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80–146—PDF 2012

S. HRG. 112–751 

THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: 

IS IT MEETING ITS RESPONSIBILITIES TO SAVE 

TAXPAYER DOLLARS AND SERVE THE PUBLIC? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 17, 2012 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Finance 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana, Chairman 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

JON KYL, Arizona 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

RUSSELL SULLIVAN, Staff Director 

CHRIS CAMPBELL, Republican Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Baucus, Hon. Max, a U.S. Senator from Montana, chairman, Committee 

on Finance ............................................................................................................ 1 

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from Utah ................................................. 3 

ADMINISTRATION WITNESS 

Astrue, Hon. Michael J., Commissioner, Social Security Administration, Baltimore, MD .............................................................................................................. 5 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL 

Astrue, Hon. Michael J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

Responses to questions from committee members ......................................... 47 

Baucus, Hon. Max: 

Opening statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 92 

Coburn, Hon. Tom: 

‘‘Two Lawyers Strike Gold in U.S. Disability System,’’ by Damian Paletta 

and Dionne Searcey, Wall Steet Journal, December 22, 2011 .................. 94 

Letter from Senator Coburn to Michael J. Astrue, dated December 22, 

2011 ................................................................................................................ 100 

Letter from Michael J. Astrue to Senator Coburn, dated January 12, 

2012 ................................................................................................................ 101 

Letter from Senator Coburn to Michael J. Astrue, dated January 24, 

2012 ................................................................................................................ 102 

Letter from Michael J. Astrue to Senator Coburn, dated March 1, 2012 .... 104 

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G.: 

Opening statement ........................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105 

COMMUNICATIONS

Allsup, James F. ...................................................................................................... 107 

Center for Fiscal Equity .......................................................................................... 111 

(III) 

(1) 

THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: 

IS IT MEETING ITS RESPONSIBILITIES 

TO SAVE TAXPAYER DOLLARS 

AND SERVE THE PUBLIC? 

THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2012 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 

room SD–215, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Max Baucus 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Nelson, Cardin, Hatch, Grassley, and Thune. 

Also present: Democratic Staff: Amber Cottle, Chief International 

Trade Counsel; Alan Cohen, Senior Budget Analyst; Tom Klouda, 

Professional Staff Member, Social Security; and Claire Green, 

Detailee. Republican Staff: Chris Campbell, Staff Director; and Jeff 

Wrase, Chief Economist. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM MONTANA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

President Kennedy once said, ‘‘A nation’s strength lies in the 

well-being of its people.’’ No Federal program touches more American lives and benefits more American families than Social Security. Next year, the Social Security Administration will pay benefits 

to almost 60 million Americans. Today we will examine the Agency’s performance delivering benefits to workers and their families 

and its role of saving taxpayer dollars. This is not a hearing about 

Social Security solvency. 

We will hear from the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Michael Astrue. Commissioner Astrue, during your 

confirmation hearing before this committee in 2007, you committed 

to reduce the disability hearings backlog. Today we will evaluate 

the result. 

At the beginning of last year, more than 771,000 people were 

waiting for a hearing. This is higher than when you started your 

term. I expect to hear why the backlog grew and what the Agency 

is doing to address it. 

Michael Clouse, who lives in my hometown of Helena, MT, needs 

this backlog to be fixed. He has spent years trying to work through 

the red tape. Mike is a 55-year-old Army veteran, and his service 

did not end when he retired from the military. Mike volunteers 

with the American Legion and with the Disabled American VetVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:40 Apr 02, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 R:\DOCS\80146.000 TIMD
2 

erans, helping other veterans find transportation to hospitals 

across Montana. 

But his health problems make it tough for him to volunteer to 

do other work. During a military training exercise years ago, a 

tank next to him accidentally fired. Mike’s back broke in the accident, and ever since he has suffered chronic back pain. Mike 

worked in heating and plumbing before joining the military. He 

was working as an Employment Specialist with the Montana Department of Labor Job Service in 2004 when his disabilities became 

just too much to bear. 

He had to leave his job, and he applied for benefits shortly thereafter. Mike has waited since 2005 for his benefits, 7 years. He has 

been shuttled between various Social Security offices, and his paperwork has gotten lost. Mike and his wife Teese had to sell their 

home in Butte, MT to be closer to his hospital in Helena. They 

could not take the physical demands and cost of traveling. 

Teese, who is his caregiver, went back to work to make ends 

meet. Things have been a struggle for them. The financial hardship 

means they are unable to visit their children and their grandchildren. At an age when many Americans are planning their retirements and their financial futures, Mike and Teese are stuck. 

Mike stepped up, volunteered to serve his country, but now the 

shoe is on the other foot. He is waiting for his country to serve him. 

Fortunately, we are seeing one sign of progress at the Social Security Administration. It does not take as long for people to get a 

decision on their claim. At the end of 2008, it took 514 days, almost 

a year and a half. In 2011, a few years later, it took 360 days, 

about a year. This is substantial progress, but still too long. Mr. 

Astrue, you set a goal of 270 days by the end of fiscal year 2013. 

Together, we need to meet this goal. 

While your Agency has seen 50 percent more retirement applications since 2001, that is, applications with respect to Social Security generally, there are fewer workers to deal with the increased 

workload. These challenges have been compounded because the 

Agency’s budget remained flat during the last 2 years. 

The Social Security Administration needs an adequate budget to 

fix the disability backlog and root out improper payments, that is, 

to do both. For fiscal year 2013, the President has asked for $11.76 

billion. This is $370 million more than last year, most of which is 

dedicated to reducing improper payments, thereby improving the 

long-term outlook of Social Security. Every dollar spent to root out 

improper payments saves $6 to $10 in the long run, and those are 

dollars that go to help the trust fund. 

Unfortunately, Congress did not provide full funding for these efforts in fiscal year 2012. Doing so would have saved taxpayers 

more than $800 million. If the Congress had followed the President’s recommendation, it would have saved the trust fund $800 

million. Social Security beneficiaries would have $800 million more 

of a cushion in the Social Security trust fund. 

We all talk about saving Social Security. Here is a great return, 

saving $6 for each dollar spent or saving $10 for each dollar spent. 

It does not get much better than that! But still, Congress was very 

short-sighted and did not recognize the real pay-out here for some 

reason; I do not know why. We cannot afford to repeat this misVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:40 Apr 02, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 R:\DOCS\80146.000 TIMD
3 

take. Failing to fully fund program integrity is penny wise and 

pound foolish. 

So let us invest Social Security dollars wisely. Let us reduce the 

disability backlog. We could do both. Let us ensure that Americans 

like Michael Clouse are not stuck waiting for benefits they have 

earned. Let us ensure that the Social Security program is making 

the program stronger by improving Americans’ well-being. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Baucus appears in the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hatch? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, 

A U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH 

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 

for scheduling this hearing, and I join you in welcoming Commissioner Astrue. 

The Social Security Administration oversees numerous programs 

and is responsible for the stewardship of significant taxpayer resources. We are all interested in hearing from the Commissioner 

about his stewardship of those resources, his plans for the future, 

and his strategies for confronting existing and ongoing challenges 

facing Social Security’s programs. 

A few short weeks ago we received a reminder of some of the 

challenges facing Social Security’s finances in the Annual Report of 

the Trustees. According to the report, the combined Old-Age and 

Survivor’s Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds within 

Social Security are projected to be exhausted in 2033, 3 years sooner than in the previous year’s report. 

The trustees identified that, as the system is currently structured, Social Security beneficiaries face benefit cuts of as much as 

25 percent in 2033, with further cuts thereafter. To state things 

simply, current promises embedded in Social Security cannot be 

sustained, given the system’s existing structure. Worse still, the 

Disability Insurance trust fund is projected to become exhausted in 

2016, less than 4 years from now, and 2 years earlier than estimated just 1 year ago. 

Absent changes, disabled workers will very soon face the real 

threat of a 21-percent benefit cut in 2016. With the recent explosive growth in the ranks of Disability Insurance benefit recipients 

far outpacing the growth in the general working population, 2016 

might be a rosy outlook in terms of when the Disability trust fund 

actually becomes exhausted. 

Benefit programs in the Disability Insurance program have increased by a remarkable 134 percent since 2000. Following the fiscal cliff that we face at the end of this year, we have a solvency 

cliff in 2016 for the Disability Insurance program, and then another solvency cliff for the Social Security retirement program. 

Yet in the face of these known dangers, we continue to kick the 

can down the road instead of addressing the known problems. We 

should not act like Thelma and Louise when it comes to Social Security and our economy by driving them off a cliff into an abyss of 

insolvency and economic decline. 

Inaction is irresponsible. As the President remarked recently in 

advocating more tax-and-spend policies, the fact that this is an 

4 

election year is not an excuse for inaction. Unfortunately, I am not 

aware of any plans by the administration to tackle the looming exhaustion of the Disability Insurance trust fund or the general 

unsustainability of Social Security. 

As far as Social Security is concerned, it appears that this being 

an election year is the administration’s reason for inaction and is 

just another excuse for them to kick the can down the road once 

again. 

So many tax provisions expire at the end of this year that a dangerous fiscal cliff has formed. By not acting now, we are just stepping on the accelerator, even as we are already perilously close to 

the cliff. Inaction for the rest of the year only invites careless and 

hasty decision-making, which leads, of course, to bad policy. 

I urge the administration to work with Congress on the mountainous to-do list of expiring tax provisions and unsustainable entitlement promises in the interest of sound policymaking, certainty, 

and the provision of an economic environment fertile for growth 

and jobs, and of course for the economy generally. 

There is no reason to delay efforts that will place the programs 

in Social Security on a sustainable financial path. As virtually everyone acknowledges, the sooner we address this issue, the better. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing. Commissioner Astrue, I know that you have an insurmountable job in 

many ways, and we have great respect for you. I want to thank you 

for your service and for joining us today, and I look forward to 

hearing about your budget, your challenges, and your plans for the 

Social Security Administration. We appreciate you coming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Hatch appears in the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Astrue, I would just like to review some 

numbers here and see if they are accurate. There is some talk 

about—oh, sorry. Do you have an opening statement? Do you want 

to talk? [Laughter.] 

Commissioner ASTRUE. If it pleases the committee. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am so excited about asking you questions. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Well, if we can contain the excitement for 

a minute, I will try to be brief. I understand I have a couple of minutes of grace on the standard 5 minutes, since I am the only witness today, but I will try to make it as quick and painless as I possibly can. 

The CHAIRMAN. I apologize. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Chairman Baucus—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I will introduce you. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Oh, I am sorry. [Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. We have a very distinguished guest today—— 

Senator HATCH. And I am happy to have you introduce him. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. The Commissioner of Social Security, the Honorable Michael J. Astrue. We very much look forward 

to your testimony, Commissioner. I have known you for several 

years in different capacities, and you do just super work. We are 

very, very proud of you. As Senator Hatch said, you have a nearly 

impossible job, but you perform it admirably, with dignity, and 

5 

with conviction and conscientiousness, and we deeply appreciate 

your work. 

So, why don’t you proceed? You have a little more than a few 

minutes here. You can take your time. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. And your statement will automatically be in the 

record. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL J. ASTRUE, COMMISSIONER, 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, BALTIMORE, MD 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Chairman Baucus, Ranking Member 

Hatch, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity 

to discuss the resources we need to continue providing outstanding 

public service. 

As we do so, we must always remember that we must maintain 

our responsibility to save taxpayer dollars. In every fiscal year from 

1994 through 2007, Congress appropriated less money than the 

President requested. At the same time, our workload steadily increased because the Nation’s population was growing and the Baby 

Boom generation entered its disability-prone years before filing for 

retirement. 

Congress has also added dozens of new statutory responsibilities 

without simplifying the complexities of the Social Security Act, 

which has grown over 77 years. Our employees’ fortitude has allowed us to keep up to some extent, but we have started to lose 

ground. 

From 2001 through 2007, the Agency responded to budget cuts 

by dramatically reducing its program integrity work, an extremely 

poor choice from the taxpayers’ perspective. As you mentioned in 

your opening comments, continuing disability reviews save taxpayers substantial dollars for every administrative dollar spent. 

The Agency also responded to budget cuts by under-investing in 

its hearing and appeals staff. As a result, delays for disability hearings steadily worsened and became a national disgrace. Not only 

was Government failing its citizens, it was also spending more administrative money per claim to eventually handle these claims 

that were taking too long. 

When I started as Commissioner, the first issue this committee 

raised was the hearings backlog. At that time, it took, on average, 

more than 500 days for a person to get a hearing. We all agreed 

that had to change. I made the case that we needed to move in new 

directions, and you understood it would only be possible with your 

support. 

The investments that you made produced substantial dividends. 

Despite a huge increase in disability applications caused by the 

deepest recession since the Great Depression, we have weathered 

a storm that produced over 600,000 more applications each year 

than our actuaries projected before the recession. 

We have, nonetheless, cut the average wait for a hearing decision 

from about 532 days in 2008 to a recent level of about 350 days, 

and we did so while handling the oldest cases first. Currently, 

every hearing office in the country has an average wait of less than 

6 

475 days. Five years ago, some offices had waits of 900 days, and 

65,000 people waited over 1,000 days for a decision. 

Each year we challenge ourselves by tightening our definition of 

an old case. This year we have already completed 90 percent of our 

cases over 725 days old, and next year we will focus on cases 700 

days or older. While the total number of hearings has increased 

due to a tsunami of applications, the queue is moving faster and 

faster. 

In fiscal year 2007, the average age of a case waiting in the 

queue was 324 days. Today, it is down to 209 days. We have made 

these improvements and maintained service also at the front end 

of the disability process. Despite an over 30-percent increase in initial disability applications since 2007, we have kept the average 

wait for an initial decision approximately steady, and the level of 

pending cases is much lower than we originally projected. 

Quality is up over the past 5 years for these decisions, and we 

are now fast-tracking 6 percent of our initial applications with our 

new Compassionate Allowance and Quick Disability Determination 

processes. Severely disabled applicants, who often waited years for 

a decision in the past, now get one in an average of 10 to 14 days. 

Five years ago, you would have probably gotten a busy signal 

when you called a field office. Now the busy rate is less than 10 

percent. Last year, we had the lowest waits and busy rates ever on 

our 800 telephone number. We have also made progress in policy. 

We have updated medical rules that had been out of date for decades, and we have started the long, slow process of overhauling our 

main vocational tool, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, which 

the Department of Labor largely stopped updating in the late 

1970s. 

Early in my tenure, I was stunned to learn that the office responsible for notices had been disbanded. We mail 350 million notices 

each year to the American public. Many of these important communications were inaccurate and poorly written. We have been rewriting our notices systematically in plain language to make it easier 

for people to understand our actions and their responsibilities. Program integrity work, while still not funded at the levels requested, 

is up substantially. 

We are also taking advantage of technology. We redesigned our 

online services, which have been invaluable in helping us keep up 

with recession-related work. We have four of the five most highly 

rated electronic services in the Federal Government, and we are 

the only Federal agency widely offering online services in Spanish. 

For the first time ever, we have a backup for our National Computer Center, and last month we finally had the ground-breaking 

ceremony for the state-of-the-art replacement facility. The new 

building, by the way, will be constructed for about $75 million less 

than the original cost that we and the Congress had projected. 

None of these accomplishments would be possible without our 

employees, who have achieved an average productivity increase of 

4 percent a year for the past 5 years, and a higher rate this year 

so far, a remarkable achievement that very few organizations, public or private, can match. We all owe them our gratitude for their 

work on the front lines. 

7 

I am concerned that, despite their hard work, we are seeing signs 

that we will soon be moving backwards for most of our key service 

goals. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012, the difference between the 

President’s budget and our appropriation was greater than in any 

other year of the previous 2 decades. Also, last year Congress rescinded $275 million from our Information Technology carry-over 

funding, which will greatly damage our efforts to maintain our productivity increases through IT innovation. 

We are starting to see the consequences of these decisions. Our 

progress in addressing our hearings backlog, for example, is not 

happening as quickly as the public deserves. We need your support 

for the President’s fiscal year 2013 budget request, as well as a 

timely and adequate supply of well-qualified judges from the Office 

of Personnel Management, if we are to achieve our goal of an average processing time of 270 days by the end of next year. 

Few people realize that a rapidly increasing percentage of our 

work results from our verification role for other Federal, State, and 

local entities. For example, the number of people who visited our 

offices to verify their benefits for a third party has increased by 46 

percent since 2007. Last year we conducted 1.4 billion verifications 

for programs such as E-Verify, voter registration, driver’s licenses, 

and health care programs. 

While most of these verifications occur cheaply and automatically, a small but increasing number result in non-matches that 

strain the resources of our rapidly shrinking field offices. Many 

members of Congress have written about the importance of our 

service in local communities. Unfortunately, budget cuts do not 

allow us to employ the staff necessary to meet all their expectations. 

By the end of this fiscal year, we will have lost 6,500 Federal and 

State employees in the past 2 years. As you well know, attrition 

by hiring freeze does not occur evenly, and many of our smaller, 

rural offices have been hit harder than the average office. Much of 

the progress we have made in the past 5 years could vanish if we 

keep losing staff at this rate and in this fashion. 

Our accomplishments demonstrate the direct correlation between 

funding and service. I appreciate this opportunity to explain the 

wonderful work that the men and women of the Social Security Administration perform under enormous and increasing stress. They 

need your continued support, as reflected in the President’s fiscal 

year 2013 budget request, to continue to serve the American people 

in the way that you and I expect. 

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner 

Astrue. 

[The prepared statement of Commissioner Astrue appears in the 

appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to just indicate what the DDS Director in Montana thinks. That Director reports that the disability 

claims process is in the worst shape in its history. DDS there has 

1,500 claims waiting to be assigned, and it takes about 45 days before someone can even look at a claim. 

The Director of Montana states, ‘‘We are the poster child for 

what happens with a hiring freeze: high attrition and increasing 

8 

caseload.’’ So, Commissioner Astrue, I would just like to ask you 

your thoughts about all that. We clearly want to see the disability 

hearings backlog improved, which you are working on. But we 

clearly do not want to leave other efforts off to the side. 

Could you just comment on what will happen to your Agency if 

we do not get the President’s budget request? Again, just in ordinary terms that people can understand. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Sure. Mr. Chairman, we are now getting 

very close to the level of employees that we had 5 years ago and 

could start dropping below that before terribly long. The retirements and the attrition do not happen evenly around the organization, so, not only do we have the problem that we have fewer people to do the work, we have the wrong people in the wrong places. 

With all the restrictions of Government, it is not easy to move people and move work in the way that allows for the optimal result. 

So we expect that we will continue to be contracting the number 

of field offices that we have. We have already closed virtually all 

of the contact stations. We have closed most of the remote hearing 

offices for the Office of Disability and Adjudication Review (ODAR). 

We expect that we will start having backlogs at the Disability Determination Services (DDS) level that we have not had before, and 

people will be waiting longer for services in field offices. 

I think there is a real question as to whether we are going to hit 

the 270-day goal at the end of next year. We had been making 

great progress with that. Congress wanted to check and asked the 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) to do a crystal ball analysis, and we did well on that a couple of years ago. I think it is 

really a question of will at this point. 

If the Congress wants us to make that goal, it is within your control to give us the money to hit the goal. I think, if you support 

us adequately, it would be close now; we lost most of our margin 

of error last year. We could still hit it, I think, with support from 

Congress. But, if we do not get support for the President’s budget, 

the chances that we will hit the 270-day goal on time are almost 

non-existent. 

The CHAIRMAN. Would you explain a little bit about how it takes 

a while to train new people to do the work? I mean, this is not 

work that you just hand to the person—man or woman—who walks 

in the office the first day and say, here is your job. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. That is exactly right. I think about every 

3 years the Supreme Court complains about the complexity of the 

Social Security Act, and there are some memorable quotes about 

that. 

We expect that, for most of our front-line workers, whether they 

are in the DDS in Montana or whether they are in the field office, 

the work is so complicated that they contribute relatively little in 

their first year of work. It is mostly learning. 

In fact, they can be a real drain on productivity, because someone who knows how to do the work has to take the time to make 

sure that the person is learning and that the work is properly 

done. 

So really, you start contributing in your second year, and you are 

probably not, in most cases, reasonably productive from an operations point of view until after the second year. It is a particular 

9 

problem with the DDSs, because the salary scales in the States are 

very low and the turnover is very high. Our attrition rate tends to 

be around 3 to 6 percent for the Federal employees, and tends to 

be 9 to 10 percent for the State employees. 

The attrition rate, I think, was in the 30s in Utah a couple of 

years ago, and, with Senator Hatch’s guidance and support, we 

worked with the State to reclassify the jobs so that they were a little bit more remunerative so we could actually hold onto the employees who were doing the front-line work. 

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned that most of your temporary sites 

are being closed. It is my understanding that you plan to offer a 

permanent site in Great Falls, MT. Is that correct? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Yes, that is correct. We had been planning to. We had been working with the General Services Administration to find an appropriate site at an appropriate cost. We just 

actually had a letter from Senator Tester that I think we just responded to yesterday or the day before confirming that a permanent site will be coming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. For those who are not familiar with the distances in Montana, that is very significant, because otherwise people in the Great Falls area, and even north of Great Falls, would 

have to go to Billings, MT. That is many, many hours’ drive. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is a long, long, long way. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. I understand. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, it makes a big difference. We deeply appreciate that, recognizing the remote nature of our State, so people 

with a disability do not have to drive quite as far. I mean, that is 

a big burden to put on people to have to drive that great distance. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. That will be a permanent video link. I 

think, particularly for those of you in rural States, we need your 

support on video. We are not going to have the staff to do everything face-to-face the way that we could 30 years ago. The quality 

of the video is very high. You can actually see the watermark on 

a driver’s license now in the video well enough to use that for 

verification purposes from a remote location. 

Also, for hearings, I am frustrated that not a lot of attorneys are 

taking us up on this yet. They can now do video hearings from the 

comfort of their own offices with a relatively small investment in 

equipment. It would make us much more efficient. It would allow 

us to spend less on bricks and mortar if more of the attorneys representing claimants would take us up now on the offer that they 

can run the hearings by video from their own offices. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any incentive you could provide? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Not under the current statute, but I 

think that is a very fine question, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Hatch? 

Senator HATCH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner, there have been reports of problems in Social Security’s disability programs, as you have outlined. Some relate to 

possibly careless, or even corrupt, benefit grants made by administrative law judges, and some relate to attorneys representing 

claimants in the appeals process. 

10 

Now, it seems to me that the stakes are pretty large. Dr. Mark 

Warshawsky, currently a member of the Social Security Advisory 

Board, recently presented evidence that administrative law judges 

with low claim denial rates who decide on many cases ‘‘have a fixed 

tendency over time to rarely deny claims’’ and calculated that, if 

remedies were put in place to shore up the claims process, we could 

save tens of billions of dollars. 

Of course, those savings could then be used to provide benefits 

for the truly disabled and would help with the nearly exhausted 

Disability Insurance trust fund. 

Let me be clear. Disabled workers who are eligible for benefits 

and have bona fide disabilities are fully entitled to what the DI 

program provides. However, there seems to be evidence suggesting 

that some of the decision-making could be leading to benefits being 

granted in cases where there is no bona fide disability. 

Those cases drain taxpayer resources away from where they were 

intended to go and rob the DI trust fund of resources that should 

be going to the truly disabled. No American worker and no disabled 

worker likes it when someone defrauds the system and takes resources intended for those truly in need. It is truly not fair, and 

tens of billions of dollars may be at stake here. 

Now, Mr. Commissioner, I know that you are working to address 

problems in the DI system, but I wonder if you could comment on 

where you believe further work needs to be done in addition to 

what you have said here, and what are you doing to enhance the 

integrity of the DI claims process? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. That is a very fine question, Senator 

Hatch. I speak with a lot of well-motivated people who have a philosophical feeling that we should be granting a lot more benefits or 

a lot fewer benefits. I do not view that as my goal. What I view 

as my goal is to have our judges call it as squarely as possible on 

the basis of the statutes that you and the Congress have written. 

I think that what gives me cause for concern are the judges 

who—in my opinion, out of arrogance or ideology—take it upon 

themselves to ignore the law that you have written and that they 

are pledged to uphold, and make their own judgments, either to be 

a Robin Hood or to be a Scrooge. 

If you look at the statistics on the outliers, we have improved significantly in the last 5 years. We have done that with better training of the new judges, and we have done that with more counseling. We have also been more active in discipline, although we 

have not disciplined a judge for not adhering to the law yet. 

But the same arrogance that leads a judge to engage in that kind 

of behavior also usually allows them to engage in other kinds of inappropriate behavior. So we have removed more judges for conduct 

on my watch than under all the previous Commissioners’ combined. 

That has started to have a beneficial effect, but I do not want 

to suggest to you, Senator Hatch, that we are where we should be. 

The number of judges who are basically thumbing their nose at 

you, the Congress, is still higher than it should be. It should be 

zero. 

I think that my authority in that area is gray. There was a hearing on the House side—I would commend the transcript of that to 

you—a joint hearing with the Ways and Means Committee and the 

11 

Judiciary Committee. I think if you are concerned about the issue, 

I am more than willing, and the Agency is more than willing, to 

take it on. But I think you need to look at how to strengthen the 

Agency’s authority, while still respecting the independence of the 

judiciary. 

Senator HATCH. Well, thank you. Mr. Commissioner, the Disability Insurance program disbursed $130 billion in benefit payments in 2011 and is one of the fastest-growing of all of our entitlement programs. In just over a decade, aggregate payments in the 

DI program have risen by almost 135 percent. 

Now, it does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that this 

type of growth is unsustainable. According to the Social Security 

trustees, the DI trust fund will be exhausted by 2016, and beneficiaries will face benefit cuts of 21 percent. 

Now, some look back to the Greenspan Commission and suggest 

that we solve the problem by simply pouring funds from the OldAge and Survivors Insurance trust fund into the DI trust fund, and 

yet that simply robs Peter to pay Paul, in my opinion, and does not 

solve any of the structural problems. 

Now, one cause of the rapid expansion of DI costs, as some researchers have pointed to, stems from 1984 reforms to DI screening 

that led to rapid growth in the share of recipients suffering from 

back pain and mental illness. 

Two researchers affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic 

Research have also written that ‘‘the DI screening procedure put in 

place by Congress hinges to a significant extent on an applicant’s 

employability, not just personal health, causing the program to 

function much like a long-term unemployment insurance program 

for the unemployable.’’ 

Now, of course, anyone who is eligible and has a bona fide disability is entitled to DI benefits, but DI benefits paid to anyone 

who is not truly disabled simply take resources away from those 

who are truly disabled. 

Now, I think my time is up. Can I ask these two questions? 

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely. 

Senator HATCH. I have two questions related to the DI program. 

First, do you agree that the sometimes difficult-to-diagnose conditions related to back pain and mental illness account for some of 

the most rapid expansion of the DI beneficiary population? 

And second, to what extent do the opinions of those making DI 

benefit decisions about local or national labor market conditions determine eligibility for DI benefits? That is, has DI become an unemployment benefit provider of last resort? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Senator Hatch, let me say, I think that 

Disability Insurance is a rapidly growing program. There have 

been some analyses I have seen recently that misunderstand the 

nature of that. Most of that has been predictable and has been predicted by the actuaries for a long time. 

If you simply compare the growth in DI to the growth in population, you would think, the program is growing faster than it 

should. But when you factor in people like me, who at 25 are perfectly healthy, but not so much at 55, the actuaries say that almost 

all the growth in DI is consistent with what they have been preVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:40 Apr 02, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 R:\DOCS\80146.000 TIMD
12 

dicting for a long time based on the Baby Boomers going through 

their disability-prone years. 

Having said that, if you look on a more granular basis at some 

of the causes of growth, I certainly say, with mental illness, you 

are correct. We as a society are diagnosing mental illness more frequently, we are prescribing treatments for mental illness much 

more frequently than in the past, and it is certainly a significant 

factor in the growth. I am less sure that the back pain and the 

muscular damage is as much of a factor, but we will go back, and 

we will give you information on that for the record. 

[The information appears in the appendix on p. 51.] 

Commissioner ASTRUE. In terms of being a backup provider of 

unemployment, other nations—England, for instance—quite consciously did that, regretted it, and are pushing back in the other 

direction. I think that there is a fair amount of evidence from how 

the Agency has handled cases during this recession to indicate that 

is not true. 

I think that we are calling cases squarely, for the most part, exactly as we have been, but our allowance rates have dropped at the 

DDS and the ODAR level to the lowest in a very long period of 

time. At ODAR in the last few months, it is a 50-percent allowance 

rate. We have not seen that since I had my first job in the Senate 

in 1978. 

At the DDSs, you have to go back to, I think, 1997 until you see 

an allowance rate as low. And I do not think it is because we have 

become tougher or because we have changed our standard. But 

what happens during recessions is that economically desperate people apply, and the vast majority of them get rejected because we 

adhere to the statutory standard. We do not feel that we are supposed to turn it into exactly what you are concerned about. 

Now, when you have 650,000 more applications in a year, are we 

perfect? Are there some people who slid through during the recession, were allowed benefits that probably should not have been? 

Probably some. But I think for the most part we have administered 

the program with integrity and tried to do exactly what the Congress has told us to do and not take it upon ourselves to move the 

standard, move the needle, in one direction or the other. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator HATCH. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. You bet. 

Senator Cardin? 

Senator CARDIN. Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you for this 

hearing. Commissioner Astrue, it is a pleasure to have you before 

the committee. 

I want to acknowledge the improvements that I have seen in regards to the Annual Earnings Statement’s availability to recipients. 

I now understand that there is a secure website where the information that would be contained in the mailed version of the Annual 

Earnings Statement is available. 

I have communicated with you the importance of this document 

for people knowing and projecting where their retirement income 

will be, to look at the accuracy of the information, to look at their 

eligibility. I also understand you do have, if the President’s budget 

level is approved, resources to mail it out to individuals as a hard 

13 

copy. I would encourage you to make that information as accessible 

as possible. It is very important for people to know where they are 

in the Social Security system. 

I want to talk about the issue that you have raised. I have had 

a chance, as you know, to visit the SSA workforce in Maryland. 

These are dedicated people, working very hard. You pointed out 

that their productivity is up 4 percent a year now consistently. You 

have had 6,500 fewer workers, and the workforce is decreasing 

every day. 

The interesting point you raise is, as you lose a person through 

retirement, it takes you a period of time to get another person 

trained to do that work. You say as much as a year could be lost 

in productivity as the result of retiring staff. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Yes. 

Senator CARDIN. Now, you have gone through 2 years of a pay 

freeze. We have a projected pay increase for Federal workers that 

would be less than what would be normally required. We have a 

tax on retirement which has to have an impact. I mean, when your 

workers look at what Congress is considering here regarding pay 

and changing the retirement rules, it seems to me it encourages 

some people who have the ability to retire to say, why am I putting 

up with this? 

So is this a real concern, that we are losing people who otherwise 

might be staying in public service and providing the services so 

that disability determinations can be done more timely because of 

people just saying, what are we doing here; there is a tax coming 

all the time? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. I would say I am close to panic about 

holding on to our people, because they are the ones who do the 

work. We would be nothing without them. It is very hard to find 

the right people and to train them properly. Really, for a lot of 

what we do, you often need 5 or 10 years of experience to do it well. 

So, I work very hard to try to hold on to people. 

I will tell you another factor for so many of our people on our 

front line that is scary. Even in a tight budget, we have invested 

a lot more in the physical security in our offices. I read every violence report that comes into the Agency, and they were not a big 

deal 5 years ago. I think there were only about 500 attacks or serious threats of assault. I think it is about 2,500 this year. 

With the recession, the intensity of the incidents got worse. I 

think that it is easy in a lot of government agencies to be insulated 

from that. Most of our people are out on the front line, looking faceto-face with severely disturbed people on a regular basis. 

That tension during the recession—where people have been more 

violent, people have been more anti-government, and there have 

been a lot more threats of violence—is a real factor in losing people 

too. That is taking a toll on people on the front line, and that is 

why we have invested, even in a tight budget, more on security 

than we have in the past. 

Senator CARDIN. I know we are going to have disagreements, legitimate disagreements, on budget priorities and how to proceed to 

balance the Federal budget. But I think we all want to make sure 

that our Federal workforce is safe, that it has the support it needs. 

14 

I do not know of a member of the Senate who does not believe 

that the benefits provided by the Social Security Administration 

are vital to our country. I do not know of a member who does not 

want to see the services done in a more timely way, in a more professional way. When you have an agency that has an increased productivity at the level that you have been able to achieve that is 

being asked to do more with less, I think the least we can do is 

to make sure that we provide the type of support you need in order 

to get the job done. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you. 

Senator CARDIN. And I certainly would think our language here 

at times has been counterproductive to keeping some of our best in 

public service. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Grassley? 

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. 

Astrue, for your work. 

Following a little bit on the last conversation you had with Senator Hatch, but asking in a little different direction, you made 

some reference in your opening statement about how the online application has helped ‘‘deal with the additional economy-driven 

claims.’’ 

This raises the question of whether the Disability Insurance program has become an alternative unemployment benefit. Those receiving benefits who are not disabled slow down the Agency’s response to those who are disabled. They obviously contribute to the 

trust fund insolvency problem. 

Two specific questions. Why should the economy have a significant impact on the number of claims? In other words, people 

should not be filing claims because the economy is bad; they file 

claims because they think they are disabled. Then second, what is 

the total number of applications for fiscal year 2011, and how many 

of those were not approved? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Senator, there has been a fairly substantial body of economic research over the years that shows that, in 

times of recession, with a bit of a lag because of the effect of unemployment compensation, disability applications rise. That does not 

mean that those are meritorious applications, but you get people 

who are on the margins who decide to take the chance. 

There is, as much as we try to make this as black and white as 

possible, a random element. These are human beings, often making 

difficult calls, so people decide to take the chance. Now, typically 

what should happen—and what does happen in most cases—is that 

most of those claims are rejected, but we do not stop people from 

applying. 

So it is not just this recession. If you go back historically, for instance, looking at the early 1980s and other periods of high recession, the DI workload goes up. I will give you the precise numbers 

for the record, but in 2011 we had somewhere between 3.2 and 3.3 

million applications. If I remember correctly, at the initial level we 

allowed about 34 percent, but let me just double-check and make 

15 

* SSA received 3,257,461 initial disability applications for fiscal year 2011, and the initial disability allowance rate in fiscal year 2011 was 34 percent. 

sure. I am very close, and we will provide the precise number for 

the record.* 

Let me also respond to what I think you and Senator Hatch are 

trying to get at, in a way. If you are concerned about the system 

not being tight enough, there are some things that I think this 

committee should consider looking at. Over time, I think the 

courts, out of sympathy for claimants, have expanded statutory language beyond your intent. 

In particular, we have inconsistent rulings in the Circuits on the 

treating physician rule, which is critical to a lot of our cases. In the 

9th Circuit, for instance, I believe it is particularly broad. They 

cannot all be right, and it is potentially a way of blowing open the 

system and allowing cases that should not be allowed, if that 

standard is not consistent with what I believe is Congress’s original 

intent. That is an area that I think is worth looking at. 

The area of what constitutes improvement on continuing disability reviews is also worth looking at. Courts, I think, hold us to 

a higher standard than what Congress originally intended. Also, 

the return to work area, I think, is important. As admirably intended as the Ticket to Work Program was, I think it has been a 

disappointment in terms of its outcome. It is not, according to the 

actuaries, cost-effective yet. 

I think part of the reason for that is that Congress has, every 

5 to 10 years, layered on more work incentives. It is so complex 

that I think it overwhelms people who do want to come back to 

work. Until recently, Congress has authorized what we call Work 

Incentives Planning and Assistance providers, or WIPAs, largely to 

explain to people how to return to work. That is a program that 

has not been reauthorized, and we think that it should. Although 

someday, I think it would be better to just simplify the program. 

In general, I know that, with the way the budget trends are 

going, we cannot continue to do business as usual. What I would 

plead with the committee to consider doing is, if you cannot provide 

more money, let us look at ways to simplify the statute, simplify 

our responsibilities. I think sometimes in trying to get equity and 

a lot of policy perfections, we have introduced complexity that has 

had unintended negative consequences for the public. So, I think 

working on legislative simplification generally would be a very 

positive way for us to go. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Nelson? 

Senator NELSON. Good morning, Mr. Astrue. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Good morning. 

Senator NELSON. I want to follow up on the question of publishing the names and Social Security numbers of deceased people 

that you and I have talked about. But Mr. Chairman, let me set 

the table. 

What is happening is, we have a new kind of crime. It is not a 

crime with a gun or a knife or a crowbar; it is the use of a laptop. 

Once the Social Security numbers, particularly of deceased people, 

have been acquired—which are published by Social Security—they 

file in the name of the deceased or, in some cases, of a deceased 

16 

child, most recently—in the Morning News out of Memphis—a deceased child that lost a 4-year battle with cancer. The name was 

published, the Social Security number was published. The child’s 

Social Security number was used as a dependent on a false tax return asking for a refund. 

What is happening in communities like Tampa and Orlando is, 

street crimes—drugs, thefts, burglaries—are going down, because it 

is so easy for the criminals to get all of this money from income 

tax refunds because they have gotten somebody’s Social Security 

number. One of the sources, as pointed out by the Morning News 

from Memphis, is decedents’ Social Security numbers being published by Social Security. 

So, when I talked to Mr. Astrue about this, he said he has a lawsuit settlement that requires, under FOIA—the Freedom of Information Act—that these numbers have to be published. He says 

that we can only change this by statute. Well, of course, I have 

filed the statute. But in the meantime, the criminals are having a 

field day. 

Now, I disagree with Mr. Astrue, and I want to bring to his attention some changed facts. In the first place, he is operating with 

legal counsel on the basis of a lawsuit that was settled in 1980, and 

the lawsuit was settled under FOIA just for the names and Social 

Security numbers. It was to be published once a year. 

He publishes names, Social Security numbers, and other information every day. That is a big difference. I would ask you to consider that. You publish their address, you publish their date of 

death, you publish probably their date of birth, a whole set of information that was not required by the original lawsuit in 1980. 

Mr. Chairman, I would also bring to the committee’s attention 

that since 1980 there have been a lot of cases that have found that 

the deceased has a privacy interest. Let me give you one that I 

have some familiarity with, because, as you know, after we returned to earth on the 24th flight of the space shuttle, 10 days 

later Challenger launched. Of course, through FOIA, people were 

trying to get all kinds of information about the astronauts. That 

case ruled that the victims have a privacy interest that can be protected. 

So, Mr. Astrue, I would ask, with this additional information, 

would you please consider, until we can pass the statute changing 

the law, that you do not have to publish all of this information and 

do so on a daily basis, which makes it so easy for the criminals to 

get their hands on it and do this new type of crime that is ripping 

off millions and millions of dollars from American taxpayers? And 

furthermore, would you consider that you, even under the current 

lawsuit settlement, could publish the names and only the last four 

digits, which would then prohibit the criminals from carrying out 

this highly new kind of effective crime? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Senator Nelson, you and I have talked 

about this personally, and we are just in disagreement on the law. 

With all due respect, this is something I have looked at extremely 

carefully. I am a former Agency General Counsel. I am a former 

White House Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act officer— 

so this is an area of the law that I know something about. 

17 

You in the Congress have set the statutory time deadlines for 

disclosure under the Privacy Act and FOIA with some severe penalties for non-compliance under the Privacy Act. I cannot release 

them every year because you and the Congress have decided that 

I cannot do that. 

I also, as we have discussed before, do not think that we have 

statutory authority to withhold that information. There is a strong 

presumption of release under those statutes. You need an exemption. The Challenger case is the only case on the other side. I do 

not believe that the Challenger case has broad application. No 

court since the Challenger case has applied or broadened that exception in this way, so I do not believe that that is available to me. 

But, even if I were wrong on that, as a practical matter you have 

to understand that the Carter administration settled this case 

under a judicial decree in 1980. I cannot just go back and thumb 

my nose at a Federal court order. I would have to, first of all, get 

the Department of Justice to challenge it, which I do not believe 

that they would do because they have no basis for going back and 

reopening it. That is why they support the legislation that the administration has proposed that is somewhat similar to yours, and 

then it would probably be a 4-year process to get a definitive decision even if the Justice Department were to do that. 

So I do not think it is appropriate, I do not think it is practical, 

and I think what has to happen is the Congress has to act. I think 

that this is one of those rare opportunities where we can set aside 

a lot of the bipartisan problems in Washington and work together 

in collaboration. 

The administration has a bill that is similar to the congressional 

bills. In the House, the lead has been on the Republican side, 

Chairman Johnson of the Ways and Means Committee; you and 

Senator Durbin have introduced a bill here with the Senate. I 

would say to you I think that this committee and the Senate ought 

to take it as a personal challenge to get this bill passed this year. 

I think this is one of the relatively few areas where I do not 

think there is a big disagreement on principle. So I would say this 

is the Congress’s responsibility, not the executive branch’s, to fix, 

and I would urge you to fix it as quickly as possible. 

Senator NELSON. In a normal year, Mr. Chairman, this would be 

the kind of bill that would be considered a motherhood bill. But the 

fact is that, since it touches on taxes and Social Security in this 

political context of an election year for President, it is going to be 

very difficult. 

In the meantime, there is a public interest to be protected. Mr. 

Astrue and I disagree on this, and I would just merely ask you 

what you just said, if you would request of the Justice Department 

their interpretation, so that, if perhaps you might be wrong in your 

considered judgment as former legal counsel, we might get some relief until we can pass this statute. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. Clearly, this is a problem. 

I think it would be worth our while to try to take up this legislation. You have your legislation, the administration has its version. 

They sound not dissimilar, and both are geared to resolve the same 

problem. 

18 

My view is, we have to try. I recognize some of the difficulties 

that occurred in the Congress this year, but heck, you never get 

anything accomplished if you do not try. So let us see what we can 

do to work with the administration, with you Senator, and maybe 

have a hearing on the subject, because it is an outrage, how people 

take advantage of the Social Security Administration in getting 

those numbers and filing for tax refunds. It just is an outrage, and 

let us see what we can do to stop it. 

Senator NELSON. And, Mr. Chairman, we have had two hearings 

on this in the subcommittee that I have the privilege of chairing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Senator NELSON. So the record is complete. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you. 

Senator Thune? 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling the hearing. I want to thank Commissioner Astrue for being here to testify. 

Social Security is the single largest category of the Federal budget, and the Social Security trustees recently released their annual 

report on the financial status of the program. The report found that 

Social Security can sustain full benefit payments for only another 

20 years, 3 years less than the last estimate. 

That means that, without reform, Social Security is going to exhaust its trust fund reserves by the year 2033. The Social Security 

Disability Insurance trust fund will be in bankruptcy by 2016 at 

the latest. If this happens, benefits will be automatically cut for 

current beneficiaries. 

The trustees’ report underscores the need for meaningful entitlement reform to protect benefits for future generations, which is 

why it is always so troubling to find and to hear about and learn 

of fraud within the program. In addition to meaningful reform to 

ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, we have to ensure 

that the programs are operating efficiently. 

I would like to go back to something that Senator Hatch mentioned, and that is this Wall Street Journal report from last December about some potentially fraudulent practices on the part of law 

firms, such as Binder and Binder, representing claimants for disability benefits before the Social Security Administration, particularly in the appeals process where administrative law judges adjudicate claims. 

The report, which I would like to submit for the record, found 

that claimant representatives have, in many cases, withheld medical evidence from the Social Security Administration that could 

prove their clients should not be eligible to receive disability benefits. Senator Coburn has done a lot of work in this area, and I want 

to recognize his efforts in that regard in shedding light on the 

issue. 

[The Wall Street Journal report appears in the appendix on p. 

94.] 

Senator THUNE. But I am disappointed to learn that the Social 

Security Administration has refused to take action to address the 

allegations about this law firm and their material representations 

to the Social Security Administration. 

I believe that full, medical continuing disability reviews must be 

performed on Binder and Binder claimants so that we can be sure 

19 

that only eligible claimants qualify for SSDI benefits. SSA has a 

sufficient budget to do so, and in my view these reviews should be 

done, not just on new allegations, but on prior allegations as well. 

So my question is, is it not within your authority to prioritize the 

Social Security Administration’s program integrity functions within 

your existing budget to ensure that there is a proper response to 

these claims? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Senator, I am afraid I am going to have 

to disagree with a number of the assumptions of your question. 

First of all, I am familiar with the Wall Street Journal article. We 

did not take ‘‘no action’’; we did refer that to the Office of the Inspector General. If you have questions about the progress of that, 

I would encourage you to talk to the Inspector General. 

But that article was relatively thin in terms of the content of allegations. There really was not, in my opinion, very much there. It 

is also based in part on a misassumption that there is a requirement for all relevant medical evidence to be provided to the judge. 

Right now, that is not in our regulations. The previous two Commissioners tried to change our regulations, and my understanding 

is that they received a lot of opposition and not much support here 

in the Congress for that. 

So first of all, the Wall Street Journal had it dead wrong on what 

the law is. Second, there was not much in the way of allegations. 

Third, it would be unprecedented to go back and review all cases 

by a law firm on evidence anywhere near this thin. 

Without proof of real fraud—and I have no information from the 

Inspector General that suggests that we have that—it would be totally unprecedented to do that. Any court looking at that would 

throw it all out immediately. It would be an enormous waste of the 

taxpayers’ dollars for me to do that. 

Senator THUNE. Do you have any indications yet, can you summarize for us any of the Inspector General’s findings? There is 

nothing that they have reported on yet. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. There is nothing publicly reported on 

that. 

Senator THUNE. Publicly. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. I do not have much more than that. 

Again, Senator, read that Wall Street Journal article very carefully. 

When you realize, first of all, that there is not a legal obligation 

to present every bit of evidence to the Agency, because our rules 

are not written that way, there is a factual error underlying that 

whole article. Past that, there is not very much that is specific in 

terms of evidence. There is unsupported hearsay, that type of 

thing. It may be true, but, in order for us to take action, we have 

to have some proof and evidence. The Wall Street Journal certainly 

did not provide very much for the Inspector General to go on. 

Senator THUNE. I am sure we will revisit that issue. 

Last month there was a Social Security Administration disability 

claims judge—judges, I should say—that was instructed to no 

longer seek out information from social media websites when deciding cases. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Yes. 

Senator THUNE. As you know, in our digital world, with the 

Internet, including social media websites, they have provided an 

20 

important tool for ALJs to gather evidence about SSDI and SSI 

program applicants. Law enforcement in particular is using some 

of those mediums for investigative purposes. Does the recent decision by the SSA work against program integrity? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. No, just to the contrary. First of all, you 

need to understand that to protect the public’s privacy and to protect hundreds of millions of dollars—billions of dollars—of investment in systems, we have one of the toughest firewalls in the 

world. It is not just that we do not allow the judges to use 

Facebook. None of our employees can use Facebook. 

I cannot get onto my computer and go on Facebook unless I specifically use a complicated work-around from the IT people. Number one, we do that to protect, first of all, the privacy of individuals 

and, second of all, to avoid horribly damaging malware getting into 

the system that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. 

Number two, in my opinion, I have to run a very tight, efficient 

operation to meet the public’s and Congress’s expectations. If you 

allow broad social media access on government time, I think that 

becomes an enormous suck on productivity. I think if I were to 

allow it, it would be a very short period of time before I would be 

before a committee trying to answer the question, ‘‘How come your 

employees are spending all their time on Facebook and other social 

media sites?’’ 

The final thing is, if a judge becomes aware of something that 

looks fraudulent from a social media site, we have not told them 

to ignore it. What we have done, consistent with our longstanding 

policies, is tell them to refer it to the Inspector General so that 

there can be a proper investigation. 

I want to assure you that social media sites are not exactly clear 

and reliable evidence. It takes some context sometimes to figure 

out, well, is that really the person? Facebook puts up phony 

websites under my name all the time. I have never signed up for 

Facebook, but I am constantly asking them to take down signs on 

Facebook sites that purport to be mine. Spouses, angry ex-spouses 

do that to each other. 

One has to be a little bit careful about these things, which is why 

you need professionally trained fraud investigators to take circumstantial evidence of fraud and see if it is real. So I think that 

we are doing exactly the appropriate thing to do. 

Senator THUNE. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see 

my time has expired. I do not disagree there are abuses on social 

media platforms. I think we are all aware of those sorts of things. 

But it seems to me that enrolling beneficiaries in the SSDI program who do not meet its requirements is simply inexcusable, and 

I just think that any fraud prevention tool that is available out 

there that can be used—and like I said, I mean, law enforcement 

is using these media for their investigative purposes. We should be 

doing everything we can, with every tool available to us in this day 

and age—particularly with the challenges we are facing fiscally in 

these programs—to get rid of and root out fraud and abuse at every 

turn. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. That, I actually agree with, Senator. 

What I would say is, the Inspector General does use social media 

and other sites to start fraud investigations. They do go and obVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:40 Apr 02, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 R:\DOCS\80146.000 TIMD
21 

serve claimants whom they suspect are committing fraud, try to 

video them at home, and that type of thing. They have been underresourced in recent years. Not all of what they call the Cooperative 

Disability Investigations (CDI) units that investigate that kind of 

fraud are funded now. 

So, in addition to making a pitch for my budget under the President’s recommendation, when you look at the IG’s budget, they 

have in fact cut back a little bit on those CDI units. That is the 

most effective front-line unit that we have on fraud, and the Congress has not been fully supportive of that. So, I would ask you to 

take a look at that. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Hatch? 

Senator HATCH. Well, I have a number of other questions, and 

I will just submit them to you. 

[The questions appear in the appendix.] 

Senator HATCH. But let me just ask this one, because it borders 

a little bit on Senator Nelson’s concerns. I just thought maybe I 

should ask this. I also have a question that has arisen from my 

Utah constituents quite a bit. 

So, as I understand it, the Social Security Administration is 

seeking alterations to the accessibility of information in the public 

death file, sometimes called a Death Master File, which the SSA 

releases through the Department of Commerce to any subscriber. 

The SSA’s legislative specifications in this regard call for modifications of current restrictions on the release of certain information, certification by the SSA Commissioner of entities eligible to 

purchase the information, and authority to impose fees, penalties, 

audits, and inspections. 

There is, of course, a need to balance security concerns with data 

users’ interests. It is unconscionable when data on deceased individuals are used in fraudulent ways, such as tax fraud and some 

of the ways that Senator Nelson just mentioned here. 

Yet, I would have to say there are legitimate commercial uses of 

the data that actually serve to deter some fraudulent activities and 

ensure that certain payments, such as life insurance payments, are 

properly made. I also believe that there are legitimate uses of the 

data by private interests for purposes of forensic or personal genealogical research, which is something we in Utah do a lot of. 

In its legislative specifications, however, the SSA explicitly identifies use of data for genealogical purposes as an illegitimate need 

for such public information. Now, such a stance is naturally of concern to me, and certainly to many of my Utah constituents. 

Now, Mr. Commissioner, will you be promulgating new rules for 

accessibility of the so-called Death Master File, or are you, as I 

think you have indicated, indicating a statutory change or a legislative change? In either case, will you assure me that you intend 

to work with members of this committee on any proposals to 

change accessibility? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. I think we are in agreement, Senator 

Hatch. I think I was trying to be clear with Senator Nelson that 

I do not view this as a problem that I can solve administratively. 

I do not think I have the authority to do it. In fact, the difficult 

22 

balances that you are pointing out, which I agree with completely, 

I think help prove my point. That is classic legislative balancing. 

That is not a decision that the Congress has empowered me to 

make. 

We had a meeting in the Ways and Means Committee earlier in 

the week, and we had this hearing. I was hopeful that we would 

have the specifications converted to actual legislative language. We 

are not quite there. A part of that, I think, should be encouraging 

to you, Senator Hatch, since the specifications have become more 

public. 

It has raised some concerns. I give the administration, broadly, 

credit for listening to those concerns. It means that the legislative 

language is being a little bit delayed. But I do not think they are 

approaching this from a rigid point of view; I think they are trying 

to figure out the best way to balance those things. 

I will be quite candid: the reason we do not have the precise legislative language up here now is that there is some rethinking on 

a couple of the provisions, and I honestly do not know for sure, on 

a couple of these things, precisely how they will come out at the 

end. 

But whatever happens, there is enough overlap between Senator 

Nelson’s bill, the administration’s bill, and Congressman Johnson’s 

bill in the House, that it is 90-percent overlap. I think that everyone realizes that the most important thing is to get moving to 

make sure that the major abuses do not continue. A lot of these 

other things are details that we will be able to work out through 

the course of the legislative process, and I certainly commit to 

working with the committee and the Congress generally to accomplish that. 

Senator HATCH. Well, thank you. I wanted to compliment you for 

the good work that you do. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you. 

Senator HATCH. You have my respect, for sure. Hopefully we can 

work out the statutory language so that some of these problems 

that have been raised can be solved. You are one of the few people 

I think who might be able to work that out in a way that would 

really work well. So I want to thank you for all the hard effort that 

you make, and appreciate your work. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you. 

Senator HATCH. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Commissioner, 

too. 

I am just curious. You started out under one administration. You 

said during your confirmation hearing you wanted to serve your 

full 6-year term, you wanted to be independent and just do your 

work. Just, your thoughts now as you are near the end of your 

term. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has 

been a very interesting experience to straddle administrations, 

really, I think, for the first time as kind of a constitutional experiment. 

I want to give credit to the administration for trying to approach, 

what I am sure was not what they wished would happen, in a good 

23 

spirit, and I have tried to respond in kind. So I think it has actually worked pretty well. 

Since you have asked, I will be honest; I am not sure it is a construct in the Washington of today that we can count on to work 

well going forward. So, even though it has worked well, at this 

time I think it is something that you ought to keep in mind and 

think about for the future. 

I am in my 6th year now. It has been extraordinarily rewarding, 

extraordinarily draining. I am very grateful to President Bush for 

having given me this opportunity. I am very grateful to this committee for having given me this opportunity. 

It is an incredible group of people to try to lead. The dedication 

to mission is remarkable. Almost everybody comes right out of high 

school or college and spends their career with the agency. It is the 

kind of thing that is remarkable. 

I worked for a Commissioner in the mid-1980s, and, of course, 

everyone thinks about what they would actually do if they could 

have the boss’s job. I certainly did in the 1980s, but I never 

thought I would have the chance to do it. So it has been a great 

blessing to have that opportunity. Again, I thank all of you. I was 

thinking about this on the way up. This is probably my last appearance, actually, before the committee. 

The CHAIRMAN. You do not want 6 more years? 

Commissioner ASTRUE. No, I do not think so, Senator. I think it 

is time for me to go home to Massachusetts. But I started working 

with this committee as a very young person in 1985 and really did 

get to know Senator Moynihan and Senator Dole quite well in that 

period, and some first-class staff people. 

The committee treated me extraordinarily well when I was confirmed in 1989. It has been in the same spirit since. The two of you 

have been spectacular. Senator Grassley was spectacularly helpful 

too when he was ranking member. The staffs work much more collegially than is common in the Congress these days. So, I guess I 

feel blessed all the way around. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we are surely blessed to have you working 

for us, especially the American people are blessed to have you 

working for the American people. You set a very good tone of 

collegiality and cooperation and working together. You are a good 

role model. That is something I am going to keep in mind throughout the years remembering you and all the good work you have 

done. 

Commissioner ASTRUE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the hearing was concluded.] 

(25) 

A P P E N D I X 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD


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