Without agreeing to your "horribly run" comment, I would like to know to which fate would you prefer to consign future generations?
Remember that you asked for it.
Why does SSA pay a $255 "Lump Sum Death Payment" (LSDP) to spouses or minor children but not adult children? Why pay it at all? In todays value it is pretty much a slap in the face.
How about the 130 day average to get an initial claim approved. There should be no reason it should take that long. Do you know why it does? Because people are allowed to apply for things like broken arms that will be fine in 6-8 weeks despite the definition of disability, under SSA rules, asking that it have lasted or expect to last 12 straight months and/or result in death. So that adds tens of thousands of claims every year for **** that they know will get denied but have to process them anyways. Or how about all the mountains of paperwork needed for a disability claim. You claim you became disabled in 01/01/08 but you earned 1,000 dollars once in 2009 and nothing since? Here is an SSA 821 (complicated and long form) to fill out for something that is obviously a fluke and you cannot work but I digress.
How about a hearing that takes on average 1 year to even get a hearing date. ONE YEAR. That is not one year to be approved but one year to get a hearing date that is usually 30-60 days out then you have 2-4 months after that for a decision. Why? I will tell you why because you have judges from out of state that are allowed to make their own choices on how many cases they have a year. Only 75-80% meet the guideline of number of cases heard. So you have 20 percent not pulling their weight. What happens to them? Not a damn thing. Business as usual. Or how about when you bring a medical proffesional that knows your particular case to that hearing and the Judge tells them to sit down and be quiet. Good thing that medical profesional took the day of work in an attempt to help a person out. So much for the Judge giving the claimant a fair shake but again I digress.
How about fraud in SSA. I will tell you about fraud. A guy gets caught lying and commiting fraud to Social Security. Let us say for 15k. They worked under the table and did not report it and it is found out by SSA. A "claims rep" for SSA spends hours detailing and documenting all the contact attempts, research and contacts they put in to this refferal and it is reffered to OIG (Office of the Inspector General) for developement. That is done because SSA cannot prosecute anyone for breaking the law and frauding them. So this owrkers has this case and he has it for say 9-12 months and nothing is done to collect the overpayment or even stop the benefits in most cases. Regardless of wether the person is eligible or not. That OIG agent puts in mountains of work. Then they reffer it to a prosecutor and you know what they are told 85% (or more) of the time? "No thanks. This wont get my name in the paper". So it is sent back to SSA and all that is done is Administrative Sanctions. No SSA for that criminal for 6 months to a year and when they do say 10% is taken from any benefits due to recover the amount of the fraud. Good thing all those extra funds paying them incorrectly for a year were wasted. Or that all that time and money was spent developing the case to be told to go pound sand.
Do not even get me started on SSI. If you do not know what that is then go look it up.
How about when someone dies. Say they die on 02/28/13 at 11:59 PM. They are not due a check that month. Period. No pro rating no nothing. Give the full amount back. No don't take it out of your bank account sweet little old widow as treasury hits that account no matter if you take that month to SSA or not. So now you are double hit and your account is over drawn. It takes a couple months to get that money back, good luck. Overdraft fees? HAHAHAHA no.
Or how about if a case is actually approved for SSA disability. Can it be processed and put into pay right then. No. Why you ask? Because, obviously, the people in the public offices can't be trusted. So it goes to a "processing center". No, you cannot go there and talk to the person putting your claim into pay. Nice try. Now there are only 7 (8 if you count th one that only does foreign retirement claims) of these jewels of effeciency in the U.S. They deal with a dramatic amount of claims. There are after all only 7 and millions of claims are taken per year. So you have to wait about 6 weeks to get your disability claim put into pay. No matter that on average you have waited 200 days to be approved. Back pay? Add another 6 months after the time it took to put the claim into pay.
Or how about responsible spending of funds. Here are the brand new computers for your office. What about the ones they got two years ago that work perfectly? No worries no ones anyways! That brand new office visitor intake program that time and money was spent on developing and installing? Sorry there is a brand new one and that one is being installed. Dont worry that the old one worked fine. They have to stay modern despite the older program being more user friendly, faster, less glitch prone and all around better. How are some more pens, note pads, glue, envelopes, printer paper and files. Oh all files are electronic now? To bad. They got bought them so the office takes them. There are enough pens and glue? Stick them in the back somewhere. No one has taken a particular pamphlet in over 6 months? Well gosh darn it here are 50 more!
Security!!! An office is closed so many days a week and the public has no access? Well that is unsafe! A guard most go in there and sit on his butt all day. That guard must not read, sleep, talk on a personal cell phone (that they should not even have) or anything else. They must sit there and look pretty. From 8:45-4:15 Nevermind that offices are open from 9-3 every day. Bankers are jealous of SSA hours. To bad you took off work at 3 to come in. Try next time they are open. There are roughly 1,600 SSA offices that pay a guard 1 hour a day 5 days a week for nothing. NOTHING. You figure the average guard makes 15.50. So 16,000 x 1 = 1,600 (hours a day). 1,600 x 5 = 8,000 (hours a week). 8,000 x 52 = 416,000 (hours a year). Minus the 10 federal holidays. 1,600 x 10 = 16,000. So you are left with 416,000 - 16,000 = 400,000 hours a year on wasted guard wages. 400,000 x 15.50 (average salary) = 6,200,00 a year in wages for absolutely nothing. for 1,600 guys to sit on their butts doing nothing.
HOT DAMN!! The model of effiecency.
