Draft Senate Appropriations Bill Released

    The Senate Appropriations Committee has released its draft FY 2023 appropriations bill covering Social Security's administrative budget. The Committee amount is $14.2 billion, an increase of $902 million over FY 2022. This is $800 million less than the President's request and $200 million less than called for by the House bill. It's not enough to cover the costs of inflation.

    I  don't know why but the Social Security Administration is a disfavored agency, not just by Republicans, but also by Congressional Democrats. Could it be that Congress is convinced that Social Security's only problem is making its online services a bit better and to convince the public to use them rather than to call or visit the agency? If so, that's a serious misunderstanding of the Social Security Administration. About all you'll ever be able to do online is to file claims and appeals. Helping people do that is a part of what Social Security does but the far more time consuming part is actually adjudicating those claims and appeals. Computers aren't going to do that work for the agency.

    Here are a few excerpts from the draft report on the bill (begins at page 308):

• ...[T]he Committee encourages SSA to take any steps possible to limit the burden of overpayments on beneficiaries that were of little or no fault of the beneficiary, particularly those discovered years later.
• The Committee strongly encourages SSA to expand outreach to potential beneficiaries, prioritizing underserved communities and individuals most likely to need support. This could include grants to community-based organizations familiar with SSA programs for the purpose of assisting individuals with disabilities apply for benefits, including supporting them throughout the process.
• ... [T]he Committee directs SSA to report to the Committees on Appropriations within 60 days of enactment of this act detailing the agency’s plans for expansion of Express Services, including the expected timeline of such expansion, mechanisms for providing such services, and planned national availability and capacity.
  

    What are "Express Services"? Isn't the use of such a term inherently misleading in the context of today's Social Security Administration?

Former Foster Care Children Find That Answers Are Hard To Come By

     From WITF:

It’s been almost 45 years since Kathy Stolz-Silvis was in foster care in Pennsylvania. Stolz-Silvis was nine when her father died, making her and her siblings eligible for Social Security survivor benefits. But she didn’t become aware of those benefits until decades later — after reading an investigation published by The Marshall Project and NPR.

The report, published last year, found that foster care agencies in at least 49 states and Washington, D.C., have been applying for Social Security on behalf of foster youth in their care who are eligible for death, disability or veterans’ benefits. The agencies often keep the money, often without notifying the children, their family members or lawyers. ...

“Out of curiosity, I called them to find out what happened to my benefits when I was in foster care,” Stolz-Silvis said. “The person on the other end of the line told me they were not allowed to give me that information.”

In recent months, The Marshall Project and NPR have heard from dozens of former foster youth who described similar failed efforts to learn whether a state or local agency had applied to become their “representative payee,” allowing the agency to receive their federal benefits, a process permitted by federal regulations. ...

In an email, Darren Lutz, a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration, said that for those inquiring about past benefits: “We maintain records on the benefits we have paid and can answer their questions.”  ...

Jayden Kiley was 17 and in foster care when her mother died, and she became eligible for death benefits from Social Security. But for eight months, between October 2019 and July 2020, she said, nobody told her about the benefits — or that her mother had even died. She found that out from a sibling.

“I didn’t know any of this,” Kiley said.

For two years, Kiley tried to get information from Social Security about her benefits, but she said that a representative told her that every time she called she was put at the bottom of a waitlist, so she stopped calling for a while. Eventually she found out the amount due to her is about $8,500, but said she hasn’t received any of it. ...

    In case you're wondering, those who were in foster care are definitely entitled to information on what happened to any Social Security benefits they were entitled to as a minor but they aren't entitled to get the money back if it was paid to a foster care agency unless there was some unusual situation such as a child coming out of foster care but the foster care agency mistakenly continuing to receive payments from Social Security.

Waiting In The Heat In Louisiana

     KNOE in Monroe, LA has a report on the lines outside their local Social Security field office. Note that the TV station displays the then current temperature in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

Social Security Needs An Intervention

    From an announcement to appear in tomorrow's Federal Register for the Interventional Cooperative Agreement Program (ICAP): 

We are announcing a newly opened funding opportunity, the fiscal year (FY) 2022 application period of the Interventional Cooperative Agreement Program (ICAP). The purpose of this program is to allow us to enter into cooperative agreements to collaborate with States, foundations, and other non-Federal groups and organizations who have the interest and ability to identify, operate, and partially fund interventional research. ...

We hope to benefit from and collaborate with local, external knowledge about potential interventions relevant to individuals who receive Social Secuity Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. ICAP priority research topics are as follows:

• Eliminating the structural barriers in the labor market, including for racial, ethnic, or other underserved communities, including people with disabilities, in order to decrease the likelihood of people needing to receive or apply for SSDI or SSI benefits;
• Promoting self-sufficiency by helping people, including youth, enter, stay in, or return to the labor force;
• Coordinating planning between private and public human services agencies to improve the administration and effectiveness of the SSDI, SSI, and related programs;
• Assisting claimants in underserved communities to apply for or appeal determinations or decisions on claims for SSDI and SSI benefits; and
• Conducting outreach to people with disabilities who are potentially eligible to receive SSI. ...

What Will The COLA Be This Year?

     It's that time of year when publications start trying to estimate the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits. Forbes is giving itself plenty of wiggle room by estimating it at 8.6% to 10.5%. Even the low figure is high. The upper figure is alarming.

    Obviously, the COLA is crucial for recipients of Social Security benefits but inflation that high has serious implications for Social Security's administrative budget, Social Security employees who won't receive a COLA anywhere near this great and Social Security attorneys who are subject to a fee cap that isn't indexed for inflation.

The Statute Already Calls For This

     Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Robert Casey, the Chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and Senator Sherrod Brown have written a joint letter to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security asking that the Social Security Administration incorporate children into its outreach program to those potentially eligible for SSI benefits, As already required by 42 U.S.C. §1383d(a).

Telework Debated

     From Government Executive:

Officials from the Biden administration on Thursday defended federal agencies’ approach to workplace flexibilities like telework and remote work from skeptical Republicans, who have grown more stridently against the concept of hybrid work environments in recent months.

In testimony before the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on government operations, Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja said flexibilities like telework and remote work, where possible, are central to the administration’s effort to revitalize the federal workforce and improve agency efficiency. 

“One lesson we have learned throughout the pandemic is that workplace flexibilities, such as telework and hybrid work schedules, can promote resilience of federal government operations in the face of disruptions, enhance productivity, and improve employee morale,” she said. “During this time, we have seen the private-sector labor market—and what workers expect from their jobs—change quickly. Private-sector employers have had to quickly learn how to respond to employee needs. Federal employers must do the same to attract and retain talent in this tight labor market.”

But Republicans on the committee criticized the idea of providing additional “perks” to “bureaucrats,” and blamed teleworking workers for service backlogs at agencies like the IRS, OPM and the Social Security Administration. ...

 

Answers Hard To Come By For Those Formerly In Foster Care

    From NPR:

It's been almost 45 years since Kathy Stolz-Silvis was in foster care in Pennsylvania. Stolz-Silvis was nine when her father died, making her and her siblings eligible for Social Security survivor benefits. But she didn't become aware of those benefits until decades later — after reading an investigation published by The Marshall Project and NPR. ...

"Out of curiosity, I called them to find out what happened to my benefits when I was in foster care," Stolz-Silvis said. "The person on the other end of the line told me they were not allowed to give me that information." ...

In recent months, The Marshall Project and NPR have heard from dozens of former foster youth who described similar failed efforts to learn whether a state or local agency had applied to become their "representative payee," allowing the agency to receive their federal benefits, a process permitted by federal regulations. ...

In an email, Darren Lutz, a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration, said that for those inquiring about past benefits: "We maintain records on the benefits we have paid and can answer their questions." The agency has "provided guidance and training to our employees on our rules and requirements for selecting representative payees, notifying the proper parties, and monitoring the performance of foster care agencies that serve as the representative payee for a child in foster care."

For current foster youth, Administration for Children and Families spokesperson Pat Fisher confirmed that both the agency and the Social Security Administration are developing joint guidance to state agencies about how to handle these cases, though there is no timeline for releasing it. ...