This Social Security Administration whistleblower is nothing if not persistent
"In the most recent case, spouses, wives or widows who worked in jobs where they did not pay into Social Security," said John McAdams.
A Social Security whistleblowing employee has been vindicated by the Office of Special Council. John McAdams found that retirees were getting sub-optimal advice from Social Security itself, missing out on substantial benefits they were entitled to. He’s been at it a long time. In 2022, John McAdams the special counsel named him Public Servant of the Year. For more on the latest cases, claims specialist John McAdams joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin You are a claims specialist, I guess, working among others. And what is it you have observed in this most recent case or set of cases that were referred to the special counsel?
John McAdams In the most recent case, spouses, wives or widows who worked in jobs where they did not pay into Social Security. We call them non covered earnings when they applied for their spouses or widows benefits. Their pension that they received from those non covered earnings was high enough that they received no Social Security benefits on their spouse. The problem was if they had been told to just wait months or even years up to their full retirement age, many of them would have been eligible for cash benefits. They were never told that, they were signed up with zero benefits, and their benefits were either zero for the rest of their lives or much lower than they should have been.
Tom Temin And the spouses under whose benefits they would have received something were deceased already, or were they still married?
John McAdams Some were deceased, some were still alive.
Tom Temin What is the rule then? What is the benefit? How does it work that they should have been advised?
John McAdams Let’s take the spouse. The spouse would typically, if they wait for full retirement, they get half of the other spouse’s benefit. If they come on earlier, they get less. But in the case where the spouse has a non covered pension, two-thirds of that pension amount is subtracted from what would have been their Social Security benefit. If the pension is more than the benefit, they get nothing.
Tom Temin So that’s the windfall elimination provision that’s been operative for so long.
John McAdams Windfall elimination provision is actually on your own benefit. You have it work some on your own. This is government pension offset.
Tom Temin So someone who did not have Social Security earnings and who has a pension, nevertheless, is entitled to spousal benefits upon reaching full retirement age.
John McAdams Some can get it even before it depends on the amount of the pension versus the amount of the benefit.
Tom Temin But you found that examiners were telling people, forget it, you get nothing.
John McAdams That would have been okay. In fact, they were signing them up and they did get nothing. If they had told them, you’re going to get nothing, but you might get something later, that would have been fine. The people could check every year or worse case apply at full retirement age. But instead they signed them up when they got nothing and there was zero reason to do that at that time. There’s no reason to take a GPO application if there’s not going to be any benefits at that time, you should tell them to wait.
Tom Temin GPO meaning government pension offset.
John McAdams Yes.
Tom Temin All right. And do Social Security procedures or manuals or rules dictate otherwise that people should be advised to get the best benefit that’s available to them?
John McAdams Yes. We’re supposed to advise them to act in their own best interests. We can’t tell them what to do, we can’t tell them what’s the perfect situation. You need a crystal ball for that. But in this case, there is no reason to take a GPO effective benefit when there’s no cash benefit at that time.
Tom Temin And if you take that zero benefit, kind of hard to understand how you would apply for something and then receive zero. There’s no changing it later on.
John McAdams No. Once you’ve applied after a while, you can’t withdraw it. But the people don’t even know that they didn’t get what they could have gotten. So till they’re told that by Social Security, hopefully after this whistleblower case gets processed through the inspector general’s office, till then, there’s nothing they could do and they wouldn’t know they were not getting the benefit they should have got.
Tom Temin So you’re blowing the whistle then on this practice of misadvising people by your peers in Social Security.
John McAdams Misadvising, yes. But I’m convinced it’s just an honest mistake. It happens, unfortunately, too frequently. But it is an honest mistake. The problem is that we’re not going back and looking for them and fixing them.
Tom Temin Got it. We are speaking with John McAdams. He is a claims specialist at the Social Security Administration. And when he raised it to management, what did they say?
John McAdams They told me I should just do my job, as if watching out for our claimants to get the benefits they deserve was not part of my job.
Tom Temin And therefore, you went to the Office of Special Counsel?
John McAdams Yes.
Tom Temin But did Social Security otherwise retaliate in any way? They didn’t move your desk to the basement, that type of thing. They just said, sorry, stick to the knitting.
John McAdams Exactly. No other questions.
Tom Temin And this has been going on for some time. You’ve been reporting these types of things, blowing the whistle on this and going to special counsel for how long?
John McAdams About 10 years now. Three cases, ten years.
Tom Temin And there must have been successive managements that you have worked for at Social Security. There has been about two or three acting commissioners and maybe 1 or 2 confirmed commissioners in the past ten years. And therefore, I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten different attention under different circumstances.
John McAdams They’ve gotten plenty of attention. The problem is, like in the first case, which was 13,000 widows cheated out of $130 million. OIG told Social Security to fix it and pay the people. And Social Security just said no. And special counsel nor OIG has any power to force them to pay them.
Tom Temin Right. So the latest report from OSC says, yes, it’s one thing to review this, but you should also he’s telling the agency, go back and pay those back claims that were not granted the first time around.
John McAdams Telling them they should, but they have no power to force them to. And in the second case, the same thing. They told them they should pay them. And Social Security said, okay, you can all withdraw your applications and refile. The problem is these people, some of them have been getting benefits, not the benefits they should have been getting. They’ve been getting a reduced benefit because the mistake. But they’ve been getting these benefits for decades. And Social Security says, okay, if you want to withdraw, pay everything back and apply again, but we’re not going to start your benefits way back to when they should have been. You’re only going to get six months retroactivity, which is a horrible deal for basically all of them.
Tom Temin You mean to say Social Security said they would have to return the benefits they had received and then start over?
John McAdams Yes. And then start with only six months of retroactivity. So return 20 years of benefits, start with six months of retroactive payments at the right rate and hope you live to 120 where you might break even, but you’ll still have lost those 20 years of benefits.
Tom Temin Well, the management of Social Security must have been relying on some rule somewhere.
John McAdams The rule they’re hiding behind is administrative finality, which we always took to be if we paid you too much. If we’ve been paying you too much for more than four years, our mistake. Bank error in your favor, you get to keep it. But if we made a mistake and we paid you too little, we supposedly are able to go back all the way and fix it. But Social Security is hiding behind that. And that’s why they refuse to fix the first big case.
Tom Temin And has anyone from Congress gotten involved? I would think some of these beneficiaries could have gone to their member of Congress. And that sometimes brings better results for people, if you can get the member to be interested enough to go after the agency.
John McAdams That’s what I’m going to suggest to people now.
Tom Temin And how many people do you think have been involved that you’re aware of over these years? And how did you know about it?
John McAdams The first case came across my desk when I was in training for this job, and I mentioned it to my mentor. And she even said to me, just do your job. But the first case had 13,000 with $130 million. The second case had like 4,000 with $20 million. But in both of those instances, I only came across a handful or maybe a dozen cases. And this latest whistleblower accusation, I had over 100 claimants. So I can’t imagine how many are going to be affected when OIG completes their audit.
Tom Temin And in the meantime, a bill was signed into law that eliminates the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset. What’s your sense of how the agency will remedy that? Could it take years, do you think?
John McAdams I’m curious to see. Supposedly they’re going to get a year of retroactive benefits, but that won’t affect my cases at all, because I’m going backwards with my case.
Tom Temin So the repeal then is only for basically people from now forward and there’s an extra year of benefits. But that’s about it?
John McAdams As I understand it, at this point.
Tom Temin So if you became that public schoolteacher 45 years ago, you’re still out of luck. But if you become a teacher today, then you are in luck. Sounds like you’re going to still stick with this. But, well, let’s say the folks can’t see you, but neither one of us are spring chickens. How long do you plan to push this one?
John McAdams Well, I’m going to retire the end of February, but I’m still in contact with the special counsel and I still plan on pursuing these cases. I will speak with a member of Congress.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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