Ex-Heads of the Social Security Administration Offer Plan to Improve Customer Service
Posted June 7, 2019 by Premier Disability Services, LLC®A worsening customer service crisis at the Social Security Administration has prompted three of its former commissioners to urge the U.S. Congress to fix the annual budgeting process that has starved the agency of the resources it needs to do its job. A letter calling for administrative budget reforms signed by the former commissioners – two appointed by Democratic presidents, and one by a Republican – will be delivered to congressional leadership. It will be sent to 19 key lawmakers, including the leadership of both parties and the chairs and ranking members of all the key congressional committees controlling budget, appropriations and finance.
To read the letter and view the list of recipients, see: (bit.ly/2KnIt3C)
The Social Security beneficiary rolls are growing quickly as the nation ages – this year, the agency is expected to pay $1.1 trillion in benefits to 69 million recipients of retirement and disability benefits, and Supplemental Security Income. The agency forecasts that its beneficiary rolls will increase 43% over the next two decades. However, Congress cut the agency’s budget nearly 11% between fiscal years 2010 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while the number of beneficiaries grew by more than 16%.
Social Security has responded to the cuts by closing 67 of the field offices that provide critical service to the public since 2010. Wait times have soared on its toll-free phone line, and there is a very large backlog of disability insurance claims waiting for decisions on appeal.
The Social Security administrative budget is funded through the same payroll taxes that fund benefits. Currently, workers and employers split a 12.4% tax. Social Security benefits were removed from the federal budget under legislation enacted in 1990, but administrative expenses continued to be counted due to an interpretation of the legislation by the Office of Management and Budget. Since passage of the 2011 Budget Control Act, which places caps on nondefense discretionary spending, the Social Security budget has been forced to compete with other federal spending priorities – for example, the National Institutes of Health. The struggle to manage federal spending under those caps is starting to heat up again as Congress begins turning its attention to the budget for next year.
The trio of former commissioners is proposing a legislative fix to the problem. The letter to be sent to Congress on Wednesday is signed by Ken Apfel, who served as commissioner during the Clinton administration, Jo Anne Barnhart, who was nominated by President George W. Bush and served from 2001 to 2007; and Carolyn Colvin, who served from 2013 to 2017 during the Obama administration.
The former commissioners propose that Congress eliminate the requirement that the Social Security administrative budget be included in the caps. Congressional appropriations committees would still approve the agency’s budget. “But importantly,” they write, “the Committees would be able to approve the funding that would be needed for the Social Security Administration to provide adequate service to the public.”
The letter notes that the agency operates very efficiently – since 1989, administrative expenses have been less than 1% of its budget. Social Security also has moved to improve efficiency through initiatives aimed at serving the public online and via its toll-free number, and by beefing up program integrity programs aimed at rooting out fraud.
But the commissioners note that 858,000 people were waiting for hearings before administrative law judges on disability benefit applications in fiscal year 2018. In the same year, the average wait time for callers to the Social Security toll-free number was 24 minutes, up from 13.6 minutes in fiscal year 2016 – and 15% of callers received a busy signal. Social Security’s processing centers, which handle claims after beneficiaries are determined to be eligible, face an enormous backlog of 2.9 million cases this year.
“Social Security has a two-pronged standard for its performance – providing benefits in a timely and accurate way,” Jo Anne Barnhart noted in an interview with Reuters. “Accuracy is really not an issue, and Congress has actually allocated additional funding for program integrity activities in recent years, so the agency is doing a really good job there. It’s timeliness that is really falling short – people who have paid into the system are really getting deficient public service. It has been a problematic situation for a while, and it is trending in the wrong direction.”
Contact our office today if you or anyone you know would like to learn more about qualifying for Social Security Disability benefits.
By: Joyce Trudeau of Premier Disability Services, LLC®
