Bad News Coming?

      From the Urban Institute:

SSA’s forthcoming regulation includes three major components:

• Replacing outdated occupational data: SSA plans to adopt the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) to replace the obsolete Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), a move with bipartisan support.
• Implementing data from ORS: SSA must make many decisions on how best to implement and interpret ORS data, such as determining whether sufficient jobs exist at various skill and exertional levels that will directly affect eligibility outcomes.
• Age as a Factor: SSA is considering changes to how age, education, and past work experience influence disability determinations. These changes would disproportionately affect older workers.

Estimated Impact:

• The anticipated regulation could reduce eligibility for new applicants to the SSDI program by as much as 20 percent overall, and up to 30 percent among older workers. The potential impact on the SSI program is unclear.
• A 10% reduction in SSDI eligibility could result in 500,000 people losing access over 10 years including 80,000 widows and children. An additional 250,000 beneficiaries could lose eligibility for part of the period. 

• A 10% reduction would reduce benefits by $82 billion, with ripple effects on Medicare and Medicaid eligibility. 

• Many denied older workers may claim early retirement benefits, reducing their lifetime income by up to 30%. …

OHO Operating Stats

 

From Social Security -- Click on image to view full size

 

Where The Cuts Have Come

      From a paper by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

A Response

     The Social Security Administration has responded to a letter from the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee concerning the whistleblower complaint of Charles Borges concerning DOGE usage of sensitive Social Security databases. Here are a couple of key quotes and my response:

… The location referred to in the whistleblower allegation is actually a secured server in the agency’s cloud infrastructure which historically has housed this data and is continuously monitored and overseen—SSA’s standard practice. … What would have been the point of making a copy of Social Security’s databases elsewhere within Social Security’s own cloud if you weren’t doing something sneaky? Who had access to this copy of the databases? Why were multiple Social Security employees, not just Borges, going to DEFCON 1 over this if it was innocuous?

All employees are required to go through a vetting process prior to being granted access to SSA information systems. Based on their job functions, employees are granted the appropriately permissions to perform their work. Access to resources within the AWS environment is governed by the agency’s established Systems Access Management protocols. … Sure, that’s what’s supposed to happen but we know that DOGE employees were given access to sensitive Social Security databases long before they could have completed training.

     You can get by with half truths and fibs as long as the Committee Chairman doesn’t really care to delve into the matter and you’re only looking to survive the day. This isn’t a great long term plan but long term planning isn’t something the Trump Administration even tries to do. 

I Sorta See Your Point But I Don’t Think It’s Much Of A Problem And I Don’t See How This Helps

      From a summary of a bill reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee:

Studies show that people are confused by the current SSA terms and are generally uninformed about how their claiming decisions affect their monthly benefits.

• As a result, many of today’s seniors are missing out on substantial retirement income because of suboptimal claiming decisions.

The Claiming Age Clarity Act:

Directs the Social Security Commissioner to change the terminology SSA uses when describing benefit claiming ages to better reflect the implications of claiming decisions:

FRA [Full Retirement Age] would be referred to as the “standard monthly benefit age.” 

“Early eligibility age” would be referred to as the “minimum monthly benefit age” 

 Any reference to age 70 as the maximum age up to which delayed retirement credits can be accrued would be referred to as the “maximum monthly benefit age.”

Scope Of The Unauthorized Direct Deposit Change Problem

      From Direct Deposit Changes by Social Security Administration 800-number Staff, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

... The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a national 800-number that handles calls from the public. Before April 14, 2025, staff could change an individual’s direct deposit over the telephone by asking the caller to confirm certain personally identifiable information. We identified 3,109 beneficiaries who had direct deposit changes by 800-number staff from October through December 2023, followed by a non-receipt of benefits, followed by another direct deposit change. We randomly selected 200 beneficiaries and quantified the amount of benefits misdirected because of unauthorized direct deposit changes. We also identified 74,916 beneficiaries who had direct deposit changes initiated by 800-number staff from October 1 to 30, 2024. We randomly selected 225 beneficiaries and listened to recorded calls to determine whether SSA employees appropriately verified caller identities before changing beneficiaries’ direct deposit information.

Results
Social Security beneficiaries did not always authorize direct deposit changes initiated by 800-number staff. We estimated $2.2 million for approximately 1,197 beneficiaries had been misdirected because of unauthorized direct deposit changes from October through December 2023. As of April 2025, we estimated SSA had not recovered approximately $2 million of the $2.2 million. ...

It's A Vicious World Out There

     There's an interesting video floating about the interwebs saying that Social Security's Commissioner is wearing shirts monogrammed with the initials FJB which they say stands for F*** Joe Biden. He does wear shirts with that monogram but the video is completely misleading since FJB happens to be the Commissioner's own initials. 

     While we’re talking about the Commissioner’s apparel, I’ve seen pictures of him wearing kiltee loafers. I don’t think I’ve seen those on many other men in a long time. I wouldn’t have thought they still made them.

IT Acquisition Issues

      From Fedscoop:

 Social Security Administration is facing issues tied to IT acquisition, having fallen behind on training to get contracting officers up to speed on some areas of tech procurement, a new Government Accountability Office report found.

According to the congressional watchdog, the SSA’s senior-level contracting officers have “deficiencies” when it comes to acquisition practices involving IT, and an existing agency training plan to address those shortcomings hasn’t been updated since 2019.

The lackluster workforce expertise in this area is especially problematic for the agency, given that it obligated at least $1.4 billion annually on IT acquisitions from fiscal years 2020 through 2024, according to the GAO. …

Officials in SSA’s IT office said the agency has “halted” its hiring efforts to comply with the Trump administration’s EOs and guidance, and “it plans to use reduction-in-force actions to achieve its targeted workforce number.” Because of RIF plans and cost-reduction measures, SSA officials acknowledged to GAO that such “reorganization efforts could affect the IT acquisition workforce.”  …