Safety And Security

We are the front-line service providers for SSA in communities all over the nation. Therefore, as you develop your agenda for the post- election period, we strongly urge you to reject privatization and instead focus on bipartisan solutions to the most serious problems facing our nation. A key focus is on the analysis of network protocols, and the pages contain coverage of Wireshark analysis. These rules reflect some of the key factors discussed earlier in these comments: low education is an adverse vocational factor; lack of transferable skills is an adverse vocational factor; being limited to sedentary work is an adverse vocational factor. When locked, latch retracted by key. If a field does not exist, you can not encrypt or track field history. Illiterate or unable to communicate in English with an unskilled or no past work history. These proposed regulations also clarified SSA policy on the Grid rules that apply if the individual is illiterate or unable to communicate in English. SSA is facing many challenges this year.

Last year SSA Field Offices processed 16% more retirement claims than the previous year. However, we would strongly resist the privatization of Social Security, which would only make our fiscal problems worse and jeopardize Americans’ retirement security. However, it is estimated that 55 percent of families of disabled workers would live in poverty without Social Security benefits. Every possible effort was made to pay benefits due on a timely basis. We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to address these challenges. Congress – physical ability, age, education, and work experience – and set forth rules that identify whether jobs requiring specific combinations of these factors exist in significant numbers in the national economy. Second, the example infers that the rules are too liberal in who will be found “disabled.” But who exactly are these individuals? The poverty rate among disabled workers who receive Social Security and their families is twice as high as the rate for other Social Security beneficiaries. These individuals, aged 50-61, have a higher poverty rate than their counterparts of the same age who left the labor force by choice to retire. Under the “Light Work” rules, the individuals who would be found “disabled” have the most adverse vocational factors.

“Sedentary work” represents a significantly restricted range of work, and individuals with a maximum sustained work capability limited to sedentary work have very serious functional limitations. My favorite is Nmap, but others such as Advanced Port Scanner or SuperScan would work for this test just as well. This can result in a bad surprise when you hit the end of the year and find out you owe a sizeable chunk of change to the IRS and probably your state tax agency as well. Walk-in traffic increased by approximately 40% from the same time last year. Since then traffic has moderated somewhat but walk-in traffic is currently up an estimated 25% from the same time last year. From the time our organization was founded over thirty-five years ago, the NCSSMA has been a strong advocate of locally delivered services nationwide to meet the variety of needs of beneficiaries, claimants, and the general public. Chairman Grassley, Senator Baucus and Members of the Committee, my name is Richard Warsinskey and I represent the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA). The NCSSMA is a membership organization of nearly 3,400 Social Security Administration (SSA) managers and supervisors who provide leadership in SSA’s 1,374 Field Offices and Teleservice Centers throughout the country.

The resulting benefit cuts would harm all seniors in the future, even those who prefer not to open a privatized account. Cutting Social Security’s funding by diverting payroll taxes into privatized accounts, as you have proposed, would require deep cuts in guaranteed benefits and lead to a massive increase in borrowing. The full impact of receiving these benefits is further reflected in the fact that SSDI and SSI benefits were a main source of income for disabled men and women. Social Security is half or more of the total family income for about one in two disabled worker beneficiaries. I get the impression that there’s a lot of stalling going on at Social Security. 9.496 billion for the Social Security Administration’s Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE) account. 10.25 billion. The budget submitted by the Commissioner takes into consideration the increasing workloads and new mandates that are confronting the Agency. 9.496 billion as proposed in the President’s budget. The proposed rules, if adopted, will lead to more consistent decision making and proper application of SSA policies for claimants with particularly adverse vocational characteristics.

Demonstrations broke out in mid-November following an abrupt decision by authorities to roll out a petrol-rationing scheme and slash subsidies as part of efforts to offset the effect of punishing US sanctions. We used to have 7 Service Representatives and we are now down to 4 full time and 1 part time employee. As a result the average time to receive a hearing decision is often more than two years. • Failure to receive an adequate appropriation led SSA to make the decision to cut back on processing SSI redeterminations by approximately 750,000 this year. • Failure to receive an adequate appropriation led SSA to make the decision to cut back on processing Medical Continuing Disability Reviews. • SSA will send out an estimated 2 million letters for those that qualified for Extra Help for Part D Medicare in August to determine whether the amount of Extra Help will change. • SSA will also mail out an estimated 2 million letters for those potentially affected by the Income-Related increased Medicare Part B Premiums this fall. 300 million during the appropriations process.