The Social Security Administration cannot answer its telephones. The wait time if a person goes to a Social Security office seeking help with a problem is often hours. Backlogs are growing rapidly all over the agency. Until a few weeks ago, Social Security's budget situation was so tight that the agency was threatening to furlough its employees and close its doors for ten days.
Take a look at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) main website having to do with Social Security issues. Look at any of their webpages having to do with Social Security. You will find no mention of Social Security's dire budget problems. This is an organization which exists to protect America's seniors and nothing is more essential to America's seniors than Social Security, yet the AARP seems not to have noticed that the Social Security Administration can barely keep its doors open.
The AARP might respond that they are looking at the "big picture", trying to make sure that Social Security is not privatized, but having the Social Security Administration chronically understaffed and delivering terrible service to the public can only hurt the effort to protect Social Security from privatization. If the public's experience is that the Social Security Administration is almost impossible to do business with, one can reasonably expect the public to be receptive to alternatives to Social Security.
Take a look at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) main website having to do with Social Security issues. Look at any of their webpages having to do with Social Security. You will find no mention of Social Security's dire budget problems. This is an organization which exists to protect America's seniors and nothing is more essential to America's seniors than Social Security, yet the AARP seems not to have noticed that the Social Security Administration can barely keep its doors open.
The AARP might respond that they are looking at the "big picture", trying to make sure that Social Security is not privatized, but having the Social Security Administration chronically understaffed and delivering terrible service to the public can only hurt the effort to protect Social Security from privatization. If the public's experience is that the Social Security Administration is almost impossible to do business with, one can reasonably expect the public to be receptive to alternatives to Social Security.
2 comments:
Very good point. I belong to the AARP and I haven't heard one word from them about the funding crisis which has left SSA so understaffed.
This situation is totally unacceptable and the only way it will be rectified is for organizations like the AARP to make the public aware.
You say in your numerous postings that statistically people who hire attorneys to represent them fare better before Social Security - I can saw as a claims representative for SSA for the last 3+ years that most lawyers do nothing for claimants filing initial or reconsiderations, other than directing them (in most initial claims cases I see) to their local office to fill out the paperwork. The claimant is the one doing all the work, and even when the attorney does nothing, he still gets 25% or $5300 of any back pay. If you're supposedly a disability advocate, explain how that benefits an applicant. I will agree that an attorney helps tremendously at the hearing level, when he can show case law and precedence to an ALJ or his staff.
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