From Tom Margenau's column:
... When I started working for the SSA in the early 1970s, I was one of about 82,000 relatively happy and proud employees working for one of the best-run agencies in all of government. The SSA consistently won awards for public service and administrative responsibility....
Local Social Security offices were well-run, clean and efficient. I worked in several of those offices in small towns and medium-sized cities across the country. They were pleasant places to work and pleasant places to visit. ...
Unfortunately, now it's a different world and a different SSA. Those 82,000 employees I worked with in the '70s and '80s have been trimmed down to about 60,000. ...
With reduced staff and resources, it's all about numbers, efficiency and time management. Walking in off the street to visit a pleasant local Social Security office to ask some questions and possibly file for benefits while having a little chat with a happy employee is a pipe dream. Today, you must call the SSA's toll-free number and wait on hold for a long time (some readers have told me an hour or more) to make an appointment. And then you will probably wait weeks, or even a month or more, for that appointment. Then, when you finally get to the office, it's "take a number, and sit down, and wait until you are called." And sadly, the SSA rep you finally get to talk to has not had the training I had and does not have the time that I had and probably does not have the esprit de corps that I had. ...
5 comments:
I was going to share this article with everyone in my office until I saw that utter BS about 1 million people waiting for a disability hearing with a 600 day waiting time for the same. The article lost credibility right there. -
-Former state agency specialist; 10 year attorney rep who handles mass volume level cases on initial, recon, hearing and AC levels.
it wasn't that long ago that a million people were waiting for a disability decision...
just mind blowing that SSA has 20,000 fewer employees now than it did decades ago when it had way less work to do. And before all you older folks who just don't know much about tech yet believe it the cure to all woes chime in--no, advances in technology and other efficiencies have not accounted for a loss of 25% of the former workforce.
Americans allow their government to just not fund important programs then wonder why important programs aren't run very well. Contrary to what the elites will tell you, oftentimes the best solution to any problem is simply throwing money at it until it's gone. Heck, we accept that argument for rich folks and their problems ("tax us less and let us keep more of our money and just watch how we flourish to everyone's benefit!"), a shame we don't follow the same logic with poverty or homelessness or education or benefits.
Boomers, destroying the agency they will be depending on. I kinda like it.
@ 9:55 "just mind blowing that SSA has 20,000 fewer employees now than it did decades ago when it had way less work to do."
Just playing a little devilish advocate. But maybe there is actually less work to do. The SSA really wants people now to do almost all business online. This was not the case in the 1970s and 1980s. So I assume there was MORE work to do based on pushing papers around.
Obviously, there are more SS recipients and probably more phone calls, apps, etc. But it seems like the Internet has drastically cut down on the mundane paper work.
The backlog is ridiculous and always will be. But adding maybe 5,000 or 10,000 more employees may work. Maybe they do not need 80,000 employees.
When there were 80,000 employees, it took many steps to request an earnings record and clear a retirement claim. A paper form had to be completed, then it had to be teletyped. SSA in Baltimore had to do whatever they did to produce an earnings record. A couple of weeks later the earnings record came in the mail. Another form to be completed and teletyped to process that claim. All of that can be done now by one person in literally about 30 seconds or less.
There have been about 20K less employees for quite a long time, although I don't have the figures for how long.
Re internet--it does help quite a bit but many don't take advantage of the things available to be done there vs going to an office. Claims filed online do save time for the agency but someone still has to review them, make sure the person is eligible, see if perhaps they may receive more money with a different month of entitlement, etc.
Re the article--there has not been a 15% reduction in employees in the last 4 years. And pre-Covid, one could walk into a Social Security office. There may be a long wait but one could do it w/o calling the 800 number.
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