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House Democrats have been working on proposals in an effort to pass portions of the Build Back Better Act that would include universal paid family and medical leave, access to child care and other initiatives that would impact Medicare recipients, retirement security for individuals, and protections for the elderly and disabled. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Massachusetts, recently announced a number of legislative proposals under the budget reconciliation process, a process that Democrats are looking to pass with a majority in the House. Below are some of the specifics of the proposals that impact Medicare, retirement security, the elderly and the disabled as identified in a press release from Neal’s office Strengthen retirement security by: Requiring employers without employer-sponsored retirement plans to automatically enroll their employees in IRAs or 401(k)-type plans; and Making the Saver’s Credit refundable so that those without any income tax liability are eligible to receive the benefit in the form of a contribution to their retirement account. Improve elder health by: Expanding Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits, quickly getting new vision and hearing services to beneficiaries in 2022 and 2023, respectively, to eliminate cost and coverage barriers to this care. Protect the elderly and people with disabilities in nursing homes by: Funding elder justice programs that increase support for state and local Adult Protective Services offices and long-term care ombudsman programs to better prevent elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation; Addressing the staffing shortages in long-term care facilities by providing funds for recruitment and retention, including wage subsidies, access to child care, tuition reimbursement, and student loan replacement; and Improving the accuracy and reliability of the data collected in these facilities to increase transparency for patients and their families, and strengthen the federal understanding of care quality and reimbursement, and study and update staffing – a key predictor of quality and safety. Neal said, in a press release from his office that the proposals being considered are directed at improving the lives of working families who have struggled over the last year-and-a-half due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the protections for working families are needed in this bill Neal said. “This grueling pandemic continues to deliver one-two punches in the form of the public health and economic crises, and the American people are counting on us to build back better,” Chairman Richard E. Neal said. “Later this week, the Ways and Means Committee will put an end to the idea that only some workers are worthy of ‘perks’ like paid leave, child care, and assistance in saving for retirement, and finally commit to investments that make these supports fixtures of the American workplace. We will also examine how we can commit resources to modernize a key trade program that supports American workers facing hardship due to international competition, and how to fund better protections for our nation’s elderly. This is our historic opportunity to support working families and ensure our economy is stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient for generations to come.”

We realize it may be a stretch for ordinary people to want to keep up with the comings and goings of the Social Security Administration, but sometimes circumstances permit where someone does want to follow the latest news regarding the agency due to a possible retirement or disability interest. This blog is an ongoing piecemeal of recent stories that have involved Social Security. Some are tidbits and some are important things that should be known in the world of retirement or disability and others are just interesting stories and nothing more. Trustees Report Finally Released The annual report on the status of the Social Security trust funds was expected to be released sometime in the spring of 2021, but the actual report was not released until late August. The main headline from the report was that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds are projected to be depleted by 2034, which is one year earlier than projected last year. If nothing is done by Congress prior to that period, the agency would be able to pay up to 78 percent of full benefit amounts, resulting in a 22 percent reduction in benefits. Some of the highlights of the report are below as identified by Social Security in a press release from the agency. In the 2021 Annual Report to Congress, the Trustees announced: The asset reserves of the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds increased by $11 billion in 2020 to a total of $2.908 trillion. The total annual cost of the program is projected to exceed total annual income, for the first time since 1982, in 2021 and remain higher throughout the 75-year projection period. As a result, asset reserves are expected to decline during 2021. Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010. The year when the combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted, if Congress does not act before then, is 2034 – one year earlier than last year’s projection. At that time, there would be sufficient income coming in to pay 78 percent of scheduled benefits. If you are interested in reading the entire 2021 trustees report click here. Request For Hearing Wait Times Looks To Be Going In Wrong Direction The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) routinely publishes the latest on wait times claimants are facing when requesting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in a disability claim and according to what NOSSCR found, the average processing time at the hearings office jumped 50 days compared to a year ago from 301 days to 351 days. Social Security had been cutting the backlog rather impressively at one point, but now things are going in the other direction. There appears to be many cases that are still at the initial application level and the first appeal level where decisions have not been issued and it appears this could be slowing down the processing at the hearings level. If this is the case hearing wait times could be trending in the wrong direction for a while.

A group of Republican members of Congress are questioning President Joe Biden’s authority to replace Andrew Saul as Social Security commissioner and replacing him with Kilolo Kijakazi as the agency’s acting commissioner. Below is a portion of the letter the legislators sent to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) asking the GAO for a response on the president’s authority to replace Saul, who was confirmed by the Senate to lead Social Security. A portion of the letter contends that Kijakazi may not be eligible to be Social Security’s acting commissioner because she has only worked for Social Security since January of 2021, but most experts believe that the Social Security Act permits the president to tab pretty much who he wants to be an acting commissioner. There has been no public announcement of the change in leadership assignments at SSA from either the White House or SSA. White House officials have suggested to Congress that beneficiaries could find out by looking at a revised organization chart that was evidently changed during the stealth firing process and is buried somewhere in SSA’s website, the legislators wrote. The only notification of the President’s unlawful firing of Commissioner Saul provided to the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees came in the form of an email sent by legislative affairs officials at SSA to committee staff on Friday, July 9, 2021 at 4:30 p.m. with a message “FYI,” followed by a copy of a “Commissioner Broadcast” from Dr. Kijakazi reproduced below: Today, President Biden made the decision to change agency leadership and has asked me to serve as the Acting Commissioner. Over the past several months, I have gained great appreciation for SSA and I have witnessed the commitment you bring to public service each day. I thank former Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black for their service to the public. I am a strong believer in collaboration and Scott Frey and I look forward to working with all of you. This is a pivotal time for the agency and the nation and I know we can overcome any challenge when we confront it together. Kilolo Kijakazi Acting Commissioner

The U.S. Education Department recently announced that it would discharge $5.8 billion in student loan debt for some individuals who the agency has deemed to have significant, permanent disabilities in qualifying for the debt relief program meant to assist borrowers who suffer from disabilities. National Public Radio reported the news and indicated this should be just the beginning of identifying Social Security disability beneficiaries who qualify for discharge of their student loans due to long-term impairments that will prevent the beneficiaries from working. “Today’s action removes a major barrier that prevented far too many borrowers with disabilities from receiving the total and permanent disability discharges they are entitled to under the law,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was quoted in the story released by NPR. The debt relief should impact more than 300,000 student loan borrowers who have struggled to maintain debt payments after being identified as being disabled and have an inability to maintain fulltime employment due to impairments. Unfortunately this is something that should have been happening years ago, but according to reporting by NPR, only a small percentage of eligible borrows who have be deemed disabled within the last few years have been able to get debt relief from the Education Department. There is a federal Total and Permanent disability loan discharge program, which dates back more than 50 years, but many individuals who have been found disabled are unaware of the program according to NPR. Under the direction of new President Joe Biden, the Education Department is going to work at identifying many more individuals who may qualify for additional debt relief. Below is a portion of the NPR story that identifies how the loan relief program is going to identify eligibility and how it plans to offer more debt relief to disabled individuals in the future. Now, relief will become automatic for those who are identified through a data match with the Social Security Administration. The next match is in September, and based on those who were identified in June, the department expects more than 323,000 people to receive relief amounting to $5.8 billion. The department also said it will propose eliminating a significant hurdle for those borrowers who have been approved for loan discharge: a three-year income monitoring period, during which many people have seen their loans reinstated through no fault of their own. The department said it will permanently stop sending requests to these borrowers for income information during this period — a decision it made temporarily during the pandemic — and will pursue doing away with the monitoring period entirely during upcoming negotiated rule-making. Borrowers and advocates see this move as a first step toward fixing the discharge program. “This is a huge deal for the hundreds of thousands of borrowers who are entitled to this relief and frankly, it’s very long overdue,” said Persis Yu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. To learn more about the student loan forgiveness program and its requirements click here.

Overpayments are not a pleasant subject when it comes to Social Security benefits, but at least Social Security has taken steps to make repaying overpayments a little bit easier. Social Security announced it would be offering repayment options online. This may not sound like a big deal, but if you have an overpayment issue with Social Security benefits and need to send money to Social Security it is not as easy as it sounds. Social Security offices have remained mostly closed since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so even if you have an overpayment issue you can’t go to a Social Security office to make a payment, so the online option makes things a bit easier. Overpayments happen when Social Security pays a beneficiary an incorrect amount and of course the agency wants its money back. Below is the announcement from Social Security about the online payment option. We’re pleased to announce that we’ve expanded the online options for you to repay overpayments. If you have an overpayment debt, you may be eligible to make a full or partial payment using Pay.gov or your bank’s online bill pay option. Pay.gov is a secure online service provided by the Department of the Treasury. Only individuals who are not currently receiving Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income payments, but need to pay back an overpayment, may use this service. Using Pay.gov to Make Your Payment Our billing notices now include the Pay.gov website information as well as a new Remittance ID. The Remittance ID is a 10-digit alphanumeric number used instead of your Social Security number for online payments. You can easily make a payment by following these steps: Use the link in your billing notice or visit Treasury’s secure payment site at Pay.gov. Enter “Social Security” in the search box. Click on “Continue” under the Repay Your Social Security Overpayment Online section. Follow the instructions on the following page and click “Continue to the Form.” Enter the Remittance ID number found on your billing notice and repayment amount. Enter your name, address, and phone number in required fields. Follow the remaining prompts to complete your payment. You will receive an email receipt confirming your payment. Using Your Bank’s Online Bill Pay Option to Make Your Payment A second option is to use your bank’s online bill pay feature. You can repay an overpayment debt and have it applied to your overpayment balance the next day. Only individuals who are not currently receiving Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security Income payments, but need to pay back an overpayment, may use this service. You can conveniently make a payment using this option by following these steps: Use your bank or financial institution’s online bill pay option and search for “Social Security Administration” as the Payee. Enter the Remittance ID number found on your billing notice as your “Account Number” and your mailing address. Enter the desired repayment amount and indicate whether you would like it to be a recurring payment. Follow the remaining prompts to complete your payment. These new payment options provide secure and convenient online ways to meet your needs. You can learn more on our Pay an Overpayment page. Please share this information with your friends and family—and post it on social media.

We have seen all segments of the population impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with more than 600,000 American fatalities, but one group of Americans, those who are on Social Security benefits, seem to be hit as hard any other group when it comes to fatalities. Deaths in the number of Social Security beneficiaries increased by 17 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. Deaths among Social Security beneficiaries are not uncommon because beneficiaries include mostly the elderly and disabled individuals, but a close to 20 percent increase in the number of deaths in just one year shows that COVID-19 remains a dangerous virus, especially for Social Security beneficiaries. The Hill wrote a recent article about this trend and shared some startling statistics. Below is a portion of the story from The Hill. This portion of the story explains how vulnerable Social Security beneficiaries can be when it comes to COVID-19. Double-digit percentage increases, year-over-year, were found for all beneficiary groups including retirees, spouses, widows, and the disabled. SSA’s statistics almost certainly reflect the concentration of COVID-19 deaths among the populations the agency serves. The CDC’s death data, which includes all individuals and not just Social Security beneficiaries, indicates about 500,000 more deaths occurred in the United States in 2020 than in 2019. The CDC estimates that approximately 375,000 deaths in 2020 were due to COVID-19. SSA’s death data offer federal researchers additional ways to study the effects of COVID-19 because it can be linked to all elements in SSA’s databases including benefit amounts, past earnings, race/ethnicity, and diagnosis codes for disabled beneficiaries. Federal researchers, who have access to the raw data, could potentially unlock death patterns in the data that would help policymakers understand the probable effects of COVID-19 on groups with different disabling conditions and socioeconomic status. Federal researchers can examine even very narrow subpopulations with the extensive raw data available. To illustrate, the data released by SSA last week show a relatively small beneficiary group (Disabled Adult Children) had the highest percentage increase (26 percent) in the number of deaths from 2019 to 2020. It may be that these beneficiaries, who are adults that have been disabled since childhood, have specific disabling conditions or circumstances, such as residing in long-term care facilities, that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. The rest of the story goes into detail about what can be done about the huge increase in the number of deaths of Social Security recipients. It should not be surprising that one way to limit severe illness and COVID-19 related deaths is to educate Social Security beneficiaries about the need to get vaccinated. Unfortunately sometimes Social Security beneficiaries get lost in the shuffle, but considering this disturbing trend, it is time to make sure beneficiaries are educated about the risks of COVID-19 based on their individual situation. According to the story in The Hill, the CDC recently provided new recommendations about vaccines for immunocompromised individuals and now there are recommendations that some people get a booster vaccination this fall and these are things that Social Security beneficiaries need to be educated about to reduce the number of COVID-19 deaths among Social Security beneficiaries.

The Social Security Administration will hold a new National Disability Forum (NDF) on the equity of the agency’s programs and any barriers that might exist to accessing the programs offered by Social Security. It appears that Social Security is looking for feedback on its programs to try and improve the customer experience and offering these disability forums is one way the agency can hear from people about the pitfalls that might exist for some people who are trying to access service to obtain benefits from the programs that Social Security offers. Any and all are invited to provide feedback to Social Security about the upcoming forum scheduled for September 15, 2021. Below is the announcement from Social Security about the forum and information about ways people can provide feedback. Our next National Disability Forum (NDF) is scheduled for September 15, 2021, and is titled Equity in SSA Programs: Hidden Barriers. To prepare for the NDF, we are seeking feedback on questions related to the forum’s topics, Advancing Equity and Equity in Claimant Representation. We are using an online tool called Engage SSA to collect suggestions from claimants, advocates, the public, civil rights organizations, community-based organizations, representatives, and other governmental agencies about enhancing equity in SSA’s programs and services. Below are some sample questions. Are you aware of any unique needs for people of color and other underserved communities that we should consider when evaluating our programs? If so, how can we meet these needs? How can we help underserved communities and their members overcome barriers they may encounter when enrolling in and accessing benefits? Are there incentives or other changes you suggest for encouraging attorney and non-attorney representation for claimants of color and other underserved communities? You can provide input on the Engage SSA from now until Friday, August 20, 2021. Please see the Engage SSA guide for details on using the site. About the National Disability Forum The NDF is an open forum of Social Security that gives all interested stakeholders an opportunity to share their unique insights on topics of particular interest to SSA early in the process and directly with policy makers. Further, it provides an opportunity for stakeholders to hear from one another. Open to anyone interested, the NDF is not intended to be a means for reaching agreement on an issue, and SSA’s participation is only for the purpose of gaining insight through listening. This inclusive and collaborative approach helps us develop responsive, effective, and efficient policies in order to empower individuals with a disability, minimize their financial hardship, and ensure proper use of Disability Trust funds. The activities under the NDF supplement, but do not replace, the rule-making process followed by SSA under the Administrative Procedure Act. We feel that engaging interested parties in a public forum such as the National Disability Forum can help us capture innovative ideas – ensuring that our vision for the disability program continues to keep pace with advances in medicine, technology, health care delivery, and the modern workplace.

It appears President Joe Biden is wasting little time in the search for a new Social Security commissioner. It was just a little over a month ago when Biden fired former commissioner Andrew Saul after Saul declined to offer his resignation to Biden, and news reports indicate that several candidates for the commissioner position have emerged. Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi as the agency’s acting commissioner after Saul was removed, but it appears that Biden is already working on a permanent replacement. Among the candidates identified in news stories are former member of Congress Donna Shalala, who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Clinton Administration, Seth Harris, a former deputy labor secretary, and Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group aimed at protecting Social Security, and current member of the Social Security advisory board. Below is a portion of the story that was reported in the Huffington Post that identified the credentials for the three candidates reportedly being considered. Harris still has admirers in labor circles, however. During the Biden transition, he was rumored to be a candidate for labor secretary, a post that ultimately went to former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Bloomberg Law reported that former AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who died earlier this month, had backed Harris for the labor advisor job he ultimately landed at the White House. Shalala clearly has the largest political profile of the contenders. The longtime university administrator headed the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bill Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001 and served a single term in Congress representing a district in South Florida before losing in 2020. Altman is the clear policy expert among the leading choices: She is a protégé of past Social Security Commissioner Robert Ball, plus she’s the author of multiple books about the program and is a current member of the Social Security advisory board.  

Congress has developed proposals that would provide for the creation of a paid leave system for workers, but a recent survey conducted by AARP makes it clear that voters over the age of 50 want Social Security to play no part in administering a paid leave program, which has been discussed. A synopsis of the survey the AARP conducted is below. It is not surprising that experienced individuals would reject Social Security’s participation in a paid leave program because they are afraid that if Social Security gets involved in paid leave that it would result in less money for Social Security benefits, longer wait times and poor customer service. Something tells me that some of the respondents in the survey have firsthand experience dealing with Social Security. Wait times are not something Social Security has ever been good at, but now that we are in the middle of a pandemic, receiving sufficient customer service at Social Security has been challenging. People are right to be concerned if another large responsibility is placed on the shoulders of Social Security when the agency is already understaffed and underfunded. Voters age 50-plus are concerned that using the Social Security Administration (SSA) to administer a paid leave benefit could have a negative impact on Social Security Retirement benefits. Lawmakers are considering a paid leave benefit that is funded by taxpayers.  Such paid leave benefits would be administered through an existing federal agency.  Currently, the Social Security Administration is being considered to manage the paid leave benefit. AARP sought to understand the views of voters 50-plus on the topic.  While there is broad support for such a program, older voters are concerned that administering this benefit through the SSA would negatively impact the administration of Social Security benefits to retirees. They are concerned that it could lead to longer wait times, delay of benefits, poorer customer service, and benefits cuts.  Overall, more than half (54%) believe that administrating paid leave through the SSA would hinder the allocation of Social Security benefits to retirees.