prefer, customers may choose to mail us secondary evidence of identity and less sensitive material. ...
By the way, many amicus briefs have been filed already in this case. Every one supports the argument that it is unconstitutional to deny SSI to Puerto Rican residents.
Also, by the way, the Supreme Court is going back to in person oral arguments for its October term. Will Justice Thomas go back to his silent ways?
The federal fiscal year (FY) ends on September 30 each year. Each year Congress fails to complete regular appropriations bills by that deadline so it must pass continuing resolutions (CRs) that enable government agencies to continue to spend at the rate of the prior appropriation. The CRs generally contain special provisions allowing additional spending under the CRs for urgent needs.
The White House has released its draft CR for this year. It contains additional funding for disasters and for Afghan refugee resettlement but no additional funding for the Social Security Administration. Of course, Congress gets a say in this. There was an earlier supplemental appropriation bill. The original Senate draft of that bill included an extra $150 million for Social Security. That was removed in negotiations. Could that return in the CR? We'll see.
The Senate Finance Committee may have different priorities. If so, the differences will have to be worked out.
The report shown below was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members. It contains basic operating statistics for Social Security's Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).
Note that the average processing time jumped from 301 days at the end of last year to 351 days as of July. I posted about this last month and received responses basically saying "What's the problem? The total number pending is down." Who outside Social Security cares what the total number pending is? What people outside the agency care about is how long it takes to get a hearing and a decision. Even though fewer appeals are being filed, it's taking longer and longer to get a hearing and a decision. That's important. There are a multitude of problems at Social Security. This is one of them. Like many of those problems, this one is going to get worse. There is a huge backlog of cases stuck at the initial and reconsideration levels. Those backlogs will eventually be worked down, leading to more appeals. Everyone expects an avalanche of disability claims once the field offices reopen.
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Extra points if you know why it was/is named OASIS.
