From Social Security. Note they still refer to it as ODAR. How many years has it been since that name was changed? Has the overtime now ended at OHO?:
 |
| Click on image to view full size |
Mar 13, 2025
Change Of Plans
From the Washington Post:
The Social Security Administration late Wednesday abandoned plans it was considering to end phone service for millions of Americans filing retirement and disability claims after The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team was weighing the change to root out alleged fraud. The shift would have directed elderly and disabled people to rely on the internet and in-person field offices to process their claims, curtailing a service that 73 million Americans have relied on for decades to access earned government benefits. However, Social Security and White House officials said the administration will still move ahead with another far more limited element of the original proposal: Customers will no longer be able to change a direct deposit routing number or other bank information by phone.
Disability Determination Backlogs To Soar
From David Weaver, a retired Social Security employee, writing for The Hill:
Projections indicate that, in less than two years, there will be a staggering 2.5 million people in Social Security’s disability backlog. That figure is higher than the population of 20 U.S. states and territories. Thus, as we look to the midterm elections next year, President Trump will be dealing with a very large group of Americans who aren’t receiving timely decisions on their benefit applications.
About 70 percent of the projected backlog at the end of fiscal 2026 will be at the initial level of determination. ...
The backlog could easily turn out to be well above 2.5 million cases if current levels of government staffing decline, assumed productivity gains among government workers fail to materialize, or the country experiences a recession and displaced workers with health problems turn to Social Security for help. ...
The large backlog will be a national driver of homelessness, a situation that occurs with some frequency among disability applicants. ...
Trump’s first instinct may be to look for a technological fix. His executive order creating DOGE stated its purpose as “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” In practice, however, DOGE has become focused on personnel policy and cost cutting, rather than bleeding-edge technology.
Social Security recently summarized its DOGE-related activities. If members of the public thought the young engineers of DOGE were going to revolutionize technology in the government, they will be disappointed. The Social Security list is basically composed of budget cuts, including two big items: a reduction in the agency’s technology budget and a hiring freeze applied to federal employees and state workers who help process disability claims. ...
I am pessimistic about the situation. The present course can lead only to disaster but this will not be apparent to the Trump Administration until the disaster is well upon us. They will then try desperately to turn the spigot back on only to find out that there's only so much that can be done until new personnel are hired and trained and that takes quite some time. And, of course, Weaver is only writing here about impending backlogs of disability determinations and that's only one part of the problem. Addressing field office, teleservice center and payment center backlogs, which will also mushroom, will be even more difficult, especially with a gutted management structure.
Mar 12, 2025
Tough Questions
Two Senators have some tough questions for Social Security Commissioner nominee Bisignano.
DOGE Plans To Cut Telephone Service
From the Washington Post:
Social Security leadership is now considering a proposal to end telephone service for claims processing and direct-deposit bank account transactions, instead directing elderly and disabled people to the internet and in-person field offices, according to one of the people and the records. The change would disrupt Social Security’s internal operations and threaten its ability to serve the public, current and former officials warned, just as DOGE is targeting the agency for across-the-board staff cuts of more than 12 percent. They also noted that the agency’s toll-free number is a mainstay for older customers who do not have online access or who have trouble navigating the internet. …
Dudek Realizes He’s The Villain
ProPublica obtained a recording of last week’s meeting between Acting Commissioner Dudek and claimant advocates. Here are a couple of excerpts from their write up:
… Dudek’s remarks come at a time when many Social Security employees are feeling confused about Dudek, his role versus DOGE’s and what it all means for the future of the Social Security Administration, according to ProPublica’s conversations with more than two dozen agency staffers. Many said that because the recent cuts at the agency have been carried out in a piecemeal fashion, the public doesn’t seem to be grasping the totality of what is happening to the program, which is having its 90th anniversary this year. …Meanwhile, DOGE, which Musk has portrayed as a squad of techno-efficiency geniuses, has actually undermined the efficiency of Social Security’s delivery of services in multiple ways, many employees said. Under DOGE, several Social Security IT contracts have been canceled or scaled back. Now, five employees told ProPublica, their tech systems seem to be crashing nearly every day, leading to more delays in serving beneficiaries. This was already a problem, they said, but it has gotten “much worse” and is “not the norm,” two employees said.
And under a policy that DOGE has applied at many agencies, front-line Social Security staff have been restricted from using their government purchase cards for any sum above $1. This has become a significant problem at some field offices, especially when workers need to obtain or make copies of vital records or original documents — birth certificates and the like — that are needed to process some Social Security claims, one management-level employee said. …
“I’m the villain,” he said in the recording. “I’m not going to have a job after this. I get it.”
Webinar With Former Commissioners
The National Academy of Social Insurance is sponsoring a webinar on “Recent Changes at the Social Security Administration: What's at Stake for Customer Service” on March 13 at noon Eastern. Former Commissioners O’Malley and Astrue as well as others will be speaking. It appears to be free and open to the public.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)