By Steve Kofahl
George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, and we fought off those efforts during his second term. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction will soon consider benefit cuts in the name of deficit reduction, and we are gearing up to defeat those proposals as well. But a more insidious attack has been underway for more than a quarter century. Deep cuts have been made in the spending and staffing needed to properly run the Social Security Administration (SSA), and bad management decisions have harmed service delivery.
In spite of these problems, the public has been generally well-served due to the commitment and dedication of front-line SSA employees. However, proposals from Congress, and decisions being made by the SSA Commissioner and his subordinates, may soon rob the employees of the capacity to continue that proud tradition. If the public loses confidence in SSA's ability to deliver quality service, Social Security itself becomes far more vulnerable to attack from the program's enemies. Recent surveys by the Agency show that the public is already becoming less satisfied.
Between1985 and 1989, President Reagan and SSA Commissioner Dorcas Hardy cut staff through attrition, from about 83,000 to 62,000 positions. A hostile labor-management relationship was established in the Agency at the same time. Pressure from Congress and the public led Reagan to replace Ms. Hardy with Gwendolyn King, who stopped the staff cuts and healed SSA's relationship with AFGE.
With the arrival of George W. Bush, an adversarial labor-management relationship was again established, while thousands of front-line positions were chopped through attrition. President Obama restored those lost positions, but ignored recommendations made by his transition team, and by the AFL-CIO (including the Washington State Labor Council) to replace Bush's SSA Commissioner, Michael J. Astrue. It isn't just labor that has problems with Astrue's oligarchic management style. Well-respected senior Agency officials at Headquarters who dared to express views different than his have been fired, or threatened with firing.
Current year funding of SSA operations is nearly $1 billion less than the President requested, and there has been a near-total hiring freeze for most of the past year. Republican proposals have been made to gut staffing and spending at all Federal agencies, including SSA.
Using spending constraints as an excuse, Astrue stopped sending annual Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate (PEBES) statements to workers early this year. That means that wage posting errors are not revealed in time for them to be easily corrected. AFGE and the Alliance for Retired Americans are considering legal action in response to this suspension of PEBES, since the issuance of the statements is required by law.
The Commissioner has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent years to steer the public toward Internet self-service when they apply for benefits, and to encourage and train third parties (some of whom charge fees) to perform the work traditionally done by the Agency's Claims Representatives. SSA employees find that numerous errors are made when the public uses these alternate service methods. Early this year, Astrue closed 300 contact stations where SSA employees made themselves available to serve clients who had difficulty getting to field offices, and reportedly told Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown that he intends to close as many as one-half of the Agency's 1300 field offices.
Since that time, dozens of offices have been targeted for closure (see the July Retiree Advocate regarding Seattle office closures). A few weeks ago, hours of service were cut by 30 minutes at the end of the day in each of the Agency's field offices, to reduce the need to pay employees overtime for late interviews.
New leadership is needed that would repair the damaged labor-management relationship, so that SSA employees would again have a voice at work, with their ideas considered when the Agency makes decisions about how to save money. Elimination of unnecessary middle management Headquarters and Regional Office positions that do nothing to improve service might be a good place to start.
Because just 0.9% of income is used to administer the program, and because the Trust Funds continue to receive more money than is paid out in benefits, there is enough money to restore quality public service delivery by trained SSA employees. Administrative funding should be taken off-budget, and not be subject to arbitrary spending caps, since Social Security is self-funded and workers already have paid for the quality service delivery that they need and deserve.
Please contact your Senators, and ask them to be our champions on these issues!
(Steve Kofahl is president of Local 3937 of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO and a member of the PSARA Executive Board.)
Showing posts with label Kofahl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kofahl. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Strengthen Social Security...don’t cut it!
By Steve Kofahl
We’re advocating for improvements in benefit adequacy and equity, not just pushing back hard against the forces determined to cut payments and deform Social Security. By scrapping the $106,800 cap on earnings subject to payroll and self-employment taxes, we would gain revenue to fund program enhancements, while laying to rest any concerns about Trust Fund solvency.
At the Social Security implementation strategy session at the December 2005 White House Conference on Aging, the delegation from the Puget Sound Alliance made important recommendations, and got all of them approved. We suggested raising the surviving spouse benefit to 75% of the combined amount formerly paid to the couple, recognizing that the remaining individual needs more than one- half of the couple’s prior income to meet basic needs.
For workers who care for young children, we called for dropping their years with little or no earnings from the calculation of lifetime average earnings. Average indexed monthly earnings over the best 35 years are the basis for computing payment amounts, and this would allow fewer years to be averaged. A guaranteed minimum benefit would be established to keep low income workers out of poverty.
These changes would be gender neutral, but would primarily benefit women, who generally spend fewer years than men in the workforce, and continue to earn less for comparable work. For the disabled, we recommended an end to the five-month waiting period before benefits are paid following disability onset, and elimination of the 29-month waiting period for Medicare.
The national Strengthen Social Security coalition supports increased revenue from those most able to pay, as well as benefit improvements. Seattle’s Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) is on the Steering Committee, and serves with PSARA and 18 other member organizations in Social Security Works Washington.
EOI calls for expiration of the 2% payroll tax “holiday” at the end of the year; for scrapping the cap; for a more progressive benefit computation formula; and for a drop in computation years from 35 to 30 in order to raise payments for those who must temporarily leave the workforce to provide childcare and eldercare.
Senator Maria Cantwell will introduce a bill to raise cost of living adjustments by pegging them to a modified Consumer Price Index that measures costs of a “market basket” of goods and services required by seniors and other beneficiaries. We really need to get behind this one, because our opponents are pushing for a reduced COLA for current and future beneficiaries. The costs of health care, food, and housing represent a greater portion of what is spend by beneficiaries than by the general population, and they are growing much faster than the standard CPI.
The October 2009 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) report, “Fixing Social Security: Adequate Benefits, Adequate Financing,” prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Aging, describes a menu of Social Security financing and benefit improvement options, including many of those described above.
The Congressional Budget Office followed NASI with “Social Security Policy Options.” NASI and CBO are non-partisan, and not advocacy organizations, so the choices are presented in a neutral and objective manner. If you want more information, check them out! It’s time we played offense, as well as defense, when it comes to Social Security.
(Steve Kofahl is president of Local 3937 of the American Federation of Government Employees and a member of the PSARA Executive Board.)
We’re advocating for improvements in benefit adequacy and equity, not just pushing back hard against the forces determined to cut payments and deform Social Security. By scrapping the $106,800 cap on earnings subject to payroll and self-employment taxes, we would gain revenue to fund program enhancements, while laying to rest any concerns about Trust Fund solvency.
At the Social Security implementation strategy session at the December 2005 White House Conference on Aging, the delegation from the Puget Sound Alliance made important recommendations, and got all of them approved. We suggested raising the surviving spouse benefit to 75% of the combined amount formerly paid to the couple, recognizing that the remaining individual needs more than one- half of the couple’s prior income to meet basic needs.
For workers who care for young children, we called for dropping their years with little or no earnings from the calculation of lifetime average earnings. Average indexed monthly earnings over the best 35 years are the basis for computing payment amounts, and this would allow fewer years to be averaged. A guaranteed minimum benefit would be established to keep low income workers out of poverty.
These changes would be gender neutral, but would primarily benefit women, who generally spend fewer years than men in the workforce, and continue to earn less for comparable work. For the disabled, we recommended an end to the five-month waiting period before benefits are paid following disability onset, and elimination of the 29-month waiting period for Medicare.
The national Strengthen Social Security coalition supports increased revenue from those most able to pay, as well as benefit improvements. Seattle’s Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) is on the Steering Committee, and serves with PSARA and 18 other member organizations in Social Security Works Washington.
EOI calls for expiration of the 2% payroll tax “holiday” at the end of the year; for scrapping the cap; for a more progressive benefit computation formula; and for a drop in computation years from 35 to 30 in order to raise payments for those who must temporarily leave the workforce to provide childcare and eldercare.
Senator Maria Cantwell will introduce a bill to raise cost of living adjustments by pegging them to a modified Consumer Price Index that measures costs of a “market basket” of goods and services required by seniors and other beneficiaries. We really need to get behind this one, because our opponents are pushing for a reduced COLA for current and future beneficiaries. The costs of health care, food, and housing represent a greater portion of what is spend by beneficiaries than by the general population, and they are growing much faster than the standard CPI.
The October 2009 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) report, “Fixing Social Security: Adequate Benefits, Adequate Financing,” prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Aging, describes a menu of Social Security financing and benefit improvement options, including many of those described above.
The Congressional Budget Office followed NASI with “Social Security Policy Options.” NASI and CBO are non-partisan, and not advocacy organizations, so the choices are presented in a neutral and objective manner. If you want more information, check them out! It’s time we played offense, as well as defense, when it comes to Social Security.
(Steve Kofahl is president of Local 3937 of the American Federation of Government Employees and a member of the PSARA Executive Board.)
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