...to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, who would surely be turning in his grave if he knew about this...

NY Times Op-ed: SSA Waiting Periods Must End

May 1, 2007
Editorial

To: The Temporarily Able-Bodied

Just about everyone who works pays taxes into the fund for federal
disability benefits. But mercifully, relatively few people ever
collect. To qualify, you must be unable to work, and your
disability must be of such severity that you'll be out for at
least a year or you're likely to die from it.

Those criteria are tough but necessary to ensure that resources go
to the neediest Americans. In the past several years, however,
another hurdle has been erected, one that is unacceptable and
inhumane. Processing delays, mounting since 2000, have left more
than one million applicants languishing without help, some for
years.

The most acute bottlenecks are at the appeals level, where the
average processing time is now 515 days compared with 274 days
in 2000. Such delays are especially pernicious because slightly
more than one-quarter of all approved claims are awarded after an
appeal hearing, and nearly two-thirds of the people who appeal
ultimately prevail. Without the benefits they are entitled to, far
too many applicants get sicker and experience severe economic
hardship, including foreclosures and even homelessness. Some
applicants die before their appeals are heard.

The fault lies primarily with Congress. For many years, lawmakers
have consistently cut into the budget for the Social Security
Administration, which administers the disability program. Since
2000, the cumulative shortfall the difference between what the
agency has asked for and what Congress has appropriated is $4.4
billion, with more than $2 billion of that in the last few years.

In the same period, demands on the agency have grown, resulting in
a chronic shortage of people to do the work. Disability claims
have risen, to 2.5 million in 2006 from 1.3 million in 2000,
driven in part by the aging of the population. Disability claims
also tend to rise when jobs are scarce, as was the case during
much of the Bush-era economic expansion. Research shows that
people who would tough out their disabilities during good times
turn to government aid when they lose their jobs and are unable to
find new ones. Congress has also recently imposed new tasks on the
Social Security Administration, like assisting with immigration
issues.

You get what you pay for. When it comes to helping disabled
workers as with so many other duties of government recent
Congresses have not been willing to pay for service that is
prompt, professional and compassionate.

The agency generally gets high marks for productivity and
efficiency, and estimates that it needs about $10.5 billion a year
to be able to do its work adequately. The current Congress can
begin to fix the disability program by providing the needed funds
in the coming budget for 2008. Congress must also work closely
with the new commissioner of Social Security, Michael Astrue, to
ensure that a plausible plan to conquer the backlog is put in
place quickly.

Source: New York Times :bash: :bash: