From David Weaver, a retired Social Security employee, writing for The Hill:
Projections indicate that, in less than two years, there will be a staggering 2.5 million people in Social Security’s disability backlog. That figure is higher than the population of 20 U.S. states and territories. Thus, as we look to the midterm elections next year, President Trump will be dealing with a very large group of Americans who aren’t receiving timely decisions on their benefit applications.
About 70 percent of the projected backlog at the end of fiscal 2026 will be at the initial level of determination. ...
The backlog could easily turn out to be well above 2.5 million cases if current levels of government staffing decline, assumed productivity gains among government workers fail to materialize, or the country experiences a recession and displaced workers with health problems turn to Social Security for help. ...
The large backlog will be a national driver of homelessness, a situation that occurs with some frequency among disability applicants. ...
Trump’s first instinct may be to look for a technological fix. His executive order creating DOGE stated its purpose as “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” In practice, however, DOGE has become focused on personnel policy and cost cutting, rather than bleeding-edge technology.
Social Security recently summarized its DOGE-related activities. If members of the public thought the young engineers of DOGE were going to revolutionize technology in the government, they will be disappointed. The Social Security list is basically composed of budget cuts, including two big items: a reduction in the agency’s technology budget and a hiring freeze applied to federal employees and state workers who help process disability claims. ...
I am pessimistic about the situation. The present course can lead only to disaster but this will not be apparent to the Trump Administration until the disaster is well upon us. They will then try desperately to turn the spigot back on only to find out that there's only so much that can be done until new personnel are hired and trained and that takes quite some time. And, of course, Weaver is only writing here about impending backlogs of disability determinations and that's only one part of the problem. Addressing field office, teleservice center and payment center backlogs, which will also mushroom, will be even more difficult, especially with a gutted management structure.
3 comments:
I’m hearing that all AAJ and Appeals Council employees will be let go. This will certainly contribute to the backlog!
Have faith in Frank. He’s the right guy to turn this around.
It seems like all the progress the agency has made to reduce backlogs over the last 15 years is being thrown away. This is very troubling The public won’t feel the pain of these cuts until they are directly affected, and like you said, it will be too late.
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