How Did This Get Published?

      The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has posted a "working paper" by Cody Tuttle and Riley Wilson on The Impact of Claimant Representation Fee Schedules on the Disability Applicant Process and Recipient Outcomes. Tuttle and Wilson seek to prove the hypothesis that after the maximum fee that can be charged by an attorney for representing a Social Security claimant was increased in 2002 and 2009 that attorneys delayed their clients' cases so that they could draw the now higher maximum attorney fee. The two had one big problem. While they had data showing that wait times had increased in general they didn't have data that distinguished represented from unrepresented claimants. They "solved" this problem by assuming that the overall increase in average wait times was solely due to a large increase in wait times just for unrepresented claimants with the unrepresented claimants suffering no such delays. I would call this a whopping leap of faith. The researchers noted that the country was in recession both in 2002 and 2009 and wondered whether that might have something to do with it. The possibility that things were going on specifically at Social Security that caused increased backlogs for represented and unrepresented claimants alike appears to have not occurred to them. Actually, things were going on at Social Security in both those years. You can take a look at a GAO study from 2002 and a New York Times piece from the same year on increasing backlog problems at the agency. Here are some stats from 2009 showing wild increases in backlogs in that year. You can understand why backlogs might have been increasing in those years by looking at the chart above. Click on it to view full size. Note that in 2002 and 2009 claims were increasing a lot faster than awards. Why would that be? Awards were trailing because of increased backlogs.

     How did a "working paper" this shoddy get published? Was this nonsense peer reviewed by anyone?

Blast E-Mail To SSA Employees

 From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications <Human.Resources.Internal.Communications@ssa.gov> 

Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 7:20 AM

To: ^Human Resources Internal Communications <Human.Resources.Internal.Communications@ssa.gov>

Subject: COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate

MESSAGE TO ALL SSA EMPLOYEES:

In accordance with the President’s Executive Order on Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees, all employees must be fully vaccinated (i.e., receive a single dose vaccine or the second shot of a two-dose vaccine, excluding booster shots) by November 22.  Employees must therefore have received their final vaccine dose by November 8.  Two of the three vaccines being administered in the US have two-dose regimens.  Therefore, employees will need to start vaccination by the following dates in order to be fully vaccinated by the November 22 deadline:

	Moderna	Pfizer-BioNTech	Johnson & Johnson
First Shot	Oct. 11, 2021	Oct. 18, 2021	Nov. 8, 2021
Second Shot	Nov. 8, 2021	Nov. 8, 2021	n/a
Fully Vaccinated	Nov. 22, 2021	Nov. 22, 2021	Nov. 22, 2021

All employees will be required to provide documented proof of vaccination (e.g., a copy of the record of immunization from a health care provider or pharmacy, COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card, medical records documenting the vaccination, immunization records from a public health or state immunization information system, etc.).  Employees should take steps now to schedule a vaccination if they have not already done so or preserve their proof of vaccination if already vaccinated.  Please do not email your vaccine documentation to your supervisor.  Additional instructions will follow concerning collection of your documentation.  Employees will receive duty time of up to 4 hours per vaccination shot (up to 8 hours total for two-shot vaccines) rather than administrative leave to complete the vaccination process; other policies concerning administrative leave for vaccination reactions and to take family members for vaccination will continue unchanged.

At this time, we have discontinued the SSA Vaccination Attestation survey and removed access to the survey link.   

Employees who are unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons may request a reasonable accommodation with appropriate medical evidence including showing why they cannot be vaccinated.  Employees may request a reasonable accommodation through the Reasonable Accommodation (RA) Wizard,  from their supervisor via email using SSA Form 501­, or orally and supervisors will enter the request into the RA Wizard.  Employees may also request a religious accommodation from their supervisor.  Supervisors must consult with OGC concerning religious accommodation requests.  Employees who fail to comply with the vaccination requirement by the deadline or apply for and receive an accommodation will be subject to discipline up to and including termination. 

Thank you.

Haldiman Wins Award

 

     Sylviane Haldiman,  Social Security's Associate Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Systems, has been announced as a Pathfinder award winner by Government Executive. The Pathfinder award goes to those who "bring the best information technology solutions available into the federal sphere."

Raising Full Retirement Age Is A Bad Idea

     From Are Older Workers Capable Of Working Longer by Laura D. Quinby and Gal Wettstein, published by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

Disability-free life expectancy had been rising continuously in the United States until 2010, suggesting working longer as a solution for those financially unprepared for retirement. However, recent developments suggest improvements in working life expectancy have stalled, especially for minorities and those with less education. This paper uses data from the National Vital Statistics System, the American Community Survey, and the National Health Interview Survey to assess how recent trends in institutionalization, physical impediments to work, and mortality have affected working life expectancy for men and women age 50, by race and education.

The paper found that:

• The capacity to work to older ages is still increasing for high-education individuals and low-education Black women.
• However, no progress has been observed for low-education whites of all genders and Black men.
• As a result, large shares of those still working at age 62 will be incapable of working even two more years.

The policy implications of the findings are:

• Raising Social Security eligibility ages may reduce the financial security of large segments of the population.
• These impacts will be particularly pronounced for Black men and low-education white individuals of all genders. ...

Updated Government Shutdown Plan

      Here’s Social Security’s newly updated plan for a government shutdown. There would be no immediate disruption for the public but, still, let’s hope this doesn’t need to be used.

Social Security Unlikely To Be Much Affected By Possible Government Shutdown

      There is talk of a partial government shutdown beginning on October 1. I hope this doesn't come to pass but if it does there should be little immediate impact at Social Security. Below is Social Security's government shutdown plan from the last time this issue came up. The plan could have been updated a bit since then but I strongly doubt that there's been a major change.

     Click on each thumbnail to view the page full size.

It's A Start

     Senator Sherrod Brown, whose Senate Finance Subcommittee held a hearing yesterday on the outdated SSI program, is saying that "at a minimum" the budget reconciliation bill now pending in the Senate "will include his proposal to raise the asset limit for SSI beneficiaries."

Covid Litigation

      From a press release issued by Justice In Aging, an organization which "uses the power of law to fight senior poverty":

... The Social Security Administration issued an interim rule in August 2020, due to the national emergency, that was intended to create an easier process to “waive”—forgive—certain penalties SSA imposed related to ineligibility during the early months of the pandemic. However, the agency didn’t effectively inform people that the simplified waiver process even existed, and the waiver only covered the first six months of this ongoing pandemic—before the deadly winter wave of COVID-19 cases. If an individual was lucky enough to learn of the existence of the simplified waiver, their problems didn’t end there. For example, the individuals named in the lawsuit faced problems like being told to contact a specific person at a specific phone number, yet not being able to reach anyone or leave a message; and being told to make an appointment to request the simplified waiver, only to be told that there are actually no appointments available.  

“This lawsuit aims to address the concerns of vulnerable citizens who rely on benefits from the Social Security Administration in order to survive,” said Sheila S. Boston, partner at Arnold & Porter. “Using the rule of law, we will hold Social Security accountable for amending its pandemic response to ensure that thousands of impacted individuals receive their benefits and information related to those benefits in a timely manner.” ...