Senators Express Concern Over Office Closures

     Senators Susan Collins and Shelley Moore Capito have written the Commissioner of Social Security to express their concern that the Commissioner has announced the closure of Social Security offices on the afternoons of May 10 and May 24 to give stressed out employees a break.

    I understand what the Commissioner has done. Social Security's staff morale could certainly use a shot in the arm and giving extra time off is one way to do that. However, the biggest factor in producing poor staff morale is relentless workload pressures. By closing the offices the workload pressures got a little worse. This seems counter productive to me.

A Recent Visitor To Social Security Headquarters

 

Social Security Finally Acknowledges That Phony Mailing Dates Are A Problem

    The dates that Social Security places on its outgoing mail are mostly fictitious. Most outgoing mail is printed and mailed from a central printing operation that serves the entire agency.  This correspondence bears the date upon which some agency employee sent it to be printed but the date printed and mailed is actually several days later. 

    There are time limits to file appeals. If these time limits are based upon a date that is several days prior to the date that the correspondence was actually mailed, the claimant is being cheated out of those days to file an appeal. Appeals can be dismissed -- and have been dismissed -- based upon these phony dates.

    Social Security has finally acknowledged the problem. The agency's HALLEX manual for hearings and appeals has been amended. Now, notices sent out centrally will be presumed to have been sent out three days later than the date they bear.  This is in addition to the five days given for the mail itself.

    I have not seen this changed in the POMS manual that serves the whole agency but maybe I've missed it. It's needed there since appeals also get dismissed at field offices and payment centers. 

    Wouldn't it be simpler to put accurate dates on these notices to begin with? This doesn't seem to be a problem beyond the limits of human ingenuity. 

Interview With The Commissioner

    From things said by Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley during an interview conducted by reporter Lisa Rein of the Washington Post:

... I wasn’t asked to come here because everything was going great, right? We’re in a customer service crisis; that cannot be denied. ...

There is a theme running through this stuff [I've done]: It’s small.

[W]e executed on a bunch of little short-term, quick wins. Our new general counsel has probably said yes in 60 days more than any [Office of General Counsel] leader has said in 10 years. ...

I have been unpleasantly surprised by how dire the staffing situation is. ...

[W]e’ll be rolling out an action plan for the remainder of the year that will better organize over 150 actions under 21 initiatives, all of which are intended to take a bite out of these processing times [at Disability Determination Services]. ...

Clearly we need a more modern assessment of the widely available occupations out there [used in disability determination]. And we are taking a fresh look at this project [to create a new occupational data system], and at what we forecasted we might have to spend. ... Many members of Congress expressed their concern about the amount of money that we have put into this and the amount of time that it has taken. There’s still a systems component, and that also has a price tag. I would say it’s a big policy issue. There will be some winners, some losers. ...

Unhappy Employees

     From the Partnership For Public Service report on Best Places to Work ranking for the Social Security Administration. (The rankings are of agencies with large workforces):

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    Parts of the agency are also ranked against all federal agencies. The personnel under the Deputy Commissioner for Hearings Operations ranked 429 of 459 agencies. The personnel of Social Security's Office of Inspector General ranked 430 of 459 agencies. The personnel under the Deputy Commissioner for Operations ranked 456 of 459 agencies.

Top Baby Names In Each State

 

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A New Funding Mechanism For Agency Operations?

     The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has an unusual funding mechanism. The law says it can draw funds “reasonably necessary to carry out” its operations without an annual appropriation. This has been challenged on the grounds that it violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution which provides that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” To the great surprise of many the Supreme Court has just upheld the CFPB funding mechanism. 

    This decision suggests that it would be constitutional if there were a similar funding mechanism in the Social Security Act for agency operations, such as a certain small percentage of benefits paid. If I remember correctly, the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of agency management personnel, has called for this in the past.

    Would such a thing ever come to Social Security? Only if Democrats control the White House, House of Representatives and Senate and want to do it and can get past the filibuster in the Senate. This could not be done at the moment. Maybe it will never be possible. However, my guess is that this will be proposed. What we've got at the moment is seriously dysfunctional. 

    By the way, if CFPB had lost this case, doubt would have been thrown on the funding mechanism for Social Security benefits themselves. Annual appropriations might have been required for benefit payments, so this CFPB case was a big win for Social Security.

Surprise!

     From Yahoo Finance:

He lived a complete life in the U.S. He went to school, worked in law enforcement, got married, raised a family, paid his taxes and voted in elections.

But in 2020 — when Klass [oddly the article never mentions Klass' first name] was gearing down to live out his retirement in Clearwater, Florida — one of the benefits of a post-working life he thought that he earned was suddenly ripped away from him.

 Klass received a shocking letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA) stating he would not be sent the $1,649.90 monthly retirement benefits he’d previously been approved for because he’s not actually a U.S. citizen. ...

Klass was born in Canada. His mom was Canadian and his father was American, born and raised in New York. The family moved to the U.S. in 1959, and Klass has lived in the country ever since — believing he was a dual citizen.

He told the news station his roots were never questioned when he secured critical pieces of ID, including his Social Security card, driver’s license and voter registration card. He was approved to serve as a marine in the U.S. military and later worked for the New Jersey state police. He says his citizenship status was never questioned.

“I’ve been voting for over 40 years,” he chuckled, adding: “I guess I’m in a lot of trouble.”  ...

    I've had a client who was in a similar situation -- born in France to a woman who then married a U.S. citizen. The family moved to the U.S. when the child was stil quite young. The parents were supposed to file some paperwork so the child would officially be a U.S. citizen but they never got around to it. The child was unaware of the problem until Social Security discovered it and denied benefits.

    By the way, should this foreigner be locked up for voting all those times in the U.S.?