Some of our Los Angeles readers may know that the Social Security Administration has been under interim leadership since last year. While this hasn’t really been a problem, with the agency conducting business as usual, the President recently took a step to end the interim nature of the agency’s leadership by nominating Carolyn W. Colvin to become the permanent head of the agency.
Colvin has been serving as the interim head of the agency since her predecessor resigned from the post last year. The President expressed his confidence in Colvin’s ability to lead the agency in a written statement that was issued after the nomination. However, Colvin must now go through a process of confirmation in the United States Senate, and she can expect to receive quite a few pointed questions during the process.
Most of the current discussion about the Social Security Administration has been focused on the perceived negatives about the agency that are making news, such as the recent testimony of a group of administrative law judges from the agency who acknowledged that a very high percentage of the Social Security Disability claims they had reviewed were approved. Indeed, SSD information has seen quite a bit of attention in particular, especially as reports of climbing numbers of disability payment recipients is catching the eye of federal legislators.
Colvin will obviously have a lot on her plate as she transitions from an interim leader to a permanent one at the Social Security Administration. Hopefully she will have as much success in doing her job as her predecessors have enjoyed – success that has seen all of the programs run by the Social Security Administration become a crucial part of life for millions of Americans.
Source: The Baltimore Sun, “Obama to nominate Colvin to lead Social Security,” John Fritze, June 20, 2014
