More field offices are being closed, and hours of operation are being reduced in others.  Field Representatives responsible for outreach in our communities have all but disappeared, and the Agency is steering benefit applicants toward Internet self-service.  Many aged and disabled individuals who attempt to file for benefits online are disadvantaged, and even lose benefits they are due, because they do not understand complex SSA rules.  More Agency functions are being outsourced to entities that are not held accountable.       

The greatest hardships are suffered by applicants for disability benefits.  Almost two-thirds of initial claims are denied, but almost two-thirds of those who request a Hearing before an Administrative Law Judge are ultimately approved.  Nationally there are about 577,000 initial claims pending, plus 746,000 Hearing Requests.  About 84,000 of the Hearing Requests have been filed by veterans.  Hearing Request backlogs have more than doubled in the last seven years.  An applicant approved for benefits after a Hearing will have waited about two years on average from the date of filing a claim before finally receiving benefits, with 496 of these days spent waiting for a Hearing.  This is clearly unacceptable.  Too many applicants lose their life savings, their homes, and their families while they wait.  Some die before their claims are finally approved. 

Service deterioration is not limited to the disability programs run by SSA.  It is getting much more difficult to get through on the Agency’s toll-free number, and more than half of the callers to SSA field offices get a busy signal.

Continuing Disability Reviews that save taxpayers over $10 for every $1 invested have been cut back severely, as have Supplemental Security Income eligibility reviews, which save $7 for every $1 spent to do them.  This is penny-wise and pound foolish, and harms taxpayers of all ages.

Social Security will collect $189 billion more than it will pay out in benefits this year, and some of the money collected will be used to fund program administration, so why isn’t there enough money available to properly run the programs?  The reason is that the Agency’s annual administrative budget must be authorized as part of the Labor-HHS-Education-Independent Agencies spending bill.  SSA has been struggling to function under a Continuing Resolution (CR), which limits spending to the levels that have been in place for each of the last two fiscal years. 

In late 2006, SSA Commissioner JoAnne Barnhart requested $10.44 billion from President Bush for the fiscal year that began October 1, 2007, and asked to serve another 6-year term.  In January 2007, Bush proposed to spend $9.597 billion for SSA in his budget proposal, knowing that limiting spending to that level would greatly accelerate service deterioration, and nominated Michael Astrue as Commissioner to replace Barnhart.  House and Senate Budget Committees raised the amount for SSA to about $1.1 billion last spring.  The House Appropriations Committee slashed the amount to $9.697 billion, and Senate Appropriations to $9.872 billion, in late summer.  Before sending the Labor-HHS authorization bill to the President, the Senate raised it to $9.918 billion, and the bill passed the Senate easily.  The 435-member House passed it as well, and was within two votes of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.   The President vetoed the bill, trying to present himself as a born-again fiscal conservative (domestic programs only), and threatened to veto all of the other domestic spending bills.  Congress largely acceded to his demands, cut spending levels, added war funding with no strings attached, and placed all eleven bills in an omnibus package.  SSA was left with $ 9.747 billion, which is $693 million less than what Barnhart said she needed, and just $150 million more than what the President proposed.  Though it is an improvement over the CR, and the first year that Congress exceeded Bush’s budget request, it is woefully inadequate, and service will continue to decline.  The President is expected to sign the bill.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and other organizations that care about SSA are already lobbying for an adequate SSA budget for next year.  We have not yet heard what Commissioner Astrue has requested, or what Bush will propose in January, but we are not waiting.  Several Senators from both political parties have already asked the White House Office of Management and Budget to support $11 billion.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index released December 17, 2007, reveals that SSA’s score has fallen from 84% to 72% since 2000.  The man selected President that year has so far failed to privatize Social Security, but he and the Congresses since then have managed to cripple, dismantle, and discredit the Agency and its workforce.  Seniors, the disabled, survivors and dependents of workers, taxpayers, and their children and children deserve better.  They should demand change now, and in November.

Steve Kofahl, President
AFGE Local 3937, AFL-CIO
representing SSA employees in AK, ID, OR, WA