WEP Reform Still Possible?

     From Roll Call:

Key lawmakers are eyeing a possible year-end tax package as their best shot at offering a fix for a Social Security provision that many on Capitol Hill believe unfairly cuts benefits for public employees who also have government pensions.

The issue was thrust into the spotlight after bipartisan supporters of legislation to permanently boost Social Security payouts by hundreds of dollars a month for nearly 3 million individuals were on the cusp of forcing their bill to the House floor using a special procedural tool.

But House Ways and Means Committee leaders who have been working on their own less expansive compromise plan, one they believe has a better chance of becoming law, turned off the procedural gambit by instead marking the bill up on Sept. 20.

The House’s top tax writers believe they’re close to agreement on addressing the “windfall elimination provision,” which lowers Social Security payouts for individuals who qualify for pensions from their work as teachers, police officers, government employees and other public sector jobs and for Social Security benefits from separate employment. ...

Senators Complain About Late Trustees Reports

From a press release: 

U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Senate Finance Committee Republicans sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting the agency monitor the Managing Trustee’s flagrant disregard for statutory deadlines.  Required by law, the Medicare and Social Security Trustees reports are to be issued no later than April 1, yet the 2021 and 2022 reports were issued August 31 and June 2, respectively.  ...  

The Biden Administration has repeatedly ignored Congressional inquiries as to why the trustees reports have not been submitted in a timely manner.  Neither Treasury Secretary Yellen nor the Board of Trustees have signaled any intent to modify internal procedure regulating management of the report schedule, nor have they adopted previous GAO recommendations to improve communication with Congress.  It is the responsibility of the Treasury Secretary to provide these reports to Congress in a timely manner, as required by law, or provide Congress and the American people with explanations for late work.  ...

    These delays are annoying but it's not like the Trustees Reports have arrived on time during Republican administrations. I suspect the delays have to do with staffing at Social Security's Office of Chief Actuary but I don't know. The delay certainly isn't a major problem.

WEP And GPO Elimination Bill Faces Obstacles

     From the Monroe (LA) News-Star:

A bill to eliminate the Social Security penalty for workers with government pensions and their spouses hit a snag in the U.S. House this week, forcing Louisiana U.S. Reps. Garret Graves and Julia Letlow into a last-ditch effort to keep it alive.

Graves and Letlow, both Republicans and co-authors of the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) by Illinois Democrat Rodney Davis, thought they'd secured enough support in August to force a vote on the House floor, but they blamed a procedural maneuver from Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for stalling the vote.

Davis, Graves and Letlow have scheduled a press conference Thursday morning to announce an effort to secure 218 colleagues' signatures on a petition to trigger a floor vote, but time is running out for the current Congress, which will likely meet only a handful of days before and after the mid-term elections.

"Only when we were on the cusp of forcing a floor vote did Democratic leadership take action to ... essentially bog it down in a backlog," Letlow, of Start, said during a House floor speech Wednesday. ...

Average Rent Is $1,500 A Month But SSI Is $750 A Month

     From NPR:

After two months of sleeping in the Salvation Army Center of Hope homeless shelter in Charlotte, N.C., Margaret Davis has had no luck finding an apartment she can afford. ...

Davis is homeless even though she receives funds from the Supplemental Security Income program ...

Davis' job options are limited because she gets dialysis treatment three times a week for kidney failure. As she prepares to spend another night in the crowded shelter, she checks her phone to see whether a doctor wants her to have her left leg amputated.

"My therapist is trying to help me stay positive, but sometimes I just want to end this life and start over," Davis says. ...

Falling into homelessness is not a new issue for people dependent on supplemental income from the Social Security Administration. But moving recipients out of shelters, crime-ridden motels and tent encampments and into stable housing has been getting harder, according to academic researchers, nonprofit attorneys and advocates for people with disabilities. ...

Rapidly rising rents and inflation deserve a share of the blame.

But SSI recipients, activists and others say the issue also underscores for them how the program itself locks millions of people into housing instability and deep poverty even as President Biden promises to fix it. ...

The amount of money Davis says she gets each month from the program is about $60 more than the maximum amount offered 10 years ago, when she first started receiving the benefit. Yet the average apartment in Charlotte, where Davis lives, now rents for $1,500 a month — about 70% more than it did nearly a decade ago, according to Zumper, which has been tracking rental prices since 2014. ...

If a person applies for federal disability income, they can wait months or even years to get benefits. ...

The situation was made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic because the Social Security Administration closed more than 1,200 field offices across the nation and kept them shuttered for roughly two years.

That decision left hundreds of thousands of needy people unable to seek benefits, since phone lines were jammed with calls and the agency provides no way to submit applications online, says David Weaver, a former associate commissioner for research, demonstration, and employment support at the Social Security Administration.

"The number of SSI awards just collapsed," Weaver says. ...

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 ...