Social Security: ‘Devastating’ Shortcomings Thoroughly Questioned by Lawmakers — How Program Is Failing Those With Disabilities and More
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Vance Cariaga
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Joe Evans
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For the second time in a couple of weeks, a Social Security Administration official sat in front of Congress to take heat for what one lawmaker termed “devastating” shortcomings with the troubled agency. This time the issue was the SSA’s handling of disability benefits, which have been hampered by severe delays, backlogs and customer service problems.
More than 1 million Americans are still waiting for initial decisions on disability benefits that currently take an average of 220 days to process, The Washington Post reported, citing SSA data. That’s nearly double the processing time in 2019 and almost four times the duration the SSA itself defines as a minimum level of performance.
The agency is well aware of the problem and addressed it during testimony given last week to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Linda Kerr-Davis, the SSA’s acting deputy commissioner of operations, told the committee that more than 15 million people rely on disability benefits for “basic needs” like food, shelter and medical care. In most cases the need is immediate.
“Pending levels and wait times for determinations on initial disability claims and disability reconsiderations are at all-time highs,” Kerr-Davis said. “For the first time since the programs began, pending initial disability claims have exceeded 1 million. Applicants are waiting on average seven months for a decision. This is simply not acceptable — to the public, to you, or to us.”
She added that the delays are due to “several issues,” but are “ultimately tied to funding challenges.” Field offices have seen record-high employee attrition, and the SSA has faced difficulty hiring replacements. There is also reduced access to medical evidence, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic and was “compounded” by a shortage of consultative examination providers.
In a rare instance of congressional bipartisanship, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle took the SSA to task for trying to pin so much of its problems on a lack of funding.
“This is simply not going to be solved by putting more resources and money at it,” U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) said at the hearing. “If we don’t have the right policies, we’re defeating ourselves.”
Rep. Brian Higgins, a fellow Democrat from New York, had an even harsher assessment, telling Kerr-Davis that the SSA is “not only inefficient, it’s awful, it’s inhumane. We have to explain to people who call our office … and with a straight face tell them, by the way, you’re going to be denied, that’s a complete waste of time that begins another lengthy process [of appeals].”
Meanwhile, Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), chairman of the Social Security panel of the Ways and Means Committee, said the consequences of SSA’s various service failures “are devastating.”
Kerr-Davis told the committee that the SSA has worked to identify issues that led to the backlog and plans to take “immediate steps” to address and resolve them.
“We have been implementing both short- and long-term solutions, which will require adequate and sustained funding,” she said. “We are working within our current resource levels to concentrate in four key areas: 1) increasing immediate processing capacity; 2) improving recruitment and retention; 3) changing business processes and policies; and 4) improving information technology.”
Kerr-Davis’ testimony came two weeks after SSA Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi told a congressional hearing that the agency has been sending about 1 million people a year notices that they were paid benefits they weren’t entitled to. The vast majority of the notices involved overpayments.
U.S. House members sharply criticized the SSA for sending out billions of dollars in overpayments and then later demanding that beneficiaries pay the money back.
“Ordinary citizens are being punished for a government failure,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) said at the hearing.
Kijakazi said she has ordered a “top-to-bottom, comprehensive review” of how the SSA handles overpayments.
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