In Plain Service

  What if Frank Bisignano does not think he has two jobs? What if he only sees one Government, one Front Door, one common contact-center architecture? In the next 4 years, could one phone number handle both agencies? Will IRS employees be answering SSA questions, or vice versa?   These questions may offer a better explanation for the unusual decision to place one executive over both the Social Security Administration and the day-to-day operations of the Internal Revenue Service than a traditional federal organizational chart. From Washington, SSA and the IRS appear fundamentally different: one administers retirement, disability, survivors, and Supplemental Security Income programs, while the other administers the federal tax system. Each operates under its own statutes, appropriations, workforce, technology, field structure, culture, and congressional oversight. Look at the two agencies through the eyes of a career banking and payments executive, , and a different picture star...

  Earlier this week, a colleague asked me to identify the barriers to entry for Eligible for Direct Payment Non-Attorney representative. What a good question. Social Security disability representation occupies an unusual place in the American safety net. An Eligible for Direct Payment Non-Attorney representative, commonly called an EDPNA, can represent disability claimants throughout Social Security's administrative process and receive authorized fees directly from past-due benefits. The work requires knowledge of Social Security law, medical evidence, vocational analysis, administrative procedure, ethics, and the practical realities of working with people who may be seriously ill or financially desperate. Yet there is no law school, established professional school, or conventional career pipeline that reliably produces these representatives. If we want more qualified people doing this work, the answer should not be to lower professional standards. The answer should be to examine t...

 V isit almost any grocery store in the United States and prepare to be amazed. The choices can be overwhelming. Walk down the bread aisle and you will find everything from brioche, to Wonder Bread, to pumpernickel, along with multiple varieties of almost every one of them. There may be four kinds of pumpernickel, twelve kinds of sandwich bread, eight varieties of Italian bread, and six different packages of hot dog rolls. Americans love variety, and we love optionality. Yet after examining that aisle for a while, most of us reach for the same loaf we bought last week. I am a store-brand bakery man myself, although from time to time I enjoy Pepperidge Farm. There is something important in that behavior when we think about Social Security and whatever the next version of the program becomes. Choice has value even when people do not constantly exercise it. Having options gives people a sense of control, while a good default gives them somewhere reasonable to land when they do not wan...