AN OPEN LETTER TO REP. PAUL TONKO

The following was sent to my representative in Congress regarding the sorry state of service provided by the Social Security Administration to the public. A courtesy copy was sent to the ranking majority and minority members of the finance committee in the Senate. I'll keep you posted when I receive a reply.

Dear Congressman Tonko,

A recent GAO report (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0924.pdf) addressing service issues at Social Security field offices found that poor levels of many services were due to staffing shortages and as a result of inadequate funding for SSA’s administrative costs prompted me to write this letter.

As a veteran, an AFGE union member, and a constituent of your district with 36 years of public service at the Social Security Administration, the last 30 years of which were performed Troy NY, I offer you front line observations of the problems facing SSA in the hopes it prompts you to seek those solutions that do not include the knee jerk reaction of hiring more people or increasing the SSA budget

Although retired from SSA I am still an active dues paying member of AFGE and as such I would normally advocate for increasing the staff and budget but the reality is that the public demographics are such that the workload will increase at the highest rate since 1974 with implementation of SSI legislation and the working staff has decreased to levels to pre 1974 levels.

Perhaps the most troublesome workload is that of Social Security Disability claims. There are too many frivolous claims filed by people that don’t meet the program’s criteria. Commonly, these are people with minor, short-term injuries who forced to file for Social Security by their employers insurance companies or they have applied for temporary Public Assistance which requires them to apply disability benefits in order to qualify for public assistance.

These unnecessary claims only add to the existing backlog of disability claims not to mention reducing the time a decreased staff has to work on those cases which do meet the criteria. In other situations due to staff shortages claimants are requested/required to file their own claims via the computer with little or no knowledge of what SSA is actually looking for. These claims are generally denied at the initial level then become added to the unmanageable backlogs at the appeals level and two years or more go by before a claimant who is disabled receives a decision then waits for another 30 to 60 days or more before they receive any retroactive benefits they are due.

In addition due to the increased workload of disability claims and the decreased staff in field offices one of the most important workloads i.e. continuing disability reviews (CDR) is ignored and held in what agency speak refers to as being placed in the category of “moratorium”. When claimants become entitled to Social Security Disability by law their claims are supposed to be reviewed at various intervals depending on their disabling condition in order to determine if in fact they are still disabled.

In the private sector when an individual receives long term disability his/her condition is always reviewed and while the private insurer can terminate an individuals long term disability if his/her condition has improved that individual can still collect the Social Security Disability he was required to file for by his/her employer and thereby expose the “program integrity” of Social Security as a myth.

How much money do you think we are paying out of the Social Security Disability Trust Fund to people who are no longer disabled because this oversight hasn’t been conducted for years? Given the current state of our economy how long do you think we can afford to ignore accountability and trust?

Hiring more people will help but it won’t solve the immediate crisis because it takes 2 to 3 years for someone to feel confident about their job knowledge. Indeed even Senators Baucus and Grassley acknowledged as much in their press release in response to the GAO report. (http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2009press/prb020909c.pdf).

As for increasing the budget since we found out that the Iraq War really wouldn’t pay for itself and the wealthy kept the Bush tax breaks rather than reinvesting in America we can expect budget cuts in social programs to pick up that tab with little left over thus exists the reality that there is little or no money to increase the existing SSA budget.

To be sure SSA today is overworked and understaffed but from my personal experience in your district there were and there still are highly paid SSA employees who waste official time to justify overtime and management cronyism which blatantly perpetuates the waste of tax payer dollars without any accountability. Indeed the public would be outraged at what really goes on in the SSA offices in your district.

It is noted these problems are systemic from the top down. In the early 90s I testified before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Aging about some of these same issues and the result was a shell game referred to as “reinventing government”. Furthermore, on numerous occasions I informed your predecessor about these issues only to find out that he did nothing more than send my correspondence to SSA for the self serving response that would let him and the SSA off the hook.

Given our current economic crisis we can no longer afford business as usual at SSA where neither employees nor management are held accountable. Hopefully you’ll do more than pass the buck for the service issues facing SSA are indeed a matter of public trust.

At present the disabled individual can roll the dice and file with SSA directly or hire an attorney representative whose fee is higher the longer it takes to process a claim. It is imperative that you seek other solutions to an agency no longer capable of serving the public and I urge you to pursue those other solutions with all due diligence because in these dire economic times we cannot afford to ignore the public any longer.

Until the issue of SSA’s service to the public is addressed the plight of disabled people nationwide will be that of people whose income has decreased, their self esteem shattered, financial affairs in chaos when they can’t afford the mortgage or the rent, and their suffering will not be limited to them because the unbearable strain of their economic situation will be passed on to their families to be crushed beneath the wheel of financial loss.

I am willing to make myself available to meet with you and discuss these important issues at your convenience should this letter compel you to address the crisis that is taking place in Social Security and the hardship it imposes on the public.


cc: Senator Max Baucus
Senator Charles Grassley