Dec 7, 2007

Opinion Piece On Social Security Backlogs

From the Statesman Journal of Salem, OR:

Previous Congresses have passed big tax cuts for the wealthy in less time than it takes a U.S. worker or a U.S. soldier to get approval for a disability claim. ...

AARP reports that the average wait for a disability claim hearing is 520 days.

Just getting a response on anything isn't easy. More than half of all calls to the 1,500 local Social Security Administration offices get a busy signal. And in many communities, if you decided to show up in person instead, it means waits measured by the hour. ...

This sad state of affairs is the result of conscious neglect by past Congresses and the president. They constantly have whittled away Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs budget requests for more personnel to reduce the backlog. The Social Security Administration overall staffing is the lowest is has been in 34 years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Just getting a response on anything isn't easy. More than half of all calls to the 1,500 local Social Security Administration offices get a busy signal. And in many communities, if you decided to show up in person instead, it means waits measured by the hour."

That's why SSA has an 800# and I just waited 2 hours to renew my driver's license, so an hour isn't so bad.

Maybe it's time that people wise up and start taking care of themselves and buy private disability insurance. SSDI program is disfunctional and probably no amount of money will ever fix it. The Social Security program should have stayed retirement and survivor only and never included disability.