It Was Possible!

      Heather Schewedel writes for Slate on what it’s like to correct a mistake in the date that Social Security has down for your birthday. Not fun.

Big Employee Fraud

      From a press release:

 A former Social Security employee has admitted to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. 

David Lam, 45, Pearland, was an operations supervisor and claims specialist for the Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Houston. …

Lam admitted to working with various coconspirators—typically, women with children—to file fraudulent survivor benefits applications listing the deceased men as the children’s fathers or stepfathers. If true, this would have entitled the women to receive benefits while raising their children as widows. However, the women had no connection to the men listed on the applications and the deceased men did not father the children. To facilitate his scheme, Lam would utilize the deceased men’s names, dates of birth and death and Social Security numbers. 

He would also instruct the coconspirators to split the stolen funds with him. The women would transfer funds via applications like Zelle, CashApp or Chime. Lam agreed to take responsibility for causing $3,346,280 in loss to the SSA and has agreed to pay that amount in restitution.    …

Does It Even Matter Now?

     From SCOTUSblog:

BREAKING: The Supreme Court grants DOGE affiliates access to Social Security Administration records. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would deny the request.

    The question now is whether the Trump Administration wants to give them that access. I hope not.

Got A Little Carried Away

      From a Washington Post article titled Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people:

… At the Social Security Administration’s call center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, IT workers were told by managers in mid-April that they needed to request a transfer or face possible firing, said Barri Sue Bryant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2809. Nearly all of the 40-plus workers in that office did so, sending their laptops and spare equipment to the agency’s Baltimore headquarters and awaiting a new assignment while the union attempted to explain to leadership how essential these employees were, Bryant said.

 “We are critically understaffed in all of our departments,” Bryant wrote in an email to leadership. “Having systems and employees down is not contributing to the goals of this agency.”
But management would soon find out on their own.


A specialized scanner that can quickly input forms and scan barcodes broke down and was unusable for a day. A customer service representative who was supposed to answer the 800 number couldn’t take calls for three days while her computer was in disrepair.
“It really sent everyone for a loop,” Bryant said.


After three days, the agency told the union the decision had been reversed. The employees got back their equipment and resumed their normal jobs in Wilkes-Barre.
 

Asked about the IT workers, Social Security provided an emailed statement from an unnamed official, whom it declined to identify. The statement did not address the reassignments but criticized “the fake news media, specifically the Washington Post” for “pushing a false narrative about Social Security. The truth is that President Trump is protecting and strengthening Social Security just like he promised.” …

Cruelty Is The Point

      From The Guardian:

Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.

The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.

The program began in 2017 under the first Trump administration.

Without any public notice, on 19 March, the program was halted, affecting millions of immigrants every year and burdening Social Security Administration offices, as those applicants will now have to visit a Social Security Administration office and apply separately to receive a social security number. …

The costs of issuing a social security number through this program in the same year, according to a Social Security Administration memo, was $8 per issuance, compared with $55.80 in a field office. …

Whither Musk's People At Social Security?

     I’m laying in supplies of popcorn. There is open acrimony between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Who could have predicted?

    Can we now get Musk's kiddie corps of DOGE computer "experts" out of Social Security? Like being escorted out by security today?  With a subsequent investigation to see whether they did anything illegal?

A New Scam

      From Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Social Security Administration (SSA) is warning the public about a growing scam involving fraudulent remote job offers falsely claiming to be associated with SSA or other government agencies.

Scammers are posing as hiring personnel or recruiters and offering fictitious remotepositions — such as “administrative assistant,” “claims processor,” or “virtual benefits coordinator.” These scammers may use fake SSA email addresses, official-looking documents, or spoofed phone numbers.

Scammers may ask for personal information such as Social Security numbers, banking details, or copies of government-issued IDs. Victims may be told to pay for training materials or computer equipment as a condition of employment. …

It's Maddening

     From the Washington Post:

“We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. Believe it or not, government databases list … 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them.”

— President Donald Trump, in a speech to Congress, March 4

This is an example of how, even after falsehoods are exposed, the spin machine keeps working.

By the time Trump delivered his speech to Congress falsely saying that millions of people above the age of 120 were getting Social Security payments, The Washington Post on Feb. 19 had already published a detailed article that documented how claims of such payments — originally circulated by billionaire Elon Musk, then head of the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service — were wrong. (We never rated them, but they’re worthy of Four Pinocchios.) ... 

Now, look at the announcement that DOGE made on May 23 in a social media post: 

“After 11 weeks, Social Security has finished this major cleanup initiative: ~12.3M individuals aged 120+ have now been marked as deceased.” 

The post was carefully worded. It did not claim that 12 million people had received improper payments. Instead, it said that these people had been marked as deceased. ... 

[L]ook at how supporters of Trump greeted the news. Many said — or suggested — that Trump’s original false claim was confirmed.