Tag Archives for Alex Lawson

Ratcheting up SSA’s customer service will take more funding 

Published in RINewsToday on May 1, 2023

Over two months ago, as required by law, Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security Administration (SSA) released the fiscal year 2023 operating plan to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The report, released on Feb. 10, 2023, details how SSA plans to use its $14.1 billion budget allocation for the year. 

Kijakazi wrote in the report’s transmittal letter: “In FY 2023, we will build the foundation for improved services by rebuilding our workforce after ending FY 2022 at our lowest staffing level in over 25 years.”

According to Kijakazi, at the end of Dec. 2022 the initial SSA claims-pending level soared to almost 975,000 cases.  This was more than 380,000 cases higher than at the end of FY 2019. “The average initial claims wait time through Dec. 2022 was 206 days compared to 120 days in FY 2019.  It will take a multi-year effort and sustained funding to restore our average initial disability claims wait times to pre-pandemic levels,” she says.

While Kijakazi anticipates processing 129,000 or 7% more initial disability claims in FY 2022 (52 weeks), she expects wait times for a disability decision at the initial and appeal levels to increase for a period of time because backlogs will continue to grow while the agency hires and trains new staff. 

Although the FY 2022 outlay represents $785 million of the agency’s budget of $13.34 billion, it was less than the $14.8 billion President Joe Biden requested for administration funding. In February 10th correspondence to the House and Senate Appropriation Committees, Kijakazi stated that while budget increases will cover fixed costs and support staffing in the upcoming fiscal year, “some performance will show improvement in FY 2023, while others will show temporary degradation.” 

Conversations regarding SSA’s customer service challenges

In February 28th correspondence to SSA’s Kijakazi, AARP’s Nancy LeaMond, Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer, recognized increased funding was necessary for SSA to address its customer service problems. AARP recognizes that federal funding has not kept pace with increases in operational cost and demands, but the agency “needs to do more to constrain operating costs and increase productivity,” Kijakazi says.

LeaMond called the “expected decline in service troubling, given multiple assurances from SSA that the funding level received would be sufficient to at least maintain the modest customer service improvements made last year.”

“Your operating plan asserts that the already unacceptable average of call wait time of 33 minutes will be longer this year, increasing to 35 minutes, and people trying to call the agency will get a busy signal 15 percent of the time, more than double the rate last year.  This is an unacceptable step backward,” wrote LeaMond.

LeaMond says that SSA’s operating plan doesn’t address several customer service areas, especially the challenges of beefing up staff to improve in-person services and reducing wait times and busy rates that the public should expect when calling their local office.  She called for more details and when beneficiaries can expect improvements to online services.

“Even more concerning is the fact that the operating plans note that disability-related service improvements are not expected to occur before 2024 fiscal year,” adds Leamond. While the plan provides details about disability claims, and appeal workloads, as well as prioritization of claimants who have been waiting the longest, she calls on SSA to “act more quickly to improve the disability process.”

“The Social Security Administration (“SSA”) has large fixed costs, such as rent on its network of 1200 field offices, and those fixed costs increase every year. SSA’s funding does not come from the general government budget, but rather from Social Security’s accumulated reserve of $2.8 trillion. Yet for over a decade, Congress has restricted SSA from spending the funds necessary for adequate service,” says Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works (SSW).

Adds Altman, “While Congress this year allowed SSA to spend more, the additional dollars did not even cover all the fixed costs. They certainly did not correct the many years of underfunding. Service will not significantly improve unless Congress allows SSA to spend more of  Social Security’s accumulated reserve  — at the bare minimum,  the $15.5 billion that President Biden has requested — but ideally significantly more.”

Biden budget seeks to fix SSA’s customer service issues

In a blog article penned on March 30, 2023, Kathleen Romig, Director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Washington, DC-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, says that SSA has an opportunity to ratchet up its consumer service impacted by decades of restricted funds by receiving increased funding. “With additional funding in for the coming year, the agency could invest in the staff and technology it needs to better serve the public,” she says.

“Since 2010, SSA’s customer service budget has fallen by 17 percent after inflation, with its staffing falling a commensurate 16 percent – marking the lowest level in 25 years. These cuts happened even as the number of Social Security beneficiaries grew by 12 million, or 22 percent. Being forced to serve millions more people with fewer staff and resources has caused tremendous strain at SSA, and beneficiaries are suffering the consequences,” says Romig.

On March 9th, Biden released a FY 2024 budget calling for increased appropriations to SSA. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the president’s budget provides an increase of $1.4 billion (a 10% increase) over the FY 2023 budget to cover salaries, benefits and rent increases. It would also improve customer service at field offices, state disability determination services, and teleservice centers.   

Each year, SSA processes more than 6 million retirement, survivors, and Medicare claims, and more than 2 million disability and SSI claims, says OMB, charged with producing the president’s budget. Biden’s budget increase boosts staffing levels from FY 2023, allowing the agency to process about a half a million more disability cases in FY 2024 that were completed in FY 2022, significantly reducing wait times for those decisions.

GOP debt limit bill drastically cuts SSA’s operating budget

Just last week, by a razor thin margin, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)’s Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 (H.R. 2811) passed by a partisan vote of 217-215. Four Republicans voted “no”. While this legislation to lift the nation’s debt limit allows the U.S. Treasury to pay the nation’s bills, it has no chance for passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate. However, it will force the president’s team to the negotiation table with Republican House and Senate leadership, hoping it will push compromise on future spending limits.

Failure to increase the debt limit would have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and global economies, as well as for all Americans, who rely on the federal budget to provide public services. (from Social Security and Medicare to food safety inspection, air traffic control, school nutrition, and environmental. 

After the House vote, Alex Lawson, SSW’s Executive Director of Social Security, charged that 217 House Republicans just voted to cut Social Security. “Nearly every Republican in the U.S. House just voted to slash the already inadequate funding of the Social Security Administration (SSA). If this bill becomes law, it will force SSA to close field offices, reduce hours, and lay off thousands of workers. This will make it far harder for Americans to claim the benefits they’ve earned,” warned Lawson. “Cuts to SSA are cuts to Social Security, and we will hold every single one of these members accountable,” he says.

Max Richtman, President and CEO of the Washington, DC-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) agrees with SSW’s assessment. One day before the vote, he wrote House members to urge them to pass “clean’ debt limit legislation.

“If the spending cuts and other [GOP] legislative changes that are incorporated in this legislation were ever to become law, the negative impact would be felt by virtually every American family in every Congressional District in the country,” wrote Richtman.

According to Richtman, the GOP’s proposed debt limit legislation includes among its provisions a roll-back of ALL discretionary federal spending to Fiscal Year 2022 levels in FY 2024, with growth limited to one prevent annually for the next decade. “This is not a minor trimming of spending that has been portrayed by some, but a dramatic slashing that will have devastating impacts on the Americans who rely on the affected programs for their health and well-being,” says the nationally recognized Social Security advocate. 

Reluctance to cut Defense and Veteran Health funding would have at least a 23 percent reduction to all other programs for FY 2024, charges Richtman, this resulting in funding cuts to SSA’s customer service budget.

“Cutting funding by six percent would significantly affect SSA’s ability to serve the public and undermine the Agency’s core-mission – producing longer wait times for benefits and to reach SSA representatives, as well as reduced access to in-person programs, noted Richtman, stressing that face-to-face access with SSA’s employees is critical to those who are elderly and disabled.

SSA calculates that for every $100 million in additional funding cut the federal agency would be forced to lay off an additional 1,000 employees, this equivalent to closing 40 field offices, says Richtman.

Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents, says the U.S. Treasury.  Like in the past, this Congress must follow to raise the nation’s debt limit, and is expected to do so.

Ultimately, it is crucial for Biden and McCarthy’s negotiations to hammer out a “clean” debt limits bill that will not cut SSA’s operational funding further which could send the agency’s customer service efforts into a tailspin. It is time for Congress to fix SSA’s operational funding issues once and for all to improve customer service provided to 65 million beneficiaries. 

For a copy of SSA’s 2023 Operating Plan go to https://www.ssa.gov/budget/assets/materials/2023/2023OP.pdf.

For a summary of H.R. 2811, Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, go to 

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr2811/summary

For a copy of President Biden’s FY 2024 Budget, go to:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2023/03/09/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-for-fiscal-year-2024.

Trustee Reports predict improved outlook for Social Security and Medicare

Published in RINewsToday on June 6, 2022

On June 2, 2022, following a meeting of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, the Social Security Administration (SSA) – joined by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the U.S. Department of Treasury — released a 275-page annual report giving us a snapshot of the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds.

The Trustee reports findings

According to this year’s Trustee Reports, “Social Security and Medicare both face long-term financing shortfalls under currently scheduled benefits and financing. Costs of both programs will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) through the mid-2030s primarily due to the rapid aging of the U.S. population. Medicare costs will continue to grow faster than GDP through the late 2070s due to projected increases in the volume and intensity of services provided.”

The Social Security Trustees report that the combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds, paying benefits to 65 million retirees, disabled people as well as survivors of deceased workers, are projected to become depleted in 2035, one year later than projected last year, with 80 percent of benefits payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund asset reserves are not projected to become depleted during the 75-year projection period.

“It is important to strengthen Social Security for future generations. The Trustees recommend that lawmakers address the projected trust fund shortfalls in a timely way to phase in necessary changes gradually,” says Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security in a statement announcing the released report. “Social Security will continue to be a vital part of the lives of 66 million beneficiaries and 182 million workers and their families during 2022,” she adds.   

The Medicare Board of Trustees note in its 263 page report that the projected depletion date for Medicare’s trust fund for inpatient hospital care (Part A), covering around 64 million retirees and disabled persons, moved from last year’s forecast of 2026 to 2028. At this time Medicare will only be able to pay 90% of the scheduled benefits when the fund is depleted.

“We are committed to running a sustainable Medicare program that provides high quality, person-centered care to older Americans and people with disabilities,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. In a statement “Medicare trust fund solvency is an incredibly important, longstanding issue and we are committed to working with Congress to continue building a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable Medicare program,” she says.

Thoughts from senior advocacy groups

In a statement, AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said that this year’s Social Security and Medicare Trustee report sends this clear message to Congress: “The Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ reports should send this “clear message” to Congress: “Despite the short-term improvement, you must act to protect the benefits people have earned and paid into both now and for the long-term. The stakes are too high for the millions of Americans who rely on Medicare and Social Security for their health and financial well-being.”

“These reports also underscore the urgent need for Congress to pass legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, which would result in billions of dollars of savings for seniors, the Medicare program, and taxpayers,” says Jenkins.

Jenkins also calls on Congress to increase funding to fix serious long-time Social Security customer service problems, which currently impede or keep seniors and people with disabilities from getting their benefits in a timely manner.

Following the release of the Trustees Report, Executive Director Alex Lawson, of the Washington, DC-based Social Security Works, (SSW) a social welfare organization that lobbies for Social Security Reforms, also issued a statement: “Today’s report shows that our Social Security system remains strong. Protecting and expanding benefits is a question of values, not affordability. That this year’s projections are even stronger than last year’s proves once again that Social Security is built to withstand times of crisis, including pandemics.”

We don’t have a Social Security crisis, but we do have a retirement income crisis. With prices rising, seniors and people with disabilities are struggling to afford food and medicine. The solution is to expand Social Security,” says Lawson. 

According to SSW, the 2020 Social Security Trustee’s Report reported that Social Security has an accumulated surplus of about $2.85 trillion.  It projects that, even if Congress took no action whatsoever, Social Security not only can pay all benefits and associated administrative costs until 2035, it is 90 percent funded for the next quarter century, 84 percent for the next half century, and 81 percent for the next three quarters of a century.  

“At the end of the century, in 2095, Social Security is projected to cost just 5.86 percent of the gross domestic product (“GDP”), less than most other wealthy countries spend on their counterpart programs,” says SSW.

Max Richtman, President and CEO of the Washington, DC-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), throws in his two cents about this year’s Trustee Report. “The takeaway from the latest Social Security Trustees report is this:  Congress must strengthen the program’s finances without delay. The Trustees project that the combined Social Security retirement and disability trust fund will become depleted by 2035, one year later than projected in their previous report. At that point, every Social Security beneficiary will suffer a 20% cut to their benefits.”

“Seniors struggling to meet rising living expenses need Social Security to be boosted and strengthened. The pandemic, runaway inflation and devastating stock market losses serve to remind us how vital a robust Social Security program is to workers, retirees, the disabled and their families. The clock is running down. The time for fair, just, and equitable action that safeguards Social Security’s financial stability is now,” adds Richtman.   

While acknowledging that the trust fund insolvency date may fluctuate from year to year, the urgent need to boost the program’s financing and benefits remains consistent, says Richtman. 

NCPSSM’s Richtman says, over the years, the GOP has opposed the expansion and strengthening of Social Security and has called for raising the retirement age, privatization, and more recently, ‘sunsetting’ Social Security and Medicare every five years.  He calls for passage of Rep. John Larson’s Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust legislation that would extend trust fund solvency by requiring high wage earners to contribute their fair share through an adjustment in the payroll wage cap. 

A Washington Insider says that House Speaker’s Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) policy staff are concerned about the cost of Larson’s Social Security fix legislation and are seeking a CBO cost estimate. At press time this measure has more than 200 Democratic cosponsors in the House. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the Task Force on Aging and Families, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus have all called on Pelosi to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote.

“Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, our economic recovery has strengthened both the Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Funds and improved financial projections for these vital programs. But to ensure that every American worker, senior, child, and person with disabilities receives the necessary and earned benefits provided by both Social Security and Medicare, we need to act. That’s why I am an original cosponsor of legislation like Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, to not only enhance benefits for seniors and some of our most vulnerable neighbors, but to also guarantee access to these programs for generations to come,” said Congressman David Cicilline, (D-RI).  

Congress can step in to financially strengthen the Social Security and Medicare programs. A message from the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees suggest Congress pass legislation to reduce or eliminate the long-term financing shortfalls in both the Social Security and Medicare. “Taking action sooner rather than later will allow consideration of a broader range of solutions and provide more time to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare,” say the Trustees.

Congress should look for “medium-term solvency” fixes to ensure that Social Security program can pay full benefits for several decades rather than for the full 75-year projection period, suggests Paul N. Van De Water, Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit nonpartisan research organization and policy institute that conducts research on government policies and programs. “But shoring up the program’s financing for a substantial period of time is important for assuring both current and future beneficiaries that Social Security will be there for them in the years to come,” he says.

At a crossroad

NCPSSM’s Richtman believes Social Security’s future is now at a crossroads. “We can either cut benefits or expand benefits and pay for it by requiring the wealthiest to pay their fair share,” he says, calling on Congress to hold an up or down votes on Larson’s Social Security legislation.

Polling shows that voters support fixing Social Security and Medicare. Seniors may well go to the polls, sending a message with their vote that strengthening and expanding Social Security is important to them.   

For a copy of the 2022 Social Security Trustee Report, go to https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2022/tr2022.pdf. For a copy of the 2022 Medicare Trustee Report, go to https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2022-medicare-trustees-report.pdf

“There’s a New Sheriff in Town” at SSA

Published in RINewsToday on June 20, 2020

On June President Joe Biden has asked two political holdovers from the President Trump’s administration, Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul and his deputy, David Black, who had previously served as the agency’s top lawyer, to resign. Saul ultimately was fired after refusing to resign Friday, July 9, while Black resigned upon the president’s request that day. 

Biden named as acting commissioner, Kilolo Kijakazi, whom he earlier had appointed to a lower-level Social Security Administration (SSA) position, deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy. 

The White House affirmed its authority to “remove the SSA Commissioner at will” by citing a Supreme Court ruling and a legal opinion from the Justice Department. Previously, under statute, the president could only remove the SSA commissioner for “neglect of duty” or “malfeasance in office.”

Saul’s term as Social Security Administrator ended in 2025 and according to The Washington Post, he states he plans to dispute the White House firing and continue to work remotely at his New York City home.

“I consider myself the term-protected commissioner of Social Security,” Saul told The Washington Post, calling the attempt to unseat him a “Friday Night Massacre.”

Minority Members of Senate Aging Committee Oppose Firing

Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), Marco Rubio (R-Fla..), Mike Braun (R-Ind..), Rick Scott (R-Fla..), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent a letter July 14 to President Biden urging him to reinstate and honor the Senate confirmed, six-year term of Saul as SSA Commissioner. 

Members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging find the politically motivated action especially worrisome as it will have drastic effects on SSA services that help millions of older Americans with basic expenses like housing, food and medicine. 

The letter explains “Commissioner Saul was confirmed by the Senate in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in 2019… led the agency through one of the most trying periods in its history during the COVID-19 pandemic… was confirmed by the Senate to serve a full six-year term that expires in 2025 and he should have remained in his position unless removed for cause, as written in federal law.”

The committee requested the Biden administration explain what authority an acting commissioner—not confirmed by the Senate—would possess to carry out the statutorily obligated duties of the SSA commissioner. 

 On the Other Side of the Aisle…

“From the beginning of their tenure at the Social Security Administration Andrew Saul and David Black were anti-beneficiary and anti-employee. The Biden Administration made the right move to fire both Saul and Black after they refused to resign, says chairperson John B. Larson (D-CT), of the House Ways and Means Social Security Committee, who had called for Saul and Black’s removal in March 2021. “As [Supreme Court] Justice Alito recently stated, the president needs someone running the agency who will follow their policy agenda,” he says.

According to Larson, since June 17, 2019, Saul’s control over SSA policies have “disproportionately harmed vulnerable Americans like low-income seniors and persons with disabilities, immigrants and people of color.

During Saul’s tenure, Larson noted that the SSA implemented a new rule that denied disability benefits for older, severely disabled workers who are unable to communicate in English, resulting in approximately 100,000 people being denied more than $5 billion in benefits from 2020 to 2029. However, there has been considerable discussion of the misinterpretation of the intent of this change.

SSA also finalized a new regulation that dramatically reduced due process protections for Social Security appeals hearings, by allowing the SSA to use agency attorneys instead of independent judges for the hearings, says Larson.

Larson also expressed concern about SSA proposing to change the disability review process to cut off benefits for some eligible people and proposing to make it significantly harder for older, severely disabled workers to be found eligible for disability benefits. 

According to Larson, Saul also advanced the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant policies by resuming “no-match letters” to employers with even minor discrepancies between their wage reports and their employees’ Social Security records. These letters effectively serve to harass immigrants and their employers, often leading to U.S. citizens and work-authorized immigrants being fired, he said.

Finally, Larson charged that Saul embraced the Trump Administration’s anti-federal employee policies, including forcing harsh union contracts that strip employees of rights and ending telework for thousands of employees just months before the COVID-19 pandemic started – a particularly ill-fated decision given the critical role telework has played in SSA’s ability to continue serving the public during the pandemic. 

Thumbs Up from Aging Advocacy Groups 

“The Social Security Commissioner should reflect the values and priorities of President Biden, which include improving benefits, extending solvency, improving customer services, reopening field offices, and treating SSA employees and their unions fairly. That was not the case with former Commissioner Saul, and we look forward to President Biden nominating someone who meets that standard,” says Max Richtman, President and CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Adds Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works: “Today is a great day for every current and future Social Security beneficiary. Andrew Saul and David Black were appointed by former President Donald Trump to undermine Social Security. They’ve done their very best to carry out that despicable mission. That includes waging a war on people with disabilities, demoralizing the agency’s workforce, and delaying President Biden’s stimulus checks.”  

Introducing New SSA Commissioner, Kilolo Kijakazi…

Kilolo Kijakazi has a Ph.D. in public policy from George Washington University, an MSW from Howard University, and a BA from SUNY Binghamton University. Kijakazi’s Urban Institute bio notes that she served as an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute, where she “worked with staff across the organization to develop collaborative partnerships with those most affected by economic and social issues, to expand and strengthen Urban’s agenda of rigorous research, to effectively communicate findings to diverse audiences and to recruit and retain a diverse research staff at all levels” while conducting research on economic security, structural racism, and the racial wealth gap. 

Kijakazi was previously employed as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a program analyst at the Food Nutrition Service of the Department of Agriculture, and an analyst at the National Urban League.

According to Wikipedia, before entering the Biden administration, Kijakazi was a board member of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the National Academy of Social Insurance and its Study Panel on Economic Security, the Policy Academies and Liberation in a Generation, as well as a member of the DC Equitable Recovery Advisory Group, adviser to Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap, co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Eliminating the Black-White Wealth Gap at the Center for American Progress, and member of the Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings at the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

“Kilolo has an amazing ability to find and build connections among individuals and institutions that should be working together on critical public policy issues and policy discussions are much better for that inclusionary approach,” says Margaret Simms, an Institute Fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute.