Buffalo News On Backlogs

The Buffalo News is running a story on Social Security's hearing backlogs. An excerpt:

It’s clearly a broken system. As of February, about 717,000 Americans were waiting for the kind of hearing that Chini received. And if history is any indication, a majority will eventually get the benefits they deserve under the safety net Congress created decades ago for disabled Americans who can’t work.

But for many, the wait is agony — and in Buffalo, it’s longer than in most places.

Social Security Administration figures show that as of January, the typical disability claimant at the agency’s Buffalo office will have to wait 688 days — or nearly two years — for an appeals hearing.

Of the 142 Social Security offices nationwide that process such claims, the appeals delays in the Buffalo office were the seventh-worst.