USA Today On Social Security Backlogs

USA Today has an article in today's paper on Social Security's backlogs, which contains some stunning information. Here is an excerpt:

The Social Security Administration faces a record — and rapidly growing — backlog of appeals by people who claim they are too disabled to work. Through June, it had just over 745,000 cases pending, and the wait for a hearing averaged 17 months, also a record.

Claimants in some parts of the country must wait up to 31 months, according to the agency. "People have died waiting for a hearing," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue says.

The agency says the backlog doubled in six years and could reach 1 million by 2010.

There is a companion article focusing upon the terrible effects of these backlogs upon individual Social Security disability claimants. These sad stories are too familiar to anyone who has been reading this blog, but read this excerpt which focuses upon the bigger picture:

Now the commissioner of Social Security, Astrue wants to make it easier to file for disability. He's pushing simplified procedures for extreme cases, such as terminal cancer. He's updating and expanding the list of impairments that qualify for disability. He's trying to open a national center to hold electronic hearings, thereby easing backlogs in places such as Atlanta [which has some of the biggest backlogs in the country].

All of that, Astrue says, won't be enough to stop the backlog of appeals from growing because of an aging population. Social Security projects cases to grow about 90,000 annually over the next five years. That means the backlog could hit 1 million in 2010.

"I don't think there is any really easy solution," Astrue says.

The talk of the backlog increasing to one million cases appears to come from Commissioner Astrue, himself! Why would we be facing a threat that the backlog will grow to 1 million in the next three years? I thought that Commissioner Astrue was planning to reduce the backlog. That is what he was telling Congress. Why is Commissioner Astrue discouraging Congress from giving his agency any more money for fiscal year 2008 than President Bush has recommended at the same time that he is warning that his agency is facing an increase in its backlogs? I cannot understand the disconnect between this article and what Astrue has been telling Congress. Is this article a sign that Astrue is now trying to persuade the Office of Management and Budget to recommend a higher fiscal year 2009 budget? Is Astrue finally getting more accurate information about how bleak the future looks for the Social Security Administration? Is he belatedly lobbying for a bigger fiscal year 2008 budget?

By the way, there is a really easy solution to the backlogs. Budget enough money and hire enough personnel. Everything else imaginable has already been tried. Simple "brute force", as Commissioner Astrue himself put it, is the only approach that will work.