We Must Remember

      Thirty years ago today 16 employees of the Social Security Administration lost their lives when a federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed by a man with a grievance against the federal government. Unlike past years I have seen no press release or tweet remembering this solemn date. Here is the list of those Social Security employees who lost their lives that day. 

1. Richard A. Allen — Claims Representative — Had 22 years of service with SSA. A Vietnam veteran, he was born in Bailey's Crossroads, Va., and won a scholarship to Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Okla. He is survived by a daughter and his mother.  

2. Saundra G. Avery — Development Clerk — Worked nine years for SSA. She was a native of Danville, Ark., and was active in her church. A graduate of Central State University in Edmond, Okla., Sandy is survived by her parents and a brother.  

3. Oleta C. Biddy — Service Representative — Worked 20 years for SSA. Oleta was born in Rosebud, Ark., and was active as a Sunday school teacher and taught children's choir at her church. She is survived by her husband, a son, two grandchildren and two sisters.  

4. Carol L. Bowers — Operations Supervisor — Had 33 years of service at SSA, starting as a clerk-steno in December 1961. Carol was born in Chandler, Okla., and is survived by her husband and a son.  

5. Sharon L. Chesnut — Claims Representative — Worked for SSA for 21 years and was an active member of her church. She was born in Oklahoma City and is survived by a daughter, her mother, a sister, a stepson and a stepdaughter.  

6. Katherine L Cregan Service Representative Had 14 years of SSA service. Kathy was a native of West Memphis, Ark. A widow, Kathy is survived by three sons and five grandchildren.  

7. Margaret E. Goodson — Claims Representative — Had almost 21 years of service with SSA. Margaret enjoyed motorcycling and camping trips with her husband. Other survivors include three sons, one daughter, three brothers and four grandchildren.  

8. Ethel L. Griffin — Service Representative — Had 19 years of service with SSA, as a claims clerk. She was born in Illinois, where she attended Southwest Jr. College and the College of DuPage. Ethel is survived by her husband, two children and three grandchildren.  

9. Ronald V. Harding — Service Representative — Had more than 30 years of government service. He served two years in the Army and also worked for the Air Force before joining SSA in 1967. A respected musician, Ron is survived by two sons, two daughters, his parents, two brothers and a sister.  

10. Raymond L. Johnson — Senior Community Service Volunteer National Indian Council on Aging worker, was stationed in the Oklahoma City DO for the past six months helping with Head Start programs for Seminole children. Born in Lawton, Okla., Raymond is survived by his wife, seven children, 21 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and a brother. 

11. Derwin W. Miller — Claims Representative — Worked at SSA for five years. Derwin was an Arkansas native and a member of the Army Reserve. He was hired through the Outstanding Scholar Program. He is survived by a daughter, his parents, two brothers, a sister and two grandmothers.  

12. Charlotte A. Thomas — Contact Representative — Had 12 years of service with SSA. She was employed previously with the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services. Charlotte is survived by a son.  

13. Michael G. Thompson — Field Representative — Worked for SSA for 19 years. He served in the Army for more than two years. A Vietnam veteran, he is survived by his wife, three sons, one daughter, his mother, two brothers and one sister.  

14. Robert N. Walker, Jr. — Claims Representative — Had 15 years of service with SSA. He served in the Army for three years. Born in Jacksonville, Fla., Bob attended the University of Florida. He is survived by his wife, one son, three stepsons, one stepdaughter and 12 grandchildren. (See in-depth story.)  

15. Julie M. Welch — Claims Representative — Was hired under the Outstanding Scholar Program in August 1994. Julie was a recent graduate of Marquette University and had studied abroad at the University of Madrid. She is survived by her parents, a brother and a stepbrother.   

16. William S. Williams — Operations Supervisor — Had 20 years of service with SSA. An Oklahoma native, he had a degree in mathematics from Oklahoma State University. Steve is survived by his wife, three daughters, his father, two sisters, one brother and two grandmothers.

Social Security Reinstating Immigrants Falsely Declared Dead

      From the Washington Post:

Immigrants falsely labeled dead by the Social Security Administration are showing up at field offices with documents proving they are alive, leading staff to reinstate nearly three dozen people over the past week, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.
The immigrants who have requested a reversal and been reinstated in Social Security databases include a Haitian asylum seeker and a minor child, the records show. Some immigrants have shown up with driver’s licenses and work permits to prove their legitimacy, the records show. Others have arrived bearing letters of notification that they received from their states declaring them dead. …

Records obtained by The Post show the immigrants listed as dead include a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, two 16-year-olds and four 17-year-olds, as well as people in their 70s and one 83-year-old. Agency staff later checked some of the youngest individuals against data the agency uses to research criminal history and could find no evidence of crimes or law enforcement interactions, The Post reported. The records show 6,161 people were added to the file in early April at the request of DHS, along with an additional 102 a few days later. As of Friday, Social Security staff had restored 31 of these people to the rolls, declaring them living again, the records show. ..

     I wonder if DOGE or the White House knew about these reinstatements.

Chatbot For SSA Employees

      From Nextgov/FCW:

The Social Security Administration is introducing a new chatbot for employees powered by generative artificial intelligence, according to an internal email obtained by Nextgov/FCW. 

“This initiative aligns with our commitment to leverage innovative technology to improve efficiency, support our mission and provide a secured way to use GenAI,” read a Wednesday email to staff announcing the new “Agency Support Companion.” …

SSA told staff that the new chatbot is meant to help with content creation and summarization, as well as research and coding assistance. Staff have to watch a four-minute video with guidelines and best practices to access it.

The new tool uses an OpenAI model and wasn’t trained or fine-tuned on any SSA data, according to an agency FAQ document obtained by Nextgov/FCW. No testing was done internally to assess the application against SSA-specific questions, it said.

The chatbot was trained on data up to October 2023, according to the FAQ, which also warned that employees should validate its responses and not feed it personally identifiable information. …

     Sounds a little vague on how this is to be used. Could it turn out to be a solution in search of a problem? 

DOGE Loses In Federal Court Again

      A District Court in Maryland has issued a preliminary injunction forbidding DOGE access to non-anonymized  Social Security records.

It’s A Zero Sum Game

      From David Weaver writing for The Hill:

… The start-up administrative costs of the Social Security Fairness Act [which eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset] are plausibly about $200 million. When Congress was considering the full-year continuing resolution in March, it simply chose not to provide the Social Security Administration with sufficient funding to implement the law. As a result, Congress has created a zero-sum environment at the agency: additional service to one group means less service to another. 

In the months since enactment of the SSFA, the Social Security Administration has taken an additional 146,000 new benefit applications related to the new law. That means 146,000 other Americans did not have their applications considered. Additionally, the agency has had to field 450,000 calls (6,000-7,000 per day) from the public requiring agency staff to explain the new law and resolve benefit problems. That means 450,000 other Americans did not get their Social Security problems resolved.  

 

Most alarmingly, the agency’s automation efforts for retroactive payments fell short. Social Security indicated that automation would result in these payments being deposited in bank accounts “by the end of March.” After its automation runs in March, however, there were still 500,000 to 700,000 cases to be processed. These will have to be handled manually over time.   …

The Social Security Administration plans to prioritize this manual workload, but all that means is that up to 700,000 other Americans in the agency’s very large payment backlog will not have their benefit payments processed.  …

Hearing Backlog Starts To Inch Up As Available ALJs Dip Below 1,000

 

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Waste Of Scarce Resources

      From  “Fact Sheet” issued by the White House yesterday:

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum aimed at stopping illegal aliens and other ineligible people from obtaining Social Security Act benefits.

• The Memorandum directs the administration to ensure ineligible aliens are not receiving funds from Social Security Act programs.
  • This includes promulgating guidance and prioritizing enforcement actions against grantees or subgrantees that do not: verify eligibility, stop payments to deceased or ineligible payees, or otherwise prevent ineligible aliens from receiving funds.
• It expands the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) fraud prosecutor program to at least 50 U.S. Attorney Offices and establishes a Medicare and Medicaid fraud-prosecution program in 15 U.S. Attorney Offices.
• The Memorandum requires the SSA Inspector General to investigate earnings reports for individuals aged 100 or older with mismatched SSA records, to combat identity theft.
• It also directs the SSA to consider whether to reinstate the use of civil monetary penalties against individuals who engage in Social Security fraud, an effort that has been paused for several years.

PROTECTING TAXPAYER DOLLARS: President Trump believes that taxpayer-funded benefits should be provided only to eligible persons and must not encourage or reward illegal immigration to the United States.

• Policing Social Security Act fraud is critical because the Act contains not only traditional Social Security provided to older Americans, but also unemployment insurance, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, TANF, and other programs.
• The surge in illegal immigration caused by the previous Administration is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained.
  • Biden oversaw a sharp increase in the number of immigrants given Social Security Numbers (SSNs), with more than 2 million illegal aliens assigned SSNs in fiscal year 2024 alone.
• The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) calculated that American taxpayers spend at least $182 billion annually to cover the costs incurred by the presence of 20 million illegal aliens and their children, which includes $66.4 billion in Federal expenses plus an additional $115.6 billion in state and local expenses.
  • FAIR estimated that nearly a million illegal aliens hold stolen identifications or fraudulent SSNs.
  • Although some illegal aliens do pay taxes, those tax contributions come nowhere near covering the costs they impose on the populace; FAIR estimates illegal aliens are still a $150.7 billion net fiscal burden.
• The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Biden Administration’s open borders agenda, which sought to provide Medicaid-funded emergency services to illegal aliens, has cost Federal and state taxpayers more than $16.2 billion. Joe Biden also tried to make illegal aliens eligible for Obamacare until he was stopped in a lawsuit. 

I Thought Social Security Was Supposed To Be Apolitical

      A thread of tweets from the Social Security Administration this evening:

Former President Joe Biden [who is expected to make a speech on Social Security this evening] is lying to Americans. 

Here are the facts:

1️⃣President Trump has repeatedly promised to protect Social Security and ensure higher-take home pay for seniors by ending taxation on Social Security benefits.

2️⃣The SSA has not permanently closed any field offices and 50% of the technology department has not been laid off.

3️⃣SSA is taking commonsense steps to transform how we serve the public - last month, we spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide. We’re developing cutting-edge, AI-powered tools to streamline simple tasks.

4️⃣A SSA Inspector General report released while Joe Biden was President found $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022.

5️⃣Over 2 million illegal aliens were assigned SSNs in fiscal year 2024 alone.