Newsletter: Spotlight on SSA
It’s been a busy week for the Social Security world, including a major hearing in the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on the growing backlog for disability benefits. We see a silver lining in the stories of suffering the hearing surfaced: because of the tireless work of caseworkers on the SSA portfolio, things are starting to change.
Today, we’ll dive into some of that news around SSA, including a quick post with some tips on how to stay on top of committee activities and other legislative developments around agencies in your portfolio. For those of you with non-SSA portfolios, don’t worry! We’ll round up our usual headlines too.
As always, send any comments, suggestions, subscribe requests, and vents my way: anne@popvox.org.
Anne Meeker
Deputy Director
POPVOX Foundation
Spotlight: SSI & SSDI
It’s been a big week for Social Security, from a confirmation hearing for the Commissioner nominee to a major hearing on SSI/SSDI backlogs to a 60-minutes piece on overpayments. While these may not contain new information for caseworkers, they point to gathering momentum around substantial reform. Let’s dive in.
Disability decision delays
We wrote a blog post with a summary of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security hearing on delays in initial benefits decisions and appeals. This post also contains tips on how to use tools to quickly summarize and pull out important information from a lengthy hearing—in ten minutes or less.
A new Commissioner?
Put those new hearing summary skills to use by diving into the Senate Committee on Finance’s nomination hearing for Martin O’Malley as the new SSA commissioner. O’Malley focused on “de-siloing” the organization, addressing a staffing shortage, and finding new ways to monitor performance. He’ll face major problems if confirmed, as this roundup notes.
Overpayments on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes is a big driver of policy change, and this week they focused on overpayments. The show also published a list of tips on preventing an overpayment, including checking your retirement amounts before you retire, being cautious around returning to work on disability benefits, and above all, keeping excellent records of every communication with Social Security.
Calculating the scale of overpayments
For folks who want to get weedsy on the math, Dave Guarino published a deep dive into understanding how big government programs calculate “payment accuracy.” Spoiler: many of the payment accuracy rates we use to evaluate how big programs are working only count overpayments, entirely missing underpayments.
Modernizing Congress
Better District Office Leasing?
My colleague Taylor J. Swift wrote about a possible new model for long-term district office leases. We’d love to hear what you think!
News You Can Use
Hearings on casework agencies this week
Following the SSI/SSDI hearing recap above (which includes a guide to quickly and accurately summarizing hearings), we’re going to try out a new feature for the newsletter where we flag hearings in both chambers that touch on common casework agencies. Let us know if this is helpful!
House Veterans Affairs: Emerging Therapies: Breakthroughs in the Battle Against Suicide?
Tuesday November 14th, 2pm ETHouse Veterans Affairs: Electronic Health Record Modernization Deep Dive: System Uptime
Wednesday November 15th, 12pm ET
FEMA webinar on grants for nonprofit security
November 9th at 2pm ET, FEMA is hosting an informational webinar for nonprofits on the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) with resources for nonprofits on target hardening and other security measures. Additional dates are available later in November and December. Registration is here.
VA suspends debt collection for erroneous pension overpayments
The VA has suspended collections on thousands of pension overpayments caused by errors in its payment comparison data, acknowledging the hardship this collection causes to low-income and elderly veterans. VA officials are investigating how the error occurred and why it took so long to address.
Americans leaving Gaza
We know it’s a relief to many offices handling requests for support from constituents in Gaza to see progress on helping Americans evacuate. If you’ve been handling one of these cases, we’d love to hear from you.
Mental health support for USAID and State employees
A recent GAO report flagged inadequate mental health care provisions for staff in high-stress postings around the world. More coverage here.
Open challenge around VA mental health
The VA, in partnership with the National Artificial Intelligence Institute (NAII), has launched a 120-day challenge opportunity with prize money up to a million dollars for teams to help pioneer AI tools to help capture notes from clinical appointments, and process documents from community care. We’ll be keeping an eye on this for what it means for the future of VHA care.
Bipartisan bill would address the 62,000 unaccompanied minor case backlog
Bipartisan legislation from Sen Bennet [D, CO], Sen Murkowski [R, AK], Rep Goldman [D, NY] and Rep Salazar [R, FL] would establish a children’s court within EOIR to establish special support services for children and reduce the massive backlog.
VA Committee question VA Whistleblower office’s independence
Members of the House and Senate VA Committees have raised questions about whether the VA’s Office of Whistleblower Protections has sufficient independence to protect whistleblowers, and whether the office itself is duplicative (since VA Whistleblowers can also file complaints with the Office of Special Counsel). This is a good time to review the Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds’ guidance on working with VA whistleblowers.
Related, VA and AFGE support legislation on VA firing
Legislation introduced by Sen Tester [D, MT], Sen Moran [R, KS], and Sen Rounds [R, SD] standardizes how the VA builds a case against employees facing allegations of poor performance.
Upcoming Events
Cumulative Impact: How Programs Work Together
November 13, 2023 at 1pm EST (webinar)
featuring, Max Ghenis, Cofounder and CEO, PolicyEngine
One of the most challenging aspects of casework is when programs and benefits collide: a veteran might have a permanent disability rating with the VA, but need to recertify for SSDI, or a slight change in income that increases one benefit makes another one fall by a larger amount. For individuals, these interactions can be confusing; for the economy and government spending as a whole, they can have huge impacts.
Max Ghenis, CEO and co-founder of PolicyEngine, will delve deeper into this conundrum. PolicyEngine has developed open-source tools that empower anyone to input details about a household and subsequently estimate their taxes and benefits. This provides a clearer understanding of the intricate ways in which various programs interact. During this webinar, Max will discuss the nuances of navigating the complex web of interacting programs, and the experience of building PolicyEngine.
How Do We Fix This? Championing Implementation vs. Policy
November 16, 2023 at 1pm EST (webinar)
featuring Jennifer Pahlka, author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
Every government program starts with good intentions—it’s how they’re carried out that can make them fail in big ways or in small ways that add up.
Jennifer Pahlka has been at the forefront of the push to reimagine government technology, and her new book, Recoding America, is an argument for seeing policy and implementation as coequal parts of governing—with stories and core concepts that will resonate for every caseworker. While caseworkers are part of the branch in charge of policy, casework experience is all about implementation: how do good policy ideas become complicated and counterproductive as they’re filtered through agencies?
Jennifer has argued that every policymaker should have experience in government customer service positions. This webinar will discuss how caseworkers and other frontline implementation experts can and must leverage that expertise to reimagine government service for the 21st century.
Administrative Burden: Diagnosing Casework Problems
November 22, 2023 at 1pm EDT (webinar)
featuring Donald Moynihan, McCourt Chair, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, and special guest Rep. Derek Kilmer [D, WA]
“Administrative burden” describes the obstacles constituents face in accessing benefits that do not reflect their legal eligibility—it also happens to describe a significant proportion of reasons constituents seek casework help from their Members of Congress.
Don Moynihan, McCourt Chair at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, has pioneered the study of administrative burden, including new language and frameworks to understand the types of costs associated with navigating complex bureaucracies. Caseworkers will come away with a deeper understanding of the root problems behind common casework inquiries, and ideas for tracking types of casework and articulating casework challenges to policy staff.
