Field Office Waiting Room Now Full

     I went to an in person hearing yesterday. The Raleigh Hearing Office is now located in the same building as the Raleigh field office. I noticed something I hadn't seen before. The field office waiting room was full. Previously, they had kept the waiting room only one-half or one-third full. Masks are still required and, at least at the hearing office, there are plexiglass barriers in hearing rooms that make it hard to be heard.

Movement On GPO And WEP Or Maybe Not

      From Roll Call:

The House Ways and Means Committee will on Tuesday consider a widely backed bill that would scrap provisions under current law that shrink Social Security payouts for some beneficiaries with government pensions. 

The bill from Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., would get rid of two provisions that aim to prevent overly generous benefits for former public sector workers or their spouses who qualify for government pensions but may also be entitled to Social Security payments.

The “windfall elimination provision” limited Social Security for 2 million people who qualified for benefits and had a separate pension as of December 2021, according to a Congressional Research Service memo.

The “government pension offset” reduces benefits for a spouse or widow who has a government pension, aiming to replicate how Social Security paid to a spouse or widow is typically curtailed based on their own benefits under the program. That provision impacted almost 724,000 people as of December, the CRS said. …

While often a sign that legislation is advancing, Ways and Means’ decision to mark up the measure could instead slow it down. The bill has amassed 299 co-sponsors, giving it enough support for a motion to place it on the “consensus calendar” in mid-July.

The consensus calendar is a procedural tool for bringing bills to the floor, which is open to lawmakers with bipartisan bills that draw enough co-sponsors to reach at least two-thirds of House lawmakers. Twenty-five legislative days after Davis’ motion to put his bill on the consensus calendar, it would’ve been added and eligible for a speedier vote.

Committee consideration strips the bill from the process, so Ways and Means’ markup means Davis can no longer fast-track his measure to the floor without Democratic leaders’ consent.

Democrats have also said Ways and Means will consider a measure from Social Security Subcommittee Chair John B. Larson, D-Conn., but the panel has yet to mark up that bill, which has more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors. …

Broadcast E-Mail On Morale

From: DCO

Sent: Friday, September 16, 2022 11:19 AM

To: 

Subject: DCO Broadcast: Improving Workplace Morale

A Message to All DCO Employees

Last November, many of you participated in the 2021 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, or FEVS.  In reviewing the results, we have learned that in the current environment, staying engaged in your work is difficult and morale has dipped. As you learned in a recent Commissioner’s Broadcast, the agency went from being one of the top five best agencies to work in, to becoming 15 out of 17 among large federal agencies. I have since been working with your regional executives and senior leadership to begin rebuilding our morale and job satisfaction, starting with increased opportunities for engagement between you and your leadership. Beyond this message, I would like to talk with you directly, so I invite you to view my video message.

In the days following this message, you can expect your leaders and management to begin scheduling meetings with you. In the next couple of months, I hope that you take the opportunity to share your thoughts, feedback, and suggestions. We are here to listen, and I encourage you to continue to engage.  I want our workplace to be one that you are proud of, and look forward to participating in every day.

Thank you for your commitment to our Agency and to the American public.

Grace M. Kim

Deputy Commissioner for Operations

I don’t have the video. cth 

Problems With Data SSA Sent To IRS For Economic Impact Payments

     From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

We conducted this review to determine the extent to which the data files the Social Security Administration (SSA) provided the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to facilitate economic impact payments (EIP) under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) were accurate and complete when they were transmitted. ...

The data files SSA sent IRS were not always complete or accurate.

• SSA’s methodology for identifying beneficiaries who received payments in Calendar Year (CY) 2020 or 2021 resulted in the erroneous (1) exclusion of information for 73,541 beneficiaries who received OASDI payments in CYs 2020 and/or 2021 and (2) inclusion of information for 308,603 OASDI beneficiaries who did not receive an OASDI payment in CY 2020 or 2021.
• SSA also erroneously included information on approximately 177,000 beneficiaries and recipients who died before January 1, 2021 and were not likely eligible for payments.
• Finally, SSA included 4,173,293 individuals’ information 2 or more times in the data files provided to the IRS, including instances where duplicate records included different residential address or bank account information for the same individual.

We did not have access to the IRS’ EIP3 payment information. As a result, we could not determine whether these errors resulted in any duplicate payments, non-payment to eligible individuals, deposits into incorrect bank accounts, or mailing of paper checks to incorrect addresses ...

Clarification On CR

     I need to clarify what Social Security is asking for in the Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep government funded after the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Perhaps I misunderstood or perhaps what I had read earlier was really misleading. (I think the latter.) In any case, Social Security is not asking for an extra $800 million in the CR. They're asking to spend money during the CR as if their regular FY 2022 appropriation had been $800 million higher. Page 23. CRs typically allow agencies to spend money at the same rate as during their last regular appropriation. Social Security wants that baseline to be $800 million higher. For instance, if the CR were for three months, they would get an extra $200 million, not $800 million. Of course, giving Social Security this bump would presumably increase their baseline for FY 2023 appropriations consideration, which is even more important.

AARP Urges Increase In Social Security's Administrative Budget

     From a letter from AARP to Congressional leaders:

AARP has great concerns that SSA will be unable to maintain customer service at current levels, deficient as they are, without funding above the current funding level under a continuing resolution. Hence, we believe the Congress should provide an anomaly for SSA that is no less than the anomaly requested by the Administration, $14.1 billion. AARP does appreciate that the Congress provided some additional funding for SSA for FY 2022, but that amount was $847 million less than the President’s FY 2022 Budget request and was far less than the amounts needed to cover uncontrollable increases in its fixed expenses. The Acting Commissioner correctly predicted on April 28, in the FY 2022 Operating Plan the Congress requested, that the $13.341 billion in funding provided in the FY 2022 omnibus would result in “longer lines and wait times in our field offices, and growing backlogs as we work through increased claims.”

The added burden occasioned by the pandemic did not help matters, but a steady erosion in SSA’s administrative funding over the past decade is the primary reason for the rapid decline in customer service. Between 2010 and 2021, SSA’s operating budget shrank by 14 percent even as the number of beneficiaries grew by 22 percent to more than 70 million Americans. The latest available SSA data shows that disability processing times have skyrocketed to an all-time high of 198 days – nearly three times longer than just a decade earlier. SSA also reports that callers to the national 1-800 number today are waiting about 31 minutes, or about ten times longer than callers waited in FY 2012. And, more importantly, the average disability claimant today will likely wait more than 2 years for a final hearing decision while their health worsens – tragically, more than 10,000 people die every year while waiting for a decision.

2022 COLA Predicted To Be 8.7%

     The best current prediction is that this year's Social Security Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) will be 8.7%. The official announcement will come on October 13.

Social Security Seeks $800 Million Bump In CR

    The AARP has written a letter to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security asking pointed questions about the sorry state of service that the agency is giving the public. It's reproduced below. However, I'm pretty sure that the letter is more about influencing Congress to appropriate more money for Social Security than it is about pressuring the Acting Commissioner. At about the same time as it released this letter, AARP also sent out a press release quoting a Social Security official on  the sorry state of the agency's appropriations which has led to an adequate workforce. The press release calls for additional funding for the Social Security Administration. 

    A "Dear Colleague" letter directly from Social Security is even more pointed. It says that the agency is seeking an $800 million bump in the Continuing Resolution (CR) bill which must be passed before the end of this month in order to keep the government operating. The $800 million would be to prevent further deterioration in service. That would be extraordinary. I've never seen anything from Social Security like this letter., which was surely cleared by the White House. Here's some language from it:

... Prior to the pandemic, we had approximately 60,000 employees. Now, we have approximately 56,000 employees – a 7 percent drop. As we lose employees, our service deteriorates. This issue is particularly acute in our State disability determination services (DDS), where we decide initial disability claims and reconsiderations, due to historically high attrition as workloads become less reasonable with fewer staff. ...

Claimants are currently waiting an average of six months for a decision on their initial disability claims, which is unacceptable. This is two months longer than they waited in FY 2019. Wait times for our National 800 Number have also increased significantly. Callers are waiting over 30 minutes, on average – more than 10 minutes longer than in FY 2019. ...

As a result of the pandemic, the backlog in initial disability claims is approaching the one-million mark (929,000 as of August 2022, an increase of 189,000 claims from the end of last fiscal year, September 2021). Insufficient funding for staffing and overtime to reduce this backlog would result in increasing wait times. ...

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