There’s a report that 500 Social Security employees are being pulled off their regular duties as Claims Specialists and Technical Experts to answer the agency’s 800 telephone number lines effective Monday.
Dec 28, 2025
Threats In Tupelo
From the Daily Journal:
A Corinth [MS] man with a history of threatening federal employees has been charged with threatening to shoot workers at the Tupelo Social Security office.
James C. Curry Jr., 51, of Corinth, is accused of threatening employees at the Tupelo Social Security Administration office Tuesday, Dec. 16. He was arrested Monday in Lee County and taken into federal custody. He is currently incarcerated at the Lafayette County Detention Center, awaiting preliminary hearing Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court. …
Dec 27, 2025
I Have A Startling Admission To Make — I Love Fruitcake!
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| Although to be honest, this doesn’t look like a great one |
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 25, 2025
Dec 24, 2025
Dec 23, 2025
I Don't Think We Can Trust This Report
Back in July, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked that Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) perform an audit of Social Security's reported telephone call waiting times. The audit has now been completed and a report issued -- just before Christmas. The report says that the agency's metrics were accurate which is probably technically accurate but whether those metrics are fully meaningful is another question.
There are at least three problems with this report. First, there is zero reason to trust OIG. It no longer enjoys any independence. It doesn't report to the Commissioner but it does report to the White House. It is now clear that there can be no OIG reports at any agency which criticize the Administration. The release of such a critical report will be blocked and those who drafted it summarily fired. (Thank you, Supreme Court.) Second, the report admits that 25 million callers to Social Security became so frustrated by Social Security's answering system that they hung up. It didn't add these callers in to the phone answering metrics. If you do add them in you find out that they comprise a whopping 40% of calls to Social Security. That's a lot of frustrated callers. Third, many of the calls were handled by Interactive Voice Response (IVR) rather than a human. How effectively did IVR respond to requests for customer service? The agency reported a big jump in telephone calls this year. How much of that was due to failed IVR? Failed IVR also contributes to customer dissatisfaction.
Senator Warren is already accusing the Social Security of lying.
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