The Social Security Administration has been working for years to reduce its backlog of disability claims, which now stands at 780,000 claims. It even hired and trained 8,600 new employees last fiscal year.

But any progress it made has come to an abrupt halt. Largely because of the recession, Americans filed 400,000 more disability claims than predicted last year and the agency expects 700,000 more to be filed this year than in 2008.

SSA is not alone. Agencies across government that provide federal assistance are seeing their workloads explode as Americans seek unemployment insurance payments, health care insurance, school lunches, food stamps and college loans. Benefit claims and payouts have jumped in the last year at assistance programs run by the Labor, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services departments, among others. See article here:

From today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution: The Social Security Administration has reduced its staffing by more than 5 percent since 2003, to about 60,000.

That means seniors such as Early Graham of Raleigh, N.C., have dealt with long hold times and promises of return calls that never come.

“I had to call three different numbers before I got anyone on the phone,” Graham said.

Brian Simpson, a spokesman at the Social Security office in Raleigh, said he hears similar complaints all the time.

Trying to handle customer demand with fewer employees, the agency has shifted some workers away from phone lines to front desks to assist walk-in clients.See Full story here:

While Social Security predicts a substantial reduction in waits for hearings by 2012, many claimants need a more immediate fix. This article discusses the reasons and some remedies for hearing delays:

“Many people are denied disability benefits at the first two levels (Application for benefits and Request for Reconsideration). The third step in the process is the Request for Hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. At this stage, most claims have the greatest chance of being approved. The problem is that the greatest delays occur at this level.
The Administration has been confronted by a significant backlog on
cases pending decision and dispositions.
In FY 2007, SSA’s National Hearings Average Processing Time was 512
days for all dispositions. (see
www.ssa.gov for a thorough
discussions of the “whys and wherefores”…)

See entire article here.

Charles Hall’s blog today nicely supplies graphics for the delays at the Social Security Hearing office, by city. These were orginally published in the newsletter of NOSSCR (National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives) The worst is well over 600 days wait, the “best” hearing office has a wait of 200+ days. (Click on the images in Mr. Halls blog to enlarge.)

Not much progress has been made in spite of a variety of measures to speed up service delivery – claims are simply coming in faster than they are being resolved. Overall, between January 1007 and April 2009, the average wait for a hearing has just been reduced from 508 to 505 days. Keep in mind that this wait is AFTER denials on initial and reconsideration aspects of the claim, which can take more than a year.

Compare the average processing time as it has changed over time:

January 25, 2007 — 508 days
May 25, 2007 — 523 days
July 28, 2007 — 528 days
August 31, 2007 — 523 days
November 30, 2007 — 500 days
February 29, 2008 — 511 days
May 30, 2008 — 523 days
June 27, 2008 — 529 days
July 31, 2008 — 530 days
September 3, 2008 — 532 days
November 5, 2008 — 476 days
December 3, 2008 — 480 days
March 8, 2009 — 499 days
April 24, 2009 — 505 days

See Mr. Hall’s blog for the list of cities and their respective waiting times:

Over the past year, the newspaper The Oregonian, Portland and Oregon’s local paper, has been running a series carefully documenting the devastating delays at the Social Security hearing offices, putting a human face on this non-comedy of errors and underfunding. Brent Walth and Bryan Denson of The Oregonian have just won the prestigious Bruce Baer Award for Investigative Reporting, for uncovering the enormous backlog of disability claims in the Social Security system. The articles showed that while claims management is a nationwide problem, Social Security Administration’s Portland office has one of the slowest case-completion rates in the country. The reporters found several cases in which claimants died while waiting for a benefits determination from the office: On average, it takes nearly two years for the Portland office to handle the appeal of a case.

Government Executive reports today: The economic downturn, inadequate funding and red tape are at the core of an increasing backlog of Social Security disability cases, panelists said during a roundtable discussion in Washington on Thursday.
The government has tried for years to reduce the number of cases awaiting review from administrative law judges, but the recession is a significant setback, said Alan Cohen, senior budget adviser for the Senate Finance Committee.
“Initial claims are going to skyrocket in 2010,” he said during the forum, organized by the Association of Administration Law Judges. “The tsunami hasn’t hit the administrative law judges here.”
At issue are cases where a claim has been rejected at the state level and is sent to Social Security Administration ALJs. Currently, there are about 750,000 cases pending, according to Cohen. SSA has set a goal of reducing the pile of pending cases to 466,000 by 2013 — a step SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue has told lawmakers would decrease average processing times from 500 to 270 days. See article here:

For impact on the overall Social Security system, this new statistic is significant for several reasons. It impacts the maturity of the workforce, it demonstrates the desperation of people who are exhausting their unemployment benefits. But more importantly for disability claimants, it adds one more factor to the delays already plaguing Social Security,
The LA Times reports today: “Instead of working longer as the economy worsens, more Americans are calling it quits before age 66. The ramifications could be profound for the retirees, families, government and social institutions.

Reporting from Washington — Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.: See full article here:

Today’s San Jose Mercury writes that “the Social Security Disability Insurance system (SSDI) is crumbling under the pressure of a substantial disabled population, shrinking budgets and a wave of agency retirements. Social Security employees work as hard as they can to help people who deserve care, but their best efforts aren’t putting a dent in a hearing backlog of 765,000 disabled Americans — including 62,031 Californians — waiting months or years to receive their rightful benefits.

The recession is making things even worse. Commissioner Michael Astrue recently told the media the SSA is facing an unanticipated 10 percent increase in its disability claims caseload. That’s 250,000 additional cases the SSA needs to review, further bogging down the system.” See San Jose Mercury article here: