Commissioner Who? Head of agency is often unknown to public

For reasons that will become clear at the end of this column, I am updating another column I wrote about four years ago.

I am going to give you a series of names. I would give any reader a hundred bucks if he or she could tell me who they are and what they all have in common. Here are the names: Stanford Ross, William Driver, John Svahn, Martha McSteen, Dorcas Hardy, Gwendolyn King, Shirley Chater, Kenneth Apfel, Michael Astrue and Kilolo Kijakazi.

So who are they? They are 10 of the past 30 commissioners of Social Security. The Commissioner of Social Security is the top spot within the Social Security Administration. He or she is responsible for running one of the largest agencies in the federal government, in charge of maintaining Social Security number and earnings records for nearly every working American, and for paying retirement, disability and survivor benefits to about 70 million people every month.

Yet, almost no one knows who these people are. Most folks can probably name the FBI director or the head of the CIA. But SSA is one of the many federal agencies whose top dog might as well be named “Underdog.” Who heads the VA? Who is the Commissioner of the IRS? Who runs the Federal Highway Administration? How about the Bureau of Labor Statistics? The heads of these and many other federal agencies are almost always nameless political appointees. Therein lies a story I’d like to tell.

For part of my career with the SSA, I worked for several Social Security commissioners, usually in the role of a speechwriter and sometimes as the agency’s deputy press officer. By no means was I a major player on any commissioner’s staff. But I used to say that “at least I was in the room.” In other words, if the commissioner had a meeting with his or her top staff, I might be sitting in a chair in the corner of the room – usually taking notes.

So I got to know a lot about the inner workings of the agency. I learned what the head of a big agency like the SSA really does. One of the commissioners I worked for (I won’t name names) was President Ronald Reagan’s pick to head Social Security. And one time, soon after she was appointed, she told me that Reagan told her this: “You really have only one job. Make sure those damn checks go out on time every month!”

But let’s be honest about that. The issuance of Social Security checks is pretty institutionalized. It’s built into the nature of the bureaucracy. Social Security checks have gone out on time every month for about 88 years now. Donald Duck could be the Commissioner of Social Security and the checks still would go out like clockwork each month. After all, commissioners come and go. It’s the dedicated civil servants who have been with the agency for decades who really keep the place humming and make sure those checks always go out in a timely manner.

So what the commissioner really does, what the head of any large organization really does, is set the tone for how services will be provided and how staff will be allocated to provide those services.

For many recent years, the Commissioner of Social Security has had to deal with the problem of ballooning workloads (10,000 baby boomers retiring every day) and dwindling resources.

This is an issue that always puzzles me. I mean, if any private business was growing by 10,000 new customers every day, they would be hiring new staff to deal with the increased workloads.

But, that’s not the way the public sector works. Because so many Americans keep clamoring for less government ... well, they’re getting it. The SSA’s administrative budget (along with the budgets of most federal agencies) frequently comes under the knife – leading to severe staff shortages. So there is a reason why you have to wait on hold for a couple hours when you call the SSA’s 800 number. Or why there are huge backlogs in disability claim appeals.

So I’m sure the SSA’s newest commissioner will be looking at these problems and trying to reallocate staff to improve service to the public.

Before I get to the new big boss at the SSA, I must make this point. A long time ago, a chief of staff for one of the Social Security commissioners told me this. “Tom, when a Democrat is president, you will get a good Commissioner of Social Security. When a Republican is president, you will get an ineffective Commissioner of Social Security.” This seemingly biased analysis carried a bit of weight with me because the chief of staff who told me this was himself a Republican political appointee!

His reasoning went like this: For years, Social Security has been known as a favorite of the Democratic party. So if a Democrat is president, and you are a potential Democratic political appointee, you would be pleased and honored to be named the Commissioner of Social Security. Some of the best and brightest people available got the job.

On the other hand, if a Republican is president, and you are a potential Republican political appointee, almost the last job you want is to be the head of Social Security. More desirable jobs were filled by the top people, and SSA got someone from near the bottom of the Republican political appointee barrel. (Remember, these sentiments were those of a Republican politico.)

Sadly, this proved true when Donald Trump was president. He named as his Commissioner of Social Security a guy named Andrew Saul. His critics charged that he was previously associated with some right-wing groups that advocated deep cuts in Social Security benefits. His tenure at the agency didn’t go well. According to at least one government report, SSA employees’ job satisfaction declined during his reign – citing lack of confidence in agency leadership as the reason.

Now President Joe Biden has nominated Martin O’Malley as the next Social Security Commissioner. As a former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, at least he comes into the job with some administrative experience running large governmental organizations. I’m going to hope that what my former Republican colleague told me is true: Because he was appointed by a Democratic president, I hope he will be an effective leader and turn the SSA back into the proud and service-oriented agency it used to be.