5.9% COLA

      The Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits effective next year is 5.9%, slightly lower than had been anticipated, but still the highest in many years.

Supreme Court Hearing Social Security Case Today

      From Scotusblog:

Wednesday’s argument in Babcock v Kijakazi will take the justices deep into the intersection of the Social Security Act and a host of statutes defining the obligations and compensation of National Guard workers. This will definitely not be the most closely watched case of the month — but the court’s resolution of the arcane question in the case may determine how much money certain veterans can receive in retirement benefits.

At the highest level of generality, the case involves an exception from a “windfall elimination provision” of the Social Security Act. To understand the issues before the justices, it is enough to know that Congress has adopted a statute designed to eliminate what it regards as “windfalls” that some workers would receive – unjustly large Social Security awards that would flow to workers who spent a substantial share of their working years in jobs not covered by Social Security. The exception to the windfall-elimination provision describes some payments to which that provision doesn’t apply – employees for whom Congress would tolerate what it generally would regard as a windfall. Specifically, the exception protects any “payment based wholly on service as a member of a uniformed service,” a defined term that includes among other things the Army National Guard of the United States. To put that another way, the “uniformed-services exception” at issue here allows members of uniformed services a windfall Social Security payment that is barred for members of the general public.

The question before the court is whether the benevolence of that uniformed-services exception reaches dual-status military technicians who serve in the National Guard. Those technicians provide a variety of services involving the equipment and supplies of the National Guard. Although they are paid as civilian employees, they routinely wear military uniforms and are obligated to maintain membership with an appropriate rank in the state National Guard where they are located, which carries with it (by law) membership in the Army National Guard of the United States. …

How Social Security Screws Parents

 

    From Stephanie Murray writing for The Atlantic about her family’s experience:

… America’s retirement system is stacked against mothers. Women are more likely than men to reduce their hours or drop out of the workforce to raise children and, as a result, are likelier to face poverty in old age. America’s primary safety net for the elderly—Social Security—rewards long careers and high pay, all but guaranteeing that parents who focus on the work of child-rearing receive the smallest payouts. …

What Are The Numbers On The Back Of My Social Security Card?

      Greg Heilman writes about the myths and urban legends surrounding Social Security numbers. 

     I don’t know about numbers on the backs of Social Security cards. The only number on the back of my Social Security card is the form number — but I still have the original card I received at age 16 many years ago. Things have surely changed.

Three Months Since Saul Fired

      It’s been three months since President Biden fired Andrew Saul from his position as Commissioner of Social Security. I know there’s a lot on the plates of the President and Congress but I hope it won’t be too much longer until someone is nominated for the Commissioner position. There’s only so much that an Acting Commissioner can or will do.

Conn Clients Remain In Limbo

      From the Associated Press:

As disbarred lawyer Eric Conn sits in a federal prison, hundreds of people in one of America’s poorest regions remain mired in the legal mess he caused by running a $600 million fraud, the largest Social Security scam in U.S. history. 

Many of Conn’s former clients in eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian mountains, who counted on him for help getting their disability benefits, could again lose their monthly support. 

About 1,700 people already went through hearings to prove their disabilities after his fraud was exposed about six years ago, and roughly half lost their benefits as a result. Some 230 of these recipients managed to get their benefits restored years later by court orders, only to learn they may have to prove it all over again. 

That’s the situation confronting Mary Sexton, who suffers from scoliosis and has had two brain surgeries, plus spinal surgery to fuse vertebrae in her neck. Her maladies have left her with a limp and other chronic symptoms including headaches, kidney problems and an inability to concentrate that forced her to quit college. 

A court order restored her $1,100-a-month disability benefit in November. But two months later, she received a letter from the Social Security Administration telling her she would have to appear before an administrative judge to prove she is legally entitled to them. ... 

In a statement to The Associated Press, the Social Security Administration said it is bound by law to “conduct redeterminations of entitlement when there is a reason to believe fraud or similar fault was involved in a person’s benefit application.” The statement said Conn’s fraud, exposed by two agency employees in a whistleblower suit, is “well-documented.” ... 

In a letter to the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Rep. Hal Rogers said the agency has spent millions to deny relatively small sums to unwitting victims of a con job. “These individuals are the victims of fraud, not the perpetrators, and it’s time for their uncertainty and anxiety to end,” the Kentucky Republican wrote, arguing for a process that would keep them out of court.

GAO Report On Telework Security

      The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report on telework security at several agencies, including Social Security. The report is short on specifics, probably to avoid pointing out areas to attack, but Social Security comes in for mild criticism. I can’t tell whether it’s quibbles over the dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s or whether there have been substantive dangers.

65 Months For Former Social Security Employee

     From a press release:

A Saint Pauls, North Carolina woman, Stephanie Chavis, was sentenced today to 65 months in prison and three years of supervised release for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.  Chavis was also ordered to pay $760,966 in restitution to the Social Security Administration.  On April 16, 2019, Chavis pled guilty to the charges. 

According to court documents and other information presented in court, Chavis was an Operations Supervisor at the Fayetteville offices of the Social Security Administration (SSA).  SSA administers monetary aid to the public through federally funded programs, including the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI), which authorizes monthly payments to qualifying individuals who are 65 years or older, blind, or disabled, and who meet certain income and resource criteria.

In her capacity as an Operations Supervisor, Chavis had access to SSA beneficiary accounts and associated personal identifying information (PII).  Between approximately August 2010 and April 2018, Chavis caused over $760,000 in SSI benefits to be electronically deposited into nine different bank accounts held in her name, and in the names of various family members, by making false and fraudulent representations to fellow SSA employees, including claims representatives and other supervisors.  ...