Take a listen to this 31 minute podcast interview with Laura Haltzel, a former Associate Conmissioner at Social Security who left the agency over the horrible changes brought about by the Trump Administration. Her testimony about the horrible pressures placed on agency employees is especially striking.
Haltzel should be lauded for her bravery in speaking out. The Trump Administration has dealt with its critics in extraordinary brutal ways.
Trump’s Commerce Secretary says that if Social Security payments don’t get paid that the ones who would complain the most are “fraudsters.”
From Bloomberg:
The Trump administration is threatening to all but shut down the Social Security Administration in response to a judge’s ruling blocking activities by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — an action that could delay payments to millions of beneficiaries caught in the middle of the legal battle.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek said the temporary restraining order issued Thursday is so broad in blocking access to data by “DOGE affiliates” that it could apply to any Social Security employee.
“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek said. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.” …
“In an 134-page decision, a radical leftist-judge ordered Social Security Administration employees not to implement the President’s government-efficiency agenda,” said White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields. “This is yet another activist judge abusing the judicial system to try and sabotage the President’s attempts to rid the government of waste, fraud, and abuse.” …
The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced the immediate resumption of debt collection activities through the Treasury Offset Program (TOP) for debts accrued prior to March 2020. This decision comes after a suspension of collections due to the economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Treasury Offset Program, administered by the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service, is a centralized program designed to collect delinquent debts owed to federal and state agencies by intercepting Federal and state payments. Since 1992, SSA has referred delinquent Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) debts to TOP as mandated by law.
Prior to the suspension in March 2020, SSA had successfully collected almost $2 billion in previously unrecoverable delinquent debt through TOP. The program is essential for maintaining the integrity of the OASDI and SSI programs.
“Resuming collections through the Treasury Offset Program is a critical step in our commitment to being good stewards of taxpayer funds and ensuring the integrity of our programs,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We are dedicated to recovering overpayments while providing individuals with the necessary information and options to address their debts.”
The Department of Treasury has begun collecting debts SSA referred to Treasury before March 2020, impacting an estimated 280,000 individuals with a collective debt balance of $2.7 billion.
The United States District Court for the District of Maryland had granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in a lawsuit filed by a labor union concerning DOGE access to records on Social Security claimants. This access is now blocked.
From The Hill:
Senate Republicans want Elon Musk to stop talking about Social Security, and the Department of Government Efficiency to leave it alone. …
They warn that Social Security reform is known as the “third rail” of politics for a reason: Any party that touches it is likely to get zapped come Election Day.
And Republicans fear that reductions in staff and field offices will boomerang on them, predicting constituents will grow frustrated if it becomes more difficult and time-consuming to address problems related to benefit claims.
They warn that Social Security reform is known as the “third rail” of politics for a reason: Any party that touches it is likely to get zapped come Election Day.
“It doesn’t help the president when you have somebody who clearly is not worried about whether or not Social Security benefits are going to be there for him” leading the effort to shrink the Social Security Administration, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), referring to Musk, the world’s richest person. …
A press release from Social Security's Office of Inspector General:
Receiving accurate reports of death is a major and ongoing concern for the Social Security Administration (SSA). A recent report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) illustrates the need for SSA to continue to improve its death reporting processing systems.
According to the report entitled, “Rejection of State Death Reports,” from November 2018 through October 2022, states throughout the country submitted about 13.7 million death reports to SSA. SSA’s Death Information Processing System (DIPS) accepted about 12.2 million and rejected nearly 1.5 million (11 percent) state death reports. SSA OIG determined that SSA rejected over 1.4 million state death reports that did not pass DIPS verification checks. SSA uses DIPS to verify the death information it receives. DIPS rejects death reports that do not pass its verification checks to prevent posting erroneous death information to SSA records.
It is only after death information passes DIPS verifications that SSA records the information to the Numident (a database that stores information for all Social Security numberholders) and terminates payments to deceased beneficiaries. The verification checks prevented DIPS from posting incorrect or duplicate death information to SSA records for approximately 773,000 of the 1.4 million death reports submitted by states.
However, SSA OIG reported an estimated 702,000 of the 1.4 million state death reports that were rejected contained valid death data but did not pass DIPS verification checks. DIPS rejected most death reports when it detected a verification date submitted by the reporter was different than the latest verification date in SSA’s records. When this occurs, DIPS rejects the report without validating whether the reported death information is correct. This delays posting of the date of death to the Numident and payment records and results in continued payments to deceased beneficiaries until SSA receives and processes the death information.
This issue led to improper payments to beneficiaries of $327 million and could lead to an additional $108 million over the next year if SSA does not add death information to payment records for beneficiaries in current payment status. Moreover, SSA employees must manually process the rejected death records. It is estimated it will require SSA employees to spend 199,000 hours to process this workload, costing $12 million in administrative expenses. OIG made three recommendations to improve the accuracy of the death information in its records to which SSA agreed. See the full report here.
These things are vastly more complicated than DOGE can imagine.
