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President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal calls for more than $14 billion in Social Security funding, which would be close to a 10 percent increase in funding for the agency. According to a message from Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a large portion of the increased funding will be spent on addressing the growing backlog of disability claims where decisions are made by state agencies, which are known as Disability Determination Services (DDS). Other funding priorities identified by Saul include reducing wait times and improving customer service through investing in information technology. Below are some of the budget proposal’s highlights as identified by Social Security. Over $5 billion for payroll costs to fund the employees in our frontline operations, such as our field offices, National 800 Number, and processing centers. The Budget would increase staffing for frontline operations including State DDSs by over 6 percent. These employees will build upon our progress to improve critical areas, such as faster service on our National 800 Number, and help us reduce backlogs and wait times. Our total SSA payroll costs are nearly $8 billion to support our frontline operations, hearing operations, and strengthen critical positions, which include Information Systems Developers, Cybersecurity, Policy, Financial Professionals, and Actuaries who provide essential, robust analyses of the status of and changes to SSA-administered programs impacting the lives of most Americans, including the most vulnerable.   Over $2.7 billion for current staff, additional hiring, and other expenses for the State DDSs to make our disability determinations. This amount includes funding for 1,300 additional employees we are hiring in FY 2021, an increase of about 10 percent. We will maintain the increased staffing levels in FY 2022 to help address a large increase in pending initial disability cases that occurred because of the pandemic, as well as an influx of new applications we expect to receive through the end of FY 2022. Once trained, these employees will help us process significantly more claims than we do now.   Over $1.1 billion for payroll costs to fund the employees in our hearings operations. We will eliminate the hearings backlog in FY 2022 and position ourselves to handle a large volume of DDS cases that may be appealed to the hearings level in FY 2023.   More than $2.1 billion for IT services funding to help us maintain and continue modernizing our large IT infrastructure, as well as increase our digital and automated services. Our IT Modernization Plan (2020 Update) focuses on replacing our older legacy systems and technologies and infrastructure they rely on with updated technology that will make service faster, easier, and more customer-focused.     $96 million in outreach to ensure that SSI benefits reach the most vulnerable eligible individuals, including homeless individuals, children with disabilities, and those with mental and intellectual disabilities. Of the $96 million total, $75 million is additional funding in FY 2022.   Over $1.7 billion for dedicated program integrity work, which will allow us to complete our cost-effective program integrity reviews and continue to expand our highly successful anti-fraud cooperative disability investigations (CDI) program to all States and U.S. territories.

Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul recently wrote a letter to members of congress to outline the struggles the agency is facing due to a lack of funding for the agency. In the letter, as posted on the Social Security website, Saul admitted to a hiring freeze and requested Congress support President Joe Biden’s proposal to provide $14.2 billion in funding for Social Security as included in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget. Saul said that much of Social Security’s obstacles have been related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the agency has had to change how it provides services to the public. Saul did not specifically go into any immediate plans to re-open Social Security offices. Below is a portion of Saul’s letter presented in the press release. I have frozen hiring in non-frontline positions so that we can push all available resources to the offices that directly serve the public. I have increased the staffing in our field offices, national 800 number, processing centers, and State disability determination services (DDS) by nearly 3,000 people since 2019. I have increased IT investments to accelerate our modernization and increase online service options. We are working with the advocate community to help ensure that the most vulnerable populations can access our services. Our efforts include a robust communications campaign, in combination with a wide range of online resources, to provide information on service options for the beneficiary and individuals or organizations that help them. I also decided to pay employee awards so they know that we appreciate their hard work and dedication, especially during this difficult time. I have pushed the agency to find creative ways to maintain these efforts despite the significant cut to our budget request this year. We have explored all possibilities to eliminate our budget shortfall but we are unable to overcome it. I have no other option but to delay our planned hiring to operate within our appropriated resources. Further, we will not be able to compensate for fewer employees with additional overtime. We are operating with the lowest level of overtime in the last decade. These decisions have a lasting negative impact on the service we can provide to the American public. It will increase waits for service from our field offices and on our 800 number as we begin to emerge from the pandemic. The number of pending actions in our processing centers will grow from about 3.7 million actions pending at the end of FY 2020 to more than 4.2 million actions pending by the end of FY 2021. It will delay our plan to eliminate the backlog of cases in the DDS, which currently has about 20 percent more pending cases than prior to the pandemic, as we anticipate an increase in disability receipts into FY 2022. The pandemic has changed the way we do work at SSA in unprecedented ways. At the start of the pandemic, we transitioned to remote work, focused on critical service workloads through online and telephone options, and suspended some adverse actions to protect the public during an especially critical time. The pandemic required necessary operating adjustments to safely serve the public, reducing our ability to complete our workloads and contributing to increased backlogs and wait times in some priority service areas. These novel factors prevented us from achieving some of our goals in FY 2020 and put our goals for FY 2021 and future years at risk. FY 2021 is a critical year to shape the agency for post-pandemic success, but our resource constraints will delay our recovery. I appreciate President Biden’s support of our needs with his FY 2022 budget request of nearly $14.2 billion for us, which is $1.3 billion more than what we received this year to operate our agency. No one anticipated the duration of the pandemic and the ongoing challenges it presents. I hope you will consider these challenges and support his request to help us improve service.

We have made the point for years that Social Security is understaffed and has been so for over a decade. Social Security employees themselves confirmed this when they provided survey responses to The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) on ways to improve employee morale, recruitment and retention at Social Security. By far, the most cited complaint of the employees was the agency’s lack of staffing. Below is a portion of the AFGE report, which examines the problem and the possible solutions. The most obvious solution is for Social Security to hire more employees, but budget constraints has made that difficult. Problem: The lack of adequate staffing was the most cited complaint from employees.  The second most cited complaint was impossible expectations due to unmanageable workloads – which would also be connected to the lack of adequate staffing.  If we had adequate staffing to distribute the workloads so that everyone would have a manageable workload – the expectations for processing workloads would be fair and stress, anxiety, animosity, depression, etc. would be reduced considerably.  This would also have a major beneficial result on retention (not to mention increased productivity, reducing errors, improving customer service, etc.). Suggested Solution 1: Increase the amount of hiring for the front lines.  Stop reducing staffing in order to justify budget allocations for computer programs that we do not need and do not want.  Devote the resources necessary to the front lines where the work is being done – even if this means reducing the number of project managers, admin personal currently dedicated to compiling reports that do not change much from year to year, employees charged with creating training cartoons intended to train employees who are fully grown, etc.  Make budgeting decisions that are smart. Suggested Solution 2: Hire employees we can retain.  Expand the hiring pool beyond the VRA hiring authorities.  I have absolutely nothing against veteran hires or our veteran employees.  The problem is that you can’t keep drawing candidates from the same limited resource without experiencing diminishing returns.  This job is not meant for everyone.  And when you’ve pulled out of the pool, all of the candidates who would be a good fit, then you need to stop pulling from that pool until it can get restocked. Suggested Solution 3: Improve our training.  VOD training might be cheaper than other training methods on paper, but that’s only when you just consider training costs.  Once you factor in costs associated with issues like: retention, quality production, strain on office resources, employee satisfaction, etc., then VOD training isn’t a bargain.  Do more people training (Live bodies at the same site). Suggested Solution 4: Hire employees as CSR’s and promote our current CSR’s into CS vacancies.  There is no way that any off the street hire would have more knowledge of our program than any of our CSR’s.  And, having a CSR background would make any hire a better CS.  Hiring off the street applicants into CS positions – OVER – our current CSR’s destroys employee morale, and does not fill the position with the best person for the job.  This would also help to streamline our training programs as students in the CS training classes would already understand SSA jargon, and have a good basic understanding of our programs.

In a previous blog post we discussed that millions of Social Security beneficiaries had not yet received the latest round of stimulus payments and that members of Congress were pressuring Social Security to provide answers of why these people had not already received their payments. To be fair, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is in charge of providing these payments to the public, but it turns out Social Security was supposed to provide information about beneficiaries to the IRS before the stimulus payments could be issued. Below is a portion of a story from Yahoo Finance that details what happened. It turns out the letter the members of Congress sent Social Security got the ball rolling, but Social Security’s negligence in proving this information earlier shows that new leadership is needed at the agency. From Yahoo Finance: Nearly 30 million people who receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits have been waiting to get a third stimulus check because the Social Security Administration failed to send critical information to the IRS. Fortunately, that wait should come to an end soon, now that the SSA has finally forwarded the necessary data to the tax agency. It took a letter from four Congressmen to get the SSA to send the requested information, which they did the day after the letter was sent. However, according to the Congressmen, the necessary payment files arrived a month after the IRS requested them. That delay held up payments to millions of Americans. The IRS has already sent approximately 127 million third-round stimulus payments worth about $325 billion over the past two weeks. More payments will be sent on a weekly basis going forward. So, hopefully, payments to the Social Security and SSI recipients who have been waiting can be sent in one of the next few batches.

Social Security is not quite going back to its old practices entirely, but its recent decision to scrap the decision to suspend issuing dismissals for untimely requests for disability hearings and for claimants that do not appear for their hearing, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is a move toward the agency’s regular operating procedures. This decision went into effect March 8, 2021. Now Social Security may dismiss requests for hearings in these matters. This shows much less sympathy as people continue to try to operate in challenging times of a pandemic. The following is from an article published by the White Mountain Independent describing how SSA will now operate. The Social Security Administration has lifted the temporary suspension of issuing dismissals for untimely filed hearing requests and for failure to appear at a scheduled hearing. That temporary suspension was implemented in October. Effective March 8, absent a showing of good cause, they will resume issuing dismissals in cases involving an untimely filed hearing request, or when neither the claimant nor the appointed representative, if any, appeared at a scheduled hearing. Before issuing a dismissal, however, they will take additional steps to confirm that they are complying with established notice procedures including conducting quality reviews for these specific dismissals. If they mail a notice of hearing at least 75 days before the date set for the hearing, but do not receive the acknowledgement form at least 30 days before the hearing, they will attempt to contact the claimant or appointed representative for an explanation. Similarly, if they mail an amended notice of hearing or notice of supplemental hearing at least 20 days before the hearing date, but do not receive the acknowledgement form at least 10 days before the hearing, they will attempt to contact the claimant or appointed representative for an explanation. They will attempt to contact the claimant or representative either by; Sending a written Reminder to Return Acknowledgment Form or; Attempt to contact the claimant or representative by telephone at least twice on number(s) listed in the file; confirming his/her plans to attend the hearing.  

Since the COVID-19 pandemic caused shutdowns across the country in March of 2020 Social Security has updated its procedures in processing Social Security disability claims. The days of strolling into a Social Security field office are no longer possible because most Social Security offices are allowing only limited in-office appointments for service. Because obtaining services from Social Security are more difficult now than ever Social Security has relaxed its deadlines for certain disability actions. One of the main topics related to a disability claim is the Social Security disability hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). This is the stage of the process that ultimately determines whether most people will qualify for disability benefits, so missing a hearing or missing an appeal to request a hearing can be devastating. Earlier this month Social Security posted new updates about missing deadlines to file an appeal for a hearing and missing the hearing date. Below is an explanation from Social Security about what to do if you miss these two important deadlines. What do I do if I miss my hearing? If you missed your hearing time, please call the hearing office right away at the phone number listed on your Notice of Hearing. If you do not have your Notice of Hearing, you can find your local hearing office phone number by visiting our Hearing Office Locator. We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic may create situations that constitute good cause for failing to appear at your scheduled hearing. To assist you in explaining why you have missed your hearing date during the pandemic, we will mail you a notice (called a “Request to Show Cause for Failure to Appear”). This notice will give you an opportunity to explain why you did not appear for your telephone hearing. Although the notice we use to request a showing of good cause for failure to appear (i.e., Form HA-L90) identifies a shorter timeframe for a response, we will provide 30 days from the date on the request before we will issue a dismissal, to account for potential mail delivery and processing delays. What do I do if I have missed the deadline to file my hearing request? We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic may create situations that constitute good cause for failing to timely file your request for hearing after receiving a prior denial on your claim. To assist you in providing an explanation for why you have missed the deadline to request a hearing during the pandemic, we will mail you a notice requesting a written explanation for the untimely filing if you have not already provided an explanation. This notice will give you an opportunity to explain why you were unable to file your hearing request on time. Although the notice we use to request a showing of good cause for untimely filing (i.e., Form HA-L61) identifies a shorter timeframe for a response, we will provide 30 days from the date on the request before we will issue a dismissal, to account for potential mail delivery and processing delays.

We are approaching the one-year mark since Social Security closed its field offices and hearing offices to the public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We now have three effective vaccines to combat the virus and the number of new cases and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are dropping, but things are not likely to go back to normal at Social Security in the near future. As more of the population gets vaccinated it will provide an opportunity for Social Security to at least open up its offices for some kind of in-person service, but the practices Social Security has put in place over the last year might not go away entirely ever again. Let’s take a look at how Social Security used to operate and how it now operates under the pandemic and how it might operate once the pandemic has subsided and things get back to “normal.” Field Offices These offices are crucial to the public. This is where someone can apply for benefits, but also to get service for problems with benefits and get answers to many different questions. Prior to the pandemic someone could show-up to a Social Security office and wait for service. Since the pandemic all Social Security offices closed to the public and only recently has Social Security began to offer limited scheduled appointments. The days of allowing people to show-up without an appointment for service at a Social Security office may be over or at least drastically reduced. It is likely that the agency may decide to require scheduled appointments for service, this would be done either online or by phone. Undoubtedly this will limit office service, but it is hard to believe Social Security will go back to business as usually at field offices. Hearing Offices Since March of 2020 Social Security began conducting phone hearings on disability cases rather than in-person hearings and recently began to offer video hearings. This allows a claimant to appear before their hearing from home as well as allow the judge, attorney and any experts to do the same. This might be something Social Security may continue. Although in-person hearings may be preferable to a positive outcome in a disability case there are some advantages to video or phone hearings. Many people who apply for disability have difficulties travelling and this would take away one obstacle for them doing this. Attorneys who represent claimants in other jurisdictions also have to travel to a hearing, which is not ideal for the attorney or the claimants they represent. It will be interesting to see the choices Social Security makes once it is determined to be appropriate to have in-person hearings again. Social Security has allowed for video hearings even prior to the pandemic, but this still requires a claimant to appear at a different hearing office for the hearing even though the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) was in a different location, so it might allow all claimants to choose how they want their hearings to be conducted in the future, but time will tell.

Social Security’s listings of impairments are a guide to medically qualifying for Social Security disability benefits. The listings have all different sorts of diagnosed conditions and impairments and what limitations must be present to be eligible for benefits. Since COVID-19 began showing up in the United States at the beginning of 2020 it changed our lives ever since and now more than 500,000 Americans have died from the virus, but what about the people who were infected with the virus and now are experiencing long-lasting effects that make work impossible? Most people who were infected with the virus recover fairly well, but a portion of the people who were infected with the virus are experiencing debilitating impairments even though the virus has long passed. Many medical experts believe those impairments are related to having the virus, but because the virus is so new no one really knows how impactful these impairments can be, but Social Security should be taking notice. As this story from National Public Radio shows there are many people who have not recovered from the virus even months after testing positive and have been unable to work. To qualify for Social Security disability benefits you must prove that an impairment you have has or will keep you from working at a full-time level for at least 12 consecutive months. This makes it difficult for Social Security to make determinations on these types of claims because the virus did not become widespread until March of 2020 when partial shutdowns occurred, and it has not even been a year since then. One thing is clear, a portion of people who have had the virus suffered long-term impacts that prevent them from working and it is time Social Security considers adding a listing for COVID-19, or at the very least to begin studying the issue.