Few government agencies touch the lives of more Americans than the Social Security Administration: the agency pays $1.4 trillion in benefits to more than 71 million people each year.
But Social Security has been grappling with a customer service problem that threatens to get worse before it gets better. Problems include long wait times on the agency’s toll-free phone line, a long backlog of disability applications and a growing problem with overpayments to low-income beneficiaries.
Many of the problems arise from the austere administrative budgets imposed by Congress over the past decade. Since 2011, Congressional cuts to the agency’s customer service budget total 17 percent after adjustments for inflation, and staffing fell to its lowest level in 25 years last year, according to a report. analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research and policy organization. At the same time, the number of beneficiaries increased by 22 percent over the last decade.
The current budget battle in Congress could make the situation worse. The Biden administration has requested a $1.3 billion increase in SSA’s customer service budget for next year, while House Republicans have proposed a $250 million cut in that spending. Decisions on federal spending were postponed until early 2024 under a deal reached last month.
Even a decision to hold funding steady next year would result in slower service as SSA uses more resources to cover rising fixed costs, such as scheduled salary increases, employee benefits and office rents. The agency’s fixed costs increase by $600 million to $700 million a year.
“The budget situation is bad now, and it’s safe to say it will get worse next year,” said Kathleen Romig, CBPP director of Social Security and disability policy. “The problems get progressively worse over time and become more serious.”
Funding issues arise as SSA leadership is in transition. President Biden has nominated Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland and former presidential candidate, as the agency’s permanent director, and O’Malley is awaiting Senate confirmation. He would replace Kilolo Kijakazi, who has served as acting director since July 2021, when the president fired Commissioner Andrew Saul, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump.
Dr. Kijakazi is a public policy expert who has written extensively on Social Security, income, wealth, and race. In an interview, he noted several areas of progress during his tenure, including restoring foot traffic to the agency’s 1,230 field offices after the pandemic shutdown, using this year’s $707 million increase in customer service funding. to add 7,900 employees.
But Dr Kijakazi said administrative budget issues remained a central issue.
“It will take years of sustained and sufficient funding and collaboration, both within the agency and with external partners, for the agency to recover from a workforce and services crisis that was years in the making,” he said.
Training new workers often takes more than a year because Social Security rules are very complex. And the current short-term extension of spending forced the agency to freeze hiring.
“If the final SSA budget maintains the level of funding, the hiring freeze will continue throughout the year,” he added. “Given the expected attrition throughout the year, we will not be able to replace people who leave.”
More funding cuts came proposed earlier this year by Republicans as part of a broader budget plan that they said aimed to “tackle wasteful bureaucracy and improve oversight and accountability.” But Dr. Kijakazi said the cuts would force more painful decisions, including limited furloughs and hours of service, field office closures and the disruption of a much-needed modernization of the agency’s information technology.
All of that would come at a time when the agency already faces significant challenges.
Wait time on the SSA phone line, which is crucial for people with questions about benefits or those applying for benefits, averages 36 minutes. Average wait times have fluctuated over the past decade, but in 2013 the average wait time was 10 minutes. The agency recently began using a modernized toll-free phone system, but said more trained employees will be needed to reduce wait times.
There is a backlog of more than a million people waiting an average of seven months to make initial decisions on applications for disability benefits, a process that has been slowed by staffing problems at the agency and in state governments, which receive SSA funds to determine applicant eligibility. locally.
The agency is also under fire about overpayments of benefits that have led to the agency recovering billions of dollars, and some people receiving notices that they owe tens of thousands to the SSA. The payment is due in 30 days, although the notices explain that recipients can file appeals or request waivers if they believe the overpayment was not their fault and they cannot afford to pay it back. The problem of overpayments has affected some of the most vulnerable beneficiaries: recipients of disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income, the program that supports very low-income Americans.
A key cause of the problem is adjustments to benefits required by law when a beneficiary’s income, employment status, or amount of assets change. SSA is developing a system to leverage third-party payroll data that will reduce beneficiary reporting responsibilities and improve efficiency. But progress has been slow: The project was authorized by Congress in 2015 and a proposed rule to get the system up and running won’t be filed until next month, the SSA said Friday.
but a new report The agency points out problems of overpayment in retirement and disability programs. The SSA notes that in these programs, only half of 1 percent of the amounts paid were overpayments, and that the study’s findings are based on a sample that may not represent a long-term trend.
Dr. Kijakazi notes that a review is underway to determine whether other procedural changes could address the broader problem of overpayments. But he said the error rate on overpayments was small in the context of a huge program like Social Security and argued that the problem stemmed primarily from changes in the income or employment status of people who had not been informed.
“We are required by law to recover overpayments,” he said. “We understand how upsetting this can be for anyone who receives a letter.” And he added: “If members of Congress and the public do not want us to proceed as we do regarding overpayments, they just need to change the legislation.”
The law, however, gives SSA authority to waive recovery of overpayments under certain circumstances, Ms. Romig said. “There are a lot of things they could be doing to make overpayments less harmful to people, and they aren’t,” she said.
The issue of overpayments also underscores the challenges faced by an agency working with outdated information technology and an under-pressure workforce.
Earlier this year, the Social Security Administration ranked last in a classification one of the best places to work in the federal government, down far from just a decade ago when it was consistently ranked as one of the best.
“Things are not getting better,” said Jessica LaPointe, president of Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents employees in Social Security field offices and call centers.
LaPointe said he hoped the appointment of a permanent commissioner would help. “We think he will really do what he can within the constraints of our budget, but we need Congress to fund SSA’s operating costs,” he said, referring to Mr. O’Malley.
“We are very paralyzed and demoralized by these proposed budget cuts,” Ms. LaPointe said. “When the public is sitting around waiting for needed services, it creates a very frustrating situation for the customer and for employees who feel like we are failing in the mission we have.”
