Some More From Yesterday's Hearing

Some excerpts from the prepared statement of Sylvester Schieder, Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB):

The number of hearings pending at the end of fiscal year 2006 showed an increase over the prior year from 708 thousand to 716 thousand, but that was far smaller than the 756 thousand projected at the start of the year. However, this was not because the agency processed more claims than it had expected to but rather because there were fewer appeals than expected. That sounds like good news, but at least part of the reduction in the number of new hearings cases is a reflection of the growing number of cases remaining undecided at the earlier, reconsideration stage.

There is another factor, unknown to Mr. Schieber, that I am pretty sure of, even though I have no statistics on it. There is a growing backlog of cases in which an appeal has been filed, but not yet logged into Social Security's computer system, because of staffing shortages at Social Security's field offices. This is a point referred to by Rick Warsinskey of NCSSMA whose statement for the record quotes from an e-mail he had received from a Social Security field office employee who complained, among other things, that his or her office could not "get to the appeals being mailed in."

Here is a table provided by Mr. Schieber, but even this downplays the funding problem, since Social Security was only asking for what it could conceivably get, not what it actually needed:

Social Security Administrative Funding (millions)
		President's
	SSA	Budget	Final
Fiscal Year	Request	Request	Appropriation
2000	$ 6,997.0	$ 6,706.0	$ 6,572.0
2001	$ 7,466.0	$ 7,134.0	$ 7,124.0
2002	$ 8,122.0	$ 7,581.5	$ 7,569.6
2003	$ 8,080.0	$ 8,282.8	$ 7,885.1
2004	$ 9,018.0	$ 8,530.0	$ 8,313.2
2005	$ 9,442.0	$ 8,878.0	$ 8,732.5
2006	$ 10,240.0	$ 9,403.0	$ 9,108.6
2007	$ 10,350.0	$ 9,496.0	$ 9,294.0
Total	$ 69,715.0	$ 66,011.3	$ 64,599.0