House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

The Social Security Subcommittee of the House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing for June 15 on the Disability Service Improvement project at Social Security. The hearing notice includes discouraging data about Social Security workloads and backlogs:

The DI and SSI applications to Federally-funded State Disability Determination Service agencies for a decision have increased 22 percent over the past five years, from 2.1 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 to 2.55 million in FY 2005. Despite the increased workloads, the SSA has increased its productivity by 12.6 percent since 2001. However, the rapid rise in applications, coupled with budgetary constraints, have resulted in longer processing times for cases heard by Administrative Law Judges– from 415 days in FY 2005 to 477 days in April 2006. The number of hearing requests waiting for a decision has increased from about 708,000 in FY 2005 to 727,629 in April 2006, and the Agency expects this number to rise to 767,000 in FY 2007.