Social Security's Telephone Service Is Terrible

    From The Social Security Administration’s Telephone Service Disruptions, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

SSA's telephone systems experienced an increasing number of service disruptions at the end of 2022 as it maintained operations under the temporary Unification platform. From May 2021 through December 2022, 40 telephone service disruptions occurred on the national 800-number and field office systems. The majority of these disruptions occurred from October through December 2022 and involved the 800-number. These disruptions resulted in dropped calls, increased wait times and, in some instances, unavailable automated services. Wait times increased as SSA employees could not take calls during several of the outages. Further, such functionalities as the “estimated wait time” and the “call back assist” features, which callers used to avoid waiting on the telephone to speak with an SSA employee, were no longer available to callers. The rate of unanswered calls for those who opted to speak with an employee during each of the service disruptions ranged from 32 to as high as 80 percent. ...

    I'll pull out some eye-catching charts from this report in coming days.

Direct Express Problems

     The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on the Direct Express Debit Card program. Claimants who don't have a financial account into which benefits can be deposited can receive their money through a Comerica Bank debit card. The Comerica deal, which is with the Department of the Treasury, not Social Security, has been criticized because of high fees to benefits recipients and because people complained that they were assigned a debit card without asking for one. The OIG report found that there were some Social recipients complaining about receiving a debit card without asking for one. The OIG report also found that there has been a fair amount of money returned to Social Security by Comerica because of unfinished enrollments and that Social Security has been slow in making sure the claimants involved received their money. OIG found 39 cases where a claimant had been owed over $100,000.

Proposed Regs On Rental Subsidy Execption

     This is the description given for proposed new regulations that the Social Security Administration has sent to the Office of Management and Budget for approval:

We propose expanding the rental subsidy exception beyond the 7 states to which it already applies so that it applies nationwide. Accordingly, our nationwide policy would be that a business arrangement exists when the amount of monthly rent required to be paid equals or exceeds the presumed maximum value or the current market value, whichever is less. We expect that the proposed change would improve service delivery by making our policy uniform throughout the country and reducing administrative burdens for individuals seeking access to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

    I'm not familiar with this. Could someone explain it? Why is it only in seven states now? How has it worked in those seven states? 

    The only thing available to the public now is this brief description.

    At the rate that proposed regulations have been advancing, it will be two years or more before this could become a final rule and that's assuming there's no change in the party controlling the White House after next year's election

A Good Start

    From a press release:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), today introduced legislation to remove a Social Security work disincentive for Americans with disabilities. ...

If an adult has a severe medical condition that began before age 22, they may be eligible for a Social Security benefit called the Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefit. Their benefits are based on their parent’s Social Security earnings, in the same way that benefits of a child under age 18 would be. However, under current law some of these young adults fear that if they try to work they will lose future DAC benefits, which are often higher than any benefit they may qualify on their own. This fear inhibits the ability of Americans with disabilities to explore their ability to work as they transition to adult life.

The Work Without Worry Act promotes financial security by ensuring that any earnings from work – no matter how much – will not prevent an individual from receiving a Social Security DAC benefit from their parent’s work history if they have an eligible medical condition that began before age 22. ...

This change is estimated to improve the lives of nearly 6,000 individuals with disabilities over the next 10 years and would have no significant effect on the Social Security Trust Funds. ...

     Now, how about we do something about the marriage penalty that cuts off DAC if a recipient marries.

SSI Is A Mess

     Gabrielle Emmanuel has put out a long piece for WBUR on the problems that SSI claimants, particularly children and their parents, face in filing claims, dealing with the Social Security Administration and staying on benefits. 

    SSI is disappearing before our eyes. Social Security lacks the money it needs to administer the program. There's all the money in the world to cut people off benefits but precious little to help people get on the SSI benefits they deserve and to help them stay on those benefits.

Union Complaints About Training

     From Government Executive:

... Rich Couture, president of AFGE Council 215 and the union’s chief negotiator with Social Security management, said a poor “self-taught” training model employed by the agency is leaving new hires unprepared for their duties and already looking for work elsewhere. Council 215 represents Office of Hearing Operations staffers.

“We have folks leaving the agency, because the training stinks,” Couture said. “I’d use another word, but we’re in polite company, but the training is terrible. The mentoring, based on an agency focus group report we just got last week, it looked like it was written by us, saying all the same things [we’ve been saying]. There’s not enough time; there’s not enough accommodation to make sure that it actually works. So instead, our folks are telling us, and they’re telling management when they leave, ‘I feel unsupported, I feel unprepared and I feel set up to fail.’ ” ...

A Sad But Familiar Story

    A television station in Denver presents the now all too familiar story of a disabled person becoming homeless because of delays in processing their Social Security disability claim. Here's a quote from the claimant's attorney:

"We had to re-fax the same paperwork six times over a period of about six months," the attorney explained. "But it's not just the faxing. It's calling, 'Did you receive the fax? No, we haven't received the fax,' Even my staff, when they call into the field office, they will wait on hold for sometimes an hour — if the call is even answered at all."

    This isn't just happening in isolated cases. It happens all the time. How is this acceptable?

Turning 18 Doesn't Make You Healthier

     Mark Betancourt writes for Mother Jones about the problems caused by kicking large numbers of disabled people off SSI when they turn 18. Here's the key quote:

... Youth who lost benefits at 18 were twice as likely to be charged with a crime as they were to hold a job. Compared with those who stayed on SSI, they were 60 percent more likely to be incarcerated. Most were charged with income-generating crimes like theft, fraud, or prostitution. And they didn’t just commit crimes at a higher rate immediately after losing their checks but did so over the ensuing two decades. The study also found that increased spending on policing, adjudication, and incarceration nearly erased any government savings from reduced payouts; the added expenses far outstripped the savings when victims’ costs were included. ...