Lauren Boebert Is An Ass -- But You Already Knew That

     From The Hill:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) argued with a Social Security official over claims of backlogs in a Wednesday hearing about post-pandemic teleworking policies.

Boebert asked Oren “Hank” McKnelly, an executive counselor for the Social Security Administration, if the administration monitored its employees’ output and hours if workers are logging on from home.

 McKnelly assured Boebert social security employees are “subjected to the same performance management processes” whether they are teleworking or working from the office. ...

“We have systems in place that our managers use to schedule, assign and track workloads,” McKnelly said, adding that if employees work virtually, they must be responsive to various forms of communication.

Boebert continued, asking the official why the backlog of social security applicants has increased from 41,000 to 107,000.

“We’ve been historically underfunded for a number of years now,” McKnelly fired back, to which the congresswoman disagreed.

McKnelly said in the past 10 years, the administration has seen an increase of more than 8 million beneficiaries and experienced the lowest staffing levels ever at the end of fiscal 2022.

“That’s a math problem,” he said. “If you have those workloads increasing and you don’t have the staff to take care of those workloads, you’re going to have the backlogs that you’re talking about, representative.” ...

O'Malley Nomination Reported Out Of Committee

     From the New Hampshire Bulletin:

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley moved one step closer Tuesday to becoming the next Social Security commissioner, a role that would become increasingly difficult as the program inches closer to insolvency during the next decade.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted, 17-10, to send O’Malley’s nomination to the floor, though it’s not clear how soon the entire chamber will vote on confirmation. All the panel’s Democrats and Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted to advance his nomination. ...

Annual Statistical Supplement Issued

     The Social Security Administration has issued its 2023 Annual Statistical Supplement, a huge compendium of all the statistical information you could ask for concerning Social Security programs. Here's one excerpt (footnotes omitted):

Number of SSA full-time staff and work years, fiscal years 1995–2023 

Year	Full-time permanent staff a	Total work years b
1995	62,504	67,063
1996	62,133	66,726
1997	61,224	69,378
1998	59,943	67,210
1999	59,752	66,459
2000	60,434	65,521
2001	61,490	65,562
2002	61,914	65,742
2003	63,569	65,343
2004	63,186	c 66,154
2005	63,696	d 68,026
2006	61,692	66,878
2007	60,206	63,939
2008	61,920	64,358
2009	65,203	67,170
2010	67,548	70,758
2011	64,744	69,936
2012	62,943	67,208
2013	59,823	64,601
2014	62,956	64,006
2015	63,466	67,004
2016	62,685	65,798
2017	61,250	63,957
2018	61,011	64,095
2019	60,450	64,576
2020	60,364	62,291
2021	58,952	61,830
2022	56,907	60,570
2023	60,026	61,771

 

The Attacks On Social Security Never Stop

     Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times has quite the takedown of a ridiculous piece on Slate by Eric Boehm and Celeste Headlee titled “Social Security Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore.” Hiltzik describes the Slate piece as full of "misconceptions, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and flat-out lies about" Social Security.

Social Security Bulletin Released

     The Social Security Administration has posted the most recent issue of the Social Security Bulletin, its scholarly publication, which is now in its 83rd year. Here are summaries of two articles from this issue of the Bulletin:

Mixed-Methods Study to Understand Public Use of Social Security's Online Platform by Lila Rabinovich and Francisco Perez-Arce

In this article, the authors use quantitative analysis of survey data and qualitative analysis of personal interviews to examine public awareness and use of online my Social Security accounts. The accounts are the Social Security Administration's platform for providing both general and personalized retirement-preparation information, including benefit estimators, along with other agency services. The authors explore internet literacy and demographic factors that may affect platform access and use. They also review the experiences and reactions reported by individual platform users.

The Alignment Between Self-Reported and Administrative Measures of Disability Program Application and Benefit Receipt in the Health and Retirement Studyby Jody Schimmel Hyde and Amal Harrati

This study examines the differences between self-reported data and administrative records on Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) application and benefit receipt using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to the Social Security Administration's Form 831 records and Disability Analysis File. The authors find that aggregate survey reports of DI and SSI application and benefit receipt are lower than administrative records indicate and that individual-level misreporting is common, although both sources indicate similar incidence patterns.

Field Offices Closed Today

      I didn’t see anything about it until Wednesday evening but Social Security field offices are closed today. Are employees still working, that is, the ones who didn’t take leave?

Celebrate Thanksgiving In Your Own Way

 

Here's the recipe!

It Gets Cold In Pittsburgh

     From WESA (emphasis added):

As winter homeless shelters fill around Pittsburgh, City Council may look to zoning changes to allow for legally authorized homeless encampments. A bill set to be introduced Monday would create a new zoning use called a "temporary managed community" — areas that could host homeless encampments, with support staff, heat and food.

“We know [shelters are] full right now. … it’s just heartbreaking,” said the bill's sponsor, Councilor Deb Gross. “We want to make sure that we're not the obstacle for trying to achieve a temporary managed community.” ...

But overall, Gross said, the city desperately needs to create more affordable and transitional housing options. “People cannot live in the city of Pittsburgh on a disability check,” she said. “You cannot live indoors anywhere if you are on some of the lower levels of Social Security income.” ...

    It's obvious in my law practice that inadequate SSI benefits and delayed Social Security disability benefits cause a lot of homelessness.