This Is Ridiculous

    Social Security's continued use of wildly outdated vocational information in determining disability continues to draw media attention. How much longer will the agency go on with the pretense that it's trying to develop a new source of vocational information? What's it been now, 12 years or more, that they've been working on this and they still can't get the answers they want?

New Headcount Numbers

    The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated numbers showing the headcount of employees at each agency. Note that these numbers do not tell the whole story. They don't account for part time employees nor for overtime. Overtime is a huge part of the story at Social Security. A Full Time Equivalent (FTE) report would cover that but we seldom see FTE reports.  Here are Social Security's numbers as of December with earlier headcount numbers for comparison:

• December, 2022 58,916
  
• September, 2022 57,754
  
• June, 2022 58,332
  
• March, 2022 59,257
  
• December, 2021 60,422
  
• September, 2021 59,808
  
• June 2021 59,707
  
• March 2021 60,675
• December 2020 61,816
  
• September 2020 61,447
  
• June 2020 60,515
  
• March 2020 60,659
  
• December 2019 61,969
  
• December 2018 62,946
  
• December 2017 62,777
• December 2016 63,364
• December 2015 65,518
• December 2014 65,430
• December 2013 61,957
• December 2012 64,538
• December 2010 70,270
• December 2009 67,486
• December 2008 63,733

Continued Turmoil In France Over Plan To Increase Retirement Age

     From the New York Times:

President Emmanuel Macron vowed to stay the course on Tuesday after his government barely survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament that ensured the passage of his unpopular pension overhaul but did little to quell the swirling political uncertainty about the future of his second term. ...

Despite months of massive street protests and strikes, Mr. Macron has not said much publicly about his pension overhaul, which increases the legal retirement age to 64, from 62, and he had mostly left members of his cabinet to defend it. ...

With 278 votes in favor, the main no-confidence motion on Monday fell only nine votes short of succeeding — a much smaller margin than initially expected, and a sign that Mr. Macron’s political troubles are far from over.

Even some lawmakers within Mr. Macron’s own party, Renaissance, have expressed reservations the pension changes, and a few have gone so far as to suggest he should try to calm the country by setting aside the pension overhaul instead of forging ahead with it. ...

GOP Threatens Disaster

     House Republicans have proposed that appropriations for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, which begins on October 1, 2023, be cut back to the FY 2022 levels. Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee asked heads of major agencies what that would mean for their agencies. Social Security responded that going back to FY 2022 numbers would mean they would have to:

• Close field offices and shorten hours we are open to the public, cutting off vital access to face-to-face service delivery.
• Increase the amount of time individuals wait for a decision on their initial disability claim, leading to an average wait time of 9 months, or up to 30 percent longer than today.
• Implement a hiring freeze for the agency and the DDS, which means a reduction of over 5,000 employees who are essential to processing retirement claims, making disability decisions, answering the National 800 Number, and issuing new and replacement Social Security cards.
• Furlough staff for over 4 weeks and lay off approximately 6,000 employees—producing even longer wait times than customers experience today on our National 800 Number and in our field offices, causing delays to decisions on retirement claims and delays in processing Social Security cards and verification of Social Security Numbers for individuals seeking employment.
• Eliminate overtime pay, reducing our ability to keep pace with claims and other service requests
  

Nothing Has Changed

 

Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing

     From Reuters:

A Republican U.S. senator's accusation on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had lied during a tussle over the future of the Social Security program obscured behind-the-scenes talks between the White House and lawmakers that have been underway for months, according to sources. 

The war of words came in a Senate Finance Committee hearing when Republican Senator Bill Cassidy asked Yellen if Democratic President Joe Biden was aware that Social Security funds will run out within the next decade unless Congress shores up the popular retirement program with 66 million beneficiaries.

When Yellen responded that Biden "stands ready to work" with lawmakers, Cassidy shot back, "That's a lie because when a bipartisan group of senators has repeatedly requested to meet with him about Social (Security) ... we have not heard anything on our requests."

For several months now, Cassidy and independent Senator Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, have tried to address Social Security underfunding as approximately 10,000 baby boomers retire every day. ...

 Cassidy and King are leading a group of workhorse senators that include Republican Mike Rounds, Democrat Tim Kaine and independent Kyrsten Sinema. ...

"It's going to be tough. I don't think we should sugarcoat it. But there are serious conversations in the Senate ... on a package that would improve Social Security's finances," said Shai Akabas, economic policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank in Washington. ...

    The Republican plan is to have a very few Republicans work with a very few Democrats to come up with a wildly unpopular plan that includes an increase in full retirement age. Republicans will provide only a few votes to pass the plan. It will only be passed if Biden strong arms Democrats and probably not even then. Republicans will then run against Democrats on the issue.

    Biden won't fall for this.

    By the way, I'm sure that the Democrats involved with these negotiations are well intentioned but they're fools. This is a dead end.

Probably No Big COLA This Year

     From CBS:

Seniors and millions of others on Social Security get an annual cost-of-living adjustment (or COLA) that's geared toward aligning their monthly checks with inflation. Next year, that COLA could be 3% — or even lower — based on recent inflationary trends, according to an early estimate from the Senior Citizens League. 

The estimate is based on the 12-month average rate for the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), a basket of goods and services typically bought by workers, according to Mary Johnson, the Social Security and Medicare policy analyst at the Senior Citizens League.  ...

What's Going On At OIG?

     The leadership of Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG), primarily the Inspector General, Gail Ennis, has come under fire recently. 

    It's far from all that OIG does but they issue various reports, mostly about audits they have conducted. Here are the number of audits for recent years:

• 2020 -- 55
• 2021 -- 47
• 2022 -- 38
• 2023 (so far) -- 1