Testimony Of Grace Kim

     From the written testimony of Grace Kim, Deputy Commissioner Operations to the House Social Security Subcommittee:

... While we appreciate the increase over FY 2021, the FY 2022 appropriation of $13.3 billion is not sufficient. This budget limits our capacity to provide service to the millions of people who are applying for SSN cards; retirement, survivors, and disability benefits; and Supplemental Security Income benefits for people who are aged, blind, and disabled. Our funding has remained relatively flat for the previous four years, and appropriations for base administration have failed to cover our fixed costs over the past decade. For instance, the $411 million increase in FY 2022 does not fully pay for cost increases of approximately $550 million to cover employee pay raises, step increases, and Federal Employees Retirement System contributions. Of the $411 million increase we received, over 30 percent covered increased funding for our program integrity workloads, requiring us to prioritize stewardship over other essential workloads. We are also absorbing costs related to expanding in-person services, such as COVID-19 testing, facilities cleaning, more guards, and information technology (IT).

To fund these expenses and our fixed costs, we are delaying critically needed hires, reducing much needed overtime, and postponing select IT improvements. These delays in hiring and technology modernization, coupled with reduced overtime, are resulting in growing backlogs, which have reached unacceptable levels, and a deterioration in service. Less staff and delayed technological upgrades also mean we are not fully prepared to handle potential surges of people returning to our offices for in-person service.

Our employees are one of our greatest assets to help us address these unprecedented demands. We are facing our lowest staffing level in 25 years. This is driven by insufficient funding over multiple years to hire the level of staff needed, and higher than average attrition rates across the agency. Our funding level will constrain our ability to add the necessary staff to reduce the backlogs that have built up during the pandemic. It will also affect employee morale, which is already at a very low level, as demonstrated by the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and recent Pulse Surveys.

Because of the FY 2022 funding level, we were forced to implement a temporary hiring freeze, including all external Federal hires and DDS hires. In our front-line components such as Field Offices, Teleservice Centers, and Processing Centers, attrition is nearly 7 percent so far this fiscal year, or 2,900 losses. The highest rate is in our Teleservice Centers at over 12 percent to date. At this pace, we believe we will lose over 4,500 front-line operations employees this year, which is 1,000 more losses than we experienced before the pandemic. This would equate to an annualized attrition rate of 11 percent, or about 4 percentage points higher than our historical average.

In our State DDSs, where medical decisions are adjudicated, attrition is also unprecedented, at over 25 percent. These complex jobs require about two years of training. The loss of experienced examiners significantly affects the ability to train new employees and complete program integrity workloads, such as continuing disability reviews, which are generally performed by more experienced examiners due to their complexity. We are working with the States to understand the underlying reasons. 

We are also severely limiting our use of overtime, which reduces our ability to compensate for staff losses. Reduced overtime in our Processing Centers is contributing to our current 4.5 million pending actions, which are up from 3.2 million at the end of 2018. We expect pending cases to surpass our 2016 record high of 4.6 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Additionally, the lack of overtime opportunities and the increasing workloads have resulted in low morale, with our employees reporting they feel overworked, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

We are at a crossroads. The cumulative impact will increase our customers’ wait times for in-person and phone service, increase claims processing times, and lead to increases in pending workloads. As we dig out from the effects of the pandemic, we must have sustained funding for the public to have continued confidence not just in our agency, but in government. We know people need our help, and Congress recognizes the importance of our local offices to communities. None of us think it is okay for applicants to wait six months for a decision on their disability application, but that is the level of service Congress and the public should expect absent sufficient resources. It will take a multi-year effort and adequate funding to restore pre-pandemic initial claim wait times. We hope we can work with you to resolve these funding challenges and restore the level of service the public requires. ...

    I have no reason to believe it's coming but Social Security needs a special appropriation -- now!

Biggs Nomination

     The President has nominated Andrew Biggs to become a member of the Social Security Advisory Board.

    During the George W. Bush Administration, Biggs was Deputy Commissioner of Social Security -- only in an acting capacity if I remember correctly. Biggs openly plotted partial privatization of Social Security and campaigned for it with George W. Bush while serving as Deputy Commissioner. That was beyond the pale in my opinion. Completely inappropriate. As I recall saying at the time, Biggs was put in a position where he was supposed to be making the trains run on time but what he actually wanted to do was to blow up the locomotives and tear up the tracks.

    As you may recall, George W. Bush's campaign to partially privatize Social Security went nowhere because it was a disaster politically. I have no idea why Republicans would want a man who is partially responsible for that fiasco in a position of honor.

    Why is President Biden nominating Biggs? I don't know but there must be some deal. He certainly wouldn't be nominated by this White House based on his merits. I have no idea what the White House is getting in return.

DDS Backlogs Draw Press Attention

     From the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

A longstanding backlog in the processing of disability benefits applications from people who are too sick to work has surpassed 1.1 million people nationally — a 27% increase from pre-pandemic levels two years ago and a level not seen in more than a decade.

In Tennessee, the number of people waiting to see if their disability benefits have been approved has increased by 40% ...

Attorneys in Tennessee say the long wait has imposed "significant hardships" on many of their clients, including losing homes, jobs and access to health care benefits received through employers. In extreme instances, attorneys described clients who have died — from illness and suicide — while waiting. ...

[Peter] Harris, who also serves as general counsel for the federal employee union that represents Social Security employees across the country, said the Social Security Administration and state disability determination departments have compounded the difficulties faced during the pandemic.

"Management has made things 20 times worse, and applicants have been left out in the cold," he said. "Employees [who process disability applications] are pushed in this environment to hurry things up." ...

Two New Rulings Related To Eric Conn Cases -- Reasonable Suspicion Is Enough Proof

     Social Security will publish two new Rulings in the Federal Register tomorrow. You can read them today. Here are a few excerpts:

• Social Security Ruling 22-1p: Fraud and Similar Fault Redeterminations Under Sections 205(u) and 1631(e)(7) of the Social Security Act -- "... We may find there is reason to believe fraud or similar fault was involved in a claim for benefits or payments, or in providing evidence, based on the actions of any individual whose actions affect an application for benefits or payments, or the evidence provided in support of it, even when such an individual has no direct relationship to the affected claimant, beneficiary, or recipient or acts without the affected claimant’s, beneficiary’s or recipient’s knowledge or participation. These individuals may include, but are not limited to, claimants, beneficiaries, auxiliaries, recipients, spouses, representatives, medical sources, translators, interpreters, and representative payees. For example, we may have reason to believe a medical source or a representative provided false information to support a claim without the knowledge or participation of the beneficiary or the recipient. ..."
• Social Security Ruling 22-2p: Evaluation of Claims Involving the Issue of Similar Fault in the Providing of Evidence -- "... We must disregard evidence under sections 205(u)(1)(B) and 1631(e)(7)(A)(ii) of the Act due to similar fault if there is reason to believe, meaning reasonable grounds to suspect, that the person knew the evidence provided was false or incomplete or that the information that was material to the determination was knowingly concealed. A finding of similar fault requires more than mere suspicion, speculation, or a hunch, but it does not require a preponderance of evidence. ..."
  

Signs Already Made Up To Tell You How Long You'll Have To Wait

     From a television station in Austin:

The mix of long outside lines and 95-degree heat is becoming a problem for some elderly and disabled customers at the Social Security Administration office in Georgetown.

“This is ridiculous,” said Melanie Barrier.

Barrier is one of the many people who lined up Thursday at 3010 Williams Drive. ...

The Georgetown woman contacted CBS Austin about the problem and met us at the social security office. On Friday, signs said the estimated wait time was 150 minutes or two and a half hours. ...

Top Baby Names By State

 

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Witness List For Tuesday's Hearing

     The witness list is out for the House Social Security Subcommittee hearing on May 17 on Strengthening Social Security's Customer Service:

• Grace Kim, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social Security Administration
• Tracey Gronniger, Directing Attorney, Justice in Aging
• Bethany Lilly, Senior Director of Public Policy, The Arc of the United States, on behalf of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force
• Peggy Murphy, Immediate Past President, National Council of Social Security Management Associations
• Yanira Cruz, President and CEO, National Hispanic Council on Aging
• Alison Weir, Policy Advocate and Attorney, Greater Hartford Legal Aid, Hartford, Connecticut
• Rebecca Vallas, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

A Report On Social Security's Operating Budget

     The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress produces reports to aid Congress in carrying out its duties. They've recently issued a report titled Social Security Administration (SSA): Trends in the Annual Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE) Appropriation Through FY2021 that's worth a look. It tells you everything you ought to know, even though for most people the subject, like the title of this report, seems dreadfully boring.

    Let me first explain this LAE business. Since most of Social Security's administrative budget comes from the Social Security's trust funds rather than general revenues, technically the agency doesn't get an appropriation but instead is given a limit on how much it can draw from the trust funds for its administrative expenses -- a Limitation on Administrative Expenses or LAE.

    The main story that I take from this report is that Social Security's workload has gone up while its LAE has gone down. That's not good for those who have to deal with the agency.

    Let's talk about the workload first.  Here's a chart showing the number of claimants drawing benefits from 2010 on:

You can see that since 2010 there's been a big increase from 58 million receiving benefits to 70.2 million receiving benefits. 

    Here's a chart showing what's happened to the LAE, apart from the amount specifically dedicated to program integrity, in constant dollars since 2010:

Notice that in price indexed dollars, the LAE went down from about $13 billion in FY 2010 to around $11 billion in 2021. I think that excluding program integrity funds gives the most accurate picture of what the agency can spend actually answering the telephone, taking and adjudicating claims and processing claimants on and off benefits. Note that Social Security didn't receive significant additional funding for the Covid-19 pandemic, which certainly disrupted its operations and increased its expenses so things are actually worse than they appear.

    Any rational person looking at this history shouldn't be surprised by what has happened since 2010 -- increased backlogs in answering the telephone, taking claims, adjudicating them and processing claimants on and off benefits. The severity of the resulting problems have been somewhat disguised since the agency's hearing backlog has gone down since 2010. That's highly visible but everything else has gone to hell and that's mostly invisible except to those who actually have to deal with the agency, which is almost everyone eventually, but not that many people at any onetime. Be glad if all you have to do is to file a retirement claim. The agency prioritizes them since they're easy. For everything else, get ready to wait and wait and wait.

    Social Security is a mess. The inadequate LAE is why it's a mess. Why has there been so little outcry from Congress?