Connie Morella: “I just want to say that I am offering this amendment today to right a wrong that has gone unchanged for the last 10…”

“I just want to say that I am offering this amendment today to right a wrong that has gone unchanged for the last 10 years. The amendment I am offering is simply a matter of fairness. There currently are 20 administrative appeals judges who serve on the Appeals Council for the Social Security Administration. These judges review numerous decisions made by administrative law judges, and yet they are not even compensated at the very same level. Prior to the enactment of the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act in 1990, both of those judges, the ALJs and the AAJs, were compensated at the GS-15 level. That FEPCA, the Comparability Act, elevated the pay of ALJs to a new level that is from 10 to 15 percent higher than the GS-15 level. Unfortunately, Congress did not include the administrative appeals judges in this new pay category. Therefore, it has resulted in the situation where the Appeals Council is now the only administrative appellate body in government whose members are paid less than the judges whose orders and decisions that they review. This amendment would remedy this inequity.”