If you or someone you know recently became disabled and have been thinking about applying for Social Security disability benefits, there’s something you can do to get the process off to a good start.

Visit the “Disability Starter Kit” at www.socialsecurity.gov/disability. It will help you prepare for your disability interview and guide you through the application process.

The starter kit gives general information about the disability programs that Social Security offers, and about the process we use to decide whether or not you qualify for disability benefits. The kit also provides guidelines about the specific information and documents we will ask you for during the interview. It takes some of the mystery out of applying for disability benefits. See article here:

The stories of New Mexicans waiting on their government inspired U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman to take action.

There was “Rick,” a 36-year-old leukemia patient, pipeline inspector and father of four, who had to file for bankruptcy after waiting more than 18 months on his appeal for a government disability check.

And there was the 48-year-old wife and mother suffering from Wegener’s granulomatosis. She’s on oxygen 24 hours a day and left her job at a catering service in July 2003. Hoping to get better, she waited to apply for benefits until July 2006. She was denied. and her appeal is still pending.

Then there’s the 61-year-old cancer victim from Grants who died in May, 17 months after filing for benefits.

At the end of September, 746,744 Americans were waiting for a hearing to ask an administrative law judge to overturn their initial denial of disability checks from the Social Security Administration. The average wait at the Albuquerque field office is about the same as the national average – 17 months. See article here:

Today the Social Security Administration (SSA) faces a record backlog of disability cases like Leal’s, with 750,000 vulnerable people waiting—some for years—for a hearing and growing more desperate each day.

“People have died waiting for a hearing,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue concedes. “This is America, and it is simply not acceptable for Americans to wait years for a final decision on a claim.”

Disability claims, officials say, have doubled since 2001 as millions of boomers in their 50s—the years when working men and women are most prone to illness and disabilities—have applied to collect the insurance. Despite a growing aging population and caseload, the agency hasn’t been able to afford to add workers. Congress has consistently cut the SSA’s budget requests since 2001, leaving the agency’s overall staffing at its lowest level in 34 years. See article here:

Good News on the SSA Budget: Contact your Members of Congress Today!

Last week, key Members of the House of Representatives and Senate met as conferees to reconcile their respective versions of the appropriations bill that includes funding for SSA – the fiscal year (FY) 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill. The House and Senate conferees agreed to include the Senate version of the appropriation for SSA, which provides $9.871 billion for SSA’s administrative FY 2008 budget. This amount is $275 million above the President’s request and would allow SSA to:
” Hire about 250 more ALJs.
” Replace some of the several thousand positions lost in SSA field offices over the past two years.
” Increase hiring in DDSs to replace a loss of over 800 positions.
While this level of funding is not enough to eliminate the disability claims backlog, without this appropriation, the backlog will continue to increase and SSA service will worsen, as SSA’s staffing drops to its lowest level in over 30 years. This bill is very important to people with disabilities and their families!
WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY?
The House and Senate are expected to take up the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (L-HHS-ED) appropriations conference report as soon as today, November 6. It may be combined with the Military Construction-VA appropriations bill.
While President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it is passed by Congress, it is critical that this level of funding is established for SSA as a congressional priority for FY 2008.
The message for your Representative and Senators:
” Support the Labor-HHS-Education FY 2008 appropriations conference report when it comes up for a vote.
” SSA needs the level of funding in the bill because it is critical to address the growing disability claims backlog. Why does SSA need this level of funding?
o Waiting times at the hearing level are at a record high.
o Individuals waiting for decisions face extreme hardships because of the delays.
o Access to other key services also has been diminished. Local SSA offices have been threatened with closing or having their hours open to the public reduced.

Your contacting your Congressional delegation today would be extremely helpful.

The Social Security Administration can start hiring the judges needed to speed the processing of disability claims now that a new list of candidates qualified for the job is available.

This week, the Office of Personnel Management released a new roster of more than 600 ready-to-hire administrative law judges, said Mike Orenstein, a spokesman for the agency.

All candidates on the old list were invited to reapply, and the number of new applicants suggests that the old roster of more than 1,700 qualified lawyers was outdated.See Full Story Here:

Today’s Washington Post reports that the Social Security Administration — where staffing is at its lowest levels since the 1970s and the number of disability claims are at an all-time high — got some hopeful news on its budget yesterday.

The House and Senate appropriations committees agreed to provide the agency with $9.9 billion for operations in fiscal 2008. That is $275 million more than the Bush administration requested and probably enough to keep Social Security from drowning, at least for the short term, in its growing workload. See Post Article here: