Delays In Minnesota

From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Don Gunnon was the breadwinner until his back gave out. Then he found himself in the bread line. ...

For decades, Don ... paid taxes — to the federal government, the state, the county, the city. They never had a reason to take advantage of the safety net they helped fund. ...

Don's taxes included coverage for Social Security Disability Insurance, and now he was disabled. ..

Like 60 percent of Minnesotans who applied, Don was denied on his first application. He asked for a reconsideration — a request to have a different pair of eyes look at the application. He was denied again. The next step was to file a request for a hearing before an administrative law judge. That's when he discovered he was caught in a backlog of scandalous proportions: In 2007, about 746,000 claims were pending at the hearing level, 9,000 of them in Minnesota. Some cases had been on the back burner for three years.

For those all-important hearings, it's best to hire a lawyer, but Don, who was broke, could ask only for free help through Hennepin County. Don said his representative, who wasn't a lawyer and whom he met only a few days earlier, kept shushing him when he tried to object to incorrect information. Six years after he started the process, he was denied disability insurance payments for the third time.