Today, a press release from Social Security:

 Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today called for the California State Assembly to quickly pass Senate Bill 29. This bill, which already has passed the State Senate, would end the practice of furloughing Federally-funded state employees, a practice recently held to be illegal by a California superior court judge.

About 1,500 employees in this category are responsible for reviewing applications for Social Security disability benefits in California. California’s taxpayers, state employees, and disability applicants all are harmed by these furloughs, and no one benefits. Each furlough day costs the state about $850,000 in administrative reimbursements and delays the payment of over $420,000 in much needed Social Security benefits to residents’ with disabilities.

“Furloughing disability examiners is incomprehensible under any circumstances, and it is callous in a recession of this magnitude,” Commissioner Astrue stated. “Congress authorized half a billion dollars under the Recovery Act to hire staff to reduce disability backlogs, and California is thwarting Congress by unilaterally reducing staffing in a punitive way that also hurts the State’s coffers.”

“It is time for Governor Schwarzenegger to renounce his failed furlough policy by withdrawing his veto threat of Senator Steinberg’s Bill 29 and by declining to appeal the decision in the furlough lawsuit. Fairness, compassion, and common sense all require that result.”

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the agency is making new data about beneficiaries and the agency’s disability and hearing processes available to the public.

Here are a few examples of the valuable Social Security datasets available today:

* Researchers can find out about the work-related experiences of our beneficiaries receiving Social Security disability benefits and give us policy guidance for our disability programs.
* The public can see information about hearings workloads and a breakdown of the types of decisions made by Administrative Law Judges.
* Researchers can study the effects of current and proposed legislative and program provisions.
* People who have requested a hearing on their disability claim can estimate the amount of time they may have to wait for the hearing to be held and for a decision.
* The public can see general information requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
To read the President’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, click here:

Furloughing workers who help the needy is “fundamentally irrational,” says Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue. Disability, unemployment and food stamps are funded by the federal government. “People should be getting their benefits.” See full story here:

According to Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue and other experts on disability claims, the faltering economy is causing an increase in applications of between 15 percent and 25 percent. SSA originally anticipated receiving 2.6 million to 2.65 million applications for disability benefits in fiscal 2009, but upped its prediction to 3 million and another 3 million for 2010. Recently, the agency adjusted its estimates again, increasing the projection for 2010 to 3.3 million applications. …

Astrue says the agency has been making inroads, reducing processing times by 4 percent each of the past two years. The recession, however, has reversed the progress on the backlog of cases. At the beginning of 2009, SSA had 550,000 cases pending at the state level. The state-run SSA-funded Disability Determination Services do much of the initial processing and eligibility determination for applicants. The number of claims pending at the state level, which does not account for applications at other stages of adjudication, is now up to 725,000. …

“We’ve been stymied at the state level,” Astrue says. “There’s this callous ‘Kumbaya’ attitude that if there’s going to be pain, everyone has to suffer. For me, it’s beyond comprehension that you would make a civil service suffer unnecessarily and make claimants in desperate need of assistance wait much longer than they otherwise would.” …

This unconfirmed news indicates that Social Security is planning for a significant expansion of hearing offices sites and judicial staff to address the backlog at the heaing offices:

“To provide the level of staffing needed to address rising appeals workloads, the agency is increasing the number of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) being hired from 1,450 to 1,600. The additional ALJs will be added in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 and 2012. To ensure that there is sufficient space available to house the additional staff and to address workload issues around the nation, the Commissioner has decided to increase the number of ODAR hearing and satellite offices. The final locations have been selected for 10 offices, with 5 additional locations to be finalized. The new offices are projected to be opened in the second or third quarter of Fiscal Year 2011. The new locations selected by the Commissioner are as follows:

Hearing Offices:

Rochester, New York
Paterson, New Jersey
Augusta, Georgia
Hoover, Alabama
St. Paul, Minnesota
El Paso, Texas
Columbia, Missouri
Moreno Valley, California

Satellite Office

Reno, Nevada

National Hearing Center

St. Louis, Missouri

Offices Pending Final Location Decisions

Hearing Offices

Tennessee – Jackson or Franklin
Indiana – Muncie or Terre Haute

Satellite Offices

Marquette, MI/Upper Peninsula area
Eureka, CA area
Montana – Helena or Missoula”

Today’s San Jose Mercury writes that “the Social Security Disability Insurance system (SSDI) is crumbling under the pressure of a substantial disabled population, shrinking budgets and a wave of agency retirements. Social Security employees work as hard as they can to help people who deserve care, but their best efforts aren’t putting a dent in a hearing backlog of 765,000 disabled Americans — including 62,031 Californians — waiting months or years to receive their rightful benefits.

The recession is making things even worse. Commissioner Michael Astrue recently told the media the SSA is facing an unanticipated 10 percent increase in its disability claims caseload. That’s 250,000 additional cases the SSA needs to review, further bogging down the system.” See San Jose Mercury article here:

The New York Times joins the chorus of voices rising about layoffs by state governors. The governors need to slash budgets, but some of the jobs cut impact people on or applying for disability benefits:

“The nation’s top Social Security official says benefits for tens of thousands of people with severe disabilities are being delayed by furloughs and layoffs of state employees around the country.

The official, Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of Social Security, said Sunday that “governors are hurting their own states, their own citizens, and increasing the backlog of claims” by furloughing workers who make disability decisions. State officials have announced furloughs, layoffs and hiring freezes to help balance budgets battered by the recession.

“The states’ response is completely illogical,” Mr. Astrue said. See his remarks and story here

A number of states are furloughing employees, including Social Security employees who process medical records and make preliminary decisions. Paradoxically, states may be laying off the very employees who should be processing stimulus checks for currect recipients. In an interview with the Commissioner of Social Security, the Federal Times reports:

“The state furloughs are “disappointingly cynical,” SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview with Federal Times. “They understand they’re not saving any money and that it’s actually anti-stimulus because it’s taking money away from state’s citizens.”

The SSA-funded employees evaluate medical records and disability claims of Americans applying for disability benefits to determine if they qualify. They are known as DDS employees; DDS stands for disability determination services.
The seven states furloughing these employees are California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon. Other states have furloughed state employees but exempted DDS employees.” See Federal Times here: