Social Security Relies on Obsolete Information to Deny Disability Claims

News reports about government failures are as old as the Republic. But few demonstrate the level of incompetence – bordering on malice – as does a recent investigative piece from The Washington Post on the Social Security Administration.

The issue: the SSA routinely denies disability claims because it insists there's plenty of alternative work available for claimants.

Based upon a tome called the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.

Which was last updated during the Carter administration:

The vast majority of the 12,700 entries were last updated in 1977. The Department of Labor, which originally compiled the index, abandoned it 31 years ago in a sign of the economy's shift from blue-collar manufacturing to information and services.

As blisteringly incompetent as that is, it gets much worse:

Since the 1990s, Social Security officials have deliberated over how to revise the list of occupations to reflect jobs that actually exist in the modern economy, according to audits and interviews. For the last 14 years, the agency has promised courts, claimants, government watchdogs and Congress that a new, state-of-the-art system representing the characteristics of modern work would soon be available to improve the quality of its 2 million disability decisions per year.

But after spending at least $250 million since 2012 to build a directory of 21st century jobs, an internal fact sheet shows, Social Security is not using it, leaving antiquated vocational rules in place to determine whether disabled claimants win or lose. Social Security has estimated that the project's initial cost will reach about $300 million, audits show.

That's where the malice creeps in. Over many decades, through Democratic and Republican administrations, and various congressional oversight committees, the only thing that's changed is the money frittered away to do…nothing.

Even in a bureaucratic cesspool like official Washington, that takes effort. How has this problem gotten so big and lasted so long?

There are plenty of guilty parties – politicians, bureaucrats, courts. The problem is there are no consequences for such malicious indifference on this scale. There are too many people at fault, the liabilities – political and legal – too enormous.

In short, the problem is so big it's invulnerable…a failure that's too big to fail.

There are many arguments against privatizing Social Security that one major party or the other will trot out in election years to bamboozle and terrify voters.  This story is a reason to privatize. In the private economy, such malicious incompetence is swiftly punished.

But the story is an even more powerful reminder that government responds to incentives like anything else. And here, the incentives are to avoid responsibility, no matter who suffers, for how long. It's your tax dollars at work.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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