Washington, DC – AARP, along with dozens of organizations representing stakeholders of Social Security, sent a letter to House and Senate leadership today requesting that Congress fund the Social Security Administration (SSA) at the recommended level of $12.379 billion for FY 2011. This funding level was requested by the President and recommended by key Appropriations committees and subcommittees. The organizations also called for funding SSA at a higher level under the possible scenario of an extended Continuing Resolution in order to address the significant backlogs in disability claims, appeals and hearings, along with increased assistance needed for SSA’s field officesKey excerpts of the letter are below:
“As organizations representing stakeholders of the Social Security Administration (SSA), we respectfully request that as you work to finalize FY 2011 appropriations levels you retain the full President’s Budget Request of $12.379 billion for SSA…
“This level of funding is absolutely critical for SSA to address the increase in requests for assistance from the American public due in large part to the economic downturn. SSA teleservice centers, hearing offices, Disability Determination Services (DDSs), and the nearly 1,300 field offices are in critical need of adequate resources to address their growing workloads.
“The greatest concern for SSA remains the rising number of new claims and appeals coming into the agency, especially disability claims… In the 25-month period ending in October 2010, the number of claims pending a disability medical decision rose from 556,670 to 851,812, an increase of 53 percent.
“SSA was making steady progress in addressing the enormous backlog at the hearings level until recently…Unfortunately, for the last four months the number of hearings pending has increased and as of the end of October is at 718,196. The reason for the sharp increase is the number of new hearings being filed, due in large part to our distressed economy.
“… Processing time for a hearing has been reduced from 491 days for all of FY 2009 to 377 days in the month of October 2010. Unfortunately the number of claims and hearings pending is still not acceptable to the thousands of Americans who depend on Social Security or Supplemental Security Income for their basic income, meeting health care costs, and support of their families. Adequate funding must be made available to continue to reduce the number of cases pending and the time it requires to process these cases.
“SSA field offices continue to see a record number of visitors. In FY 2010, 45.4 million customers requested assistance from the field offices. The field offices are also responsible for processing an additional 1.2 million Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations in FY 2011 as compared to FY 2008, an increase of 100 percent.
Nov 4, 2010
AARP On Social Security's Looming Continuing Resolution Problem
A press release from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP):
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7 comments:
Well,mr obama still is president. The senate has a democratic majority but the republicans will soon control congress.
Good luck with that
We appreciate AARP's letter and any other that may be sent on behalf of the American people. But, remember, that this crowd doesn't care. They want to eliminate Social Security. They aren't going to care if the aged and disabled have problems. A problem to them is if the CEO of XYZ corporation doesn't get his or her full $25 million bonus. Or a defense contractor doesn't receive a hefty contract. Now those are problems!!
You know, there may be a silver lining behind the cloud of a CR here. Perhaps for the first time in memory, SSA just might adjust to reality and begin to cut costs in a meaningful way. It's unrealistic and unfair to expect SSA to be exempt from general Government-wide cuts.
In all my years with the agency, I kept hearing the phrase "doing more with less", generally involving piling more work on an already overloaded workforce. Maybe now SSA can make real, structural changes to cut expenses. Might want to take a lesson from GM when they were in crisis. They streamlined and are emerging from the brink of dissolution.
Oh please! Can you spell "bail out?" Social Security is doing quite well, from what I can see, in terms of how money is spent. The Agency has a mission which it performs admirably. Why don't you look at the Department of Defense if you want to look for necessary cuts. Government is not private industry, it should not be like private industry and I wish people would understand the difference. SSA does not report to a CEO--our bosses are the American people.
Not saying that it should be run like a private business. I'm saying that cuts are inevitable and that SSA is going to have to figure out how to deal with them. There is so much "non-mission critical" work done in this agency that it's laughable.
Can you really defend wasting resources on "work incentive outreach", "centenarian projects", "rep payee cadres", et.al.? Start with SSA's core missions and work from there. Private industry and government share a bureaucratic mentality, and the only thing that can "bail out" either is creative management and the willingness to make tough decisions.
20 years ago we had 5 SSI specialists who did a total of about 700-800 redeterminations per year. We now have one full-time, and one part-time, to do over 1300. First of all, they ain't gonna get done. period. second, if I retire, there is absolutely no one to take my place, so they will sit and rot. Good luck with the goals, i could care less--done my share and more. Double the number of redets with less staff-that's the SSA way. SSI is a complete shambles but no one will admit the extent to which it drags down the entire agency.
As an SSI Claims Rep who works in an office with "no formal adjudication time", I find that staff is already cutting corners, so the claimants are not being interviewed properly. Sure we have meetings and training sessions reminding us to send notices to claimants, verify bank information and other items that need to be done according to the POMS, but no one is given time to do these things. Fraud is rampant with the senior citizens that come here from other countries, that have never, ever held jobs in the US, and just feed off the American taxpayer. It is really sad how foreign governments benefit from the largesse of the American taxpayer. The SSI workload in my area is around 4,000 redets to be done by six claims reps, of which two are trainees. And I see so many needless management positions for jobs like "OO". They should start by limiting management to employee ratios and hire some real staff to do the work. Too many chiefs never gets the job done right.
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