Some highlights from the President's proposed administrative budget for the Social Security Administration:
- Office of Inspector General would get only about a 5% increase in its operating budget. The rest of Social Security would get about 10%.
- "The Budget includes an increase of $60 million for teleservice centers to reduce wait times by over 40 percent and substantially reduce busy rates from 15 percent to 3 percent."
- "Addressing Processing Center Backlogs. The Budget includes an increase of over $75 million for PCs to handle more work."
- "To address the large backlog of initial disability claims and the additional claims we expect to receive in FY 2024, the Budget expands processing capacity by increasing staffing at the DDS offices. As a result, we expect the DDSs to process over 400,000 more initial disability claims and over 200,000 more reconsiderations than in FY 2023."
- Average processing time for initial disability claims would go down from 220 days to 195 days.
- Average processing time for reconsideration disability claims would go down from 224 days to 193 days.
- Average processing time for hearings would go down from 475 days to 320 days.
And remember, this is only a proposal. Congress must act on it and Republicans are saying they want dramatic cuts in agency budgets.
