SSA Disability Backlog: Long Time Coming

USA Today hops on the story of the burgeoning backlog of Social Security disability claims this morning, a sure sign that it's reaching crisis proportions.

Early this year, SSA officials had to go hat in hand to Congress to beg for some of its fiscal 2007 funding to be restored merely to avoid having to furlough thousands of employees.

For next year, President Bush has proposed a 3 percent increase in funding for disability claims processing. The House and Senate are contemplating increases in the 4 percent to 5 percent range. But SSA managers say even that won't be enough to make a dent in the backlog.

There are a lot of things you can say about this, but one of them isn't that we didn't see it coming. Here's Eric Yoder in the September 2001 issue of Government Executive.

During the next 10 years, the Social Security Administration's retirement processing workload is projected to increase by one-fifth as the oldest of the 77 million baby boomers enter their 60s. At the same time, the disability insurance workload is projected to rise by one-half as the rest of the boomers hit ages at which they are more likely to file disability claims. By 2020, the retirement workload will increase by one-half and the disability workload by three-fourths over current levels. Meanwhile, claims under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for the poor, disabled and elderly are expected to grow by one-fifth by 2020.

Worse, the workload will surge just as the agency is facing a retirement wave of its own. The average Social Security employee is about 47 years old and has about 20 years of service. By 2010, 28,000 of its current 65,000 workers will be eligible to retire. Take away another 10,000 expected to leave in the next nine years for other reasons, and the agency may have to replace more than half its workforce just as it is gearing up for the increase in workload and incorporating new technologies to process applications, deliver payments and follow up on beneficiaries.