ADVISORY

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

Chairman Rangel Announces a Hearing on Clearing the Disability Backlog – Giving the Social Security Administration the Resources It Needs to Provide the Benefits Workers Have Earned

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel today announced that the Committee will hold a hearing on the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) large backlog in disability claims and other declines in service to the public resulting from years of underfunding of the agency’s administrative expenses.  The hearing will take place on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 in the main Committee hearing room, 1100 Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 a.m.

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.  However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, SSA’s workload has grown significantly due to the aging of the population and new responsibilities stemming from Medicare and homeland security legislation.  Despite a productivity increase of more than 15 percent since 2001, the administrative funding SSA has received has been well below the level needed to keep up with this growing workload.  From Fiscal Year (FY) 1998 through FY 2007, SSA received a cumulative total of $1.3 billion less than was requested by the President, and $4.6 billion less than the Commissioner’s own budget for the agency.

As a result, by the end of calendar year 2007, SSA staffing had dropped to almost the level in 1972 – before the start of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program – even though SSA’s beneficiary population has nearly doubled since that time.

Due to the combination of rising claims as the baby boom generation ages and prolonged underfunding, Social Security and SSI disability claims backlogs have reached unprecedented levels.  More than 1.3 million applicants for disability benefits are currently awaiting a decision on their claim, and total waiting times often extend into years.  In addition, as SSA tries to address the backlog crisis, the agency is forced to divert its limited resources away from its day-to-day operations in field offices and payment processing centers in order to try to manage the disability backlog.  The result is an increase in long lines, delays, busy signals, and unanswered telephones, and growing concern about closures and consolidations of local field offices.   Resource shortages have also forced the agency to cut back on program integrity activities, even though such activities have been demonstrated to generate considerable savings to the Trust Fund.

Under the President’s FY 2009 proposed budget, the agency would be able to make modest progress toward addressing the disability claims backlog, but service in the field would continue to decline.  Moreover, proposals to assign additional workloads to SSA, such as expanding SSA’s role in verifying the work-authorization status of employees, would, if enacted and not funded in full each year, force SSA to shift scarce resources away from its core functions to carry out these new workloads.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Rangel said, “We are alarmed by the deterioration in service to our constituents and the suffering of those who must wait years to receive benefits they desperately need.  Despite its well-earned reputation for being a can-do agency, the Social Security Administration simply cannot do its job without adequate funding.  We have been working on a bipartisan basis to address this problem, and will continue to do so until the disability claims backlog is eliminated and SSA’s capacity to provide high quality service to the public is restored.” 

FOCUS OF THE HEARING

This hearing will focus on SSA’s large backlog of disability claims, its impact on applicants with severe disabilities who are awaiting a decision on their claim, and SSA’s plan to reduce the backlog.  It will also focus on the role of SSA resource shortages in the growth of the backlog; other effects of these shortages, including the impact on service in local field offices, telephone service, and SSA’s ability to conduct program integrity activities; and the need for increased administrative funding in FY 2009 to address these problems.

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

Please Note:  Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee website and complete the informational forms.  From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select “110th Congress” from the menu entitled, “Committee Hearings” (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings.asp?congress=18).  Select the hearing for which you would like to submit, and click on the link entitled, “Click here to provide a submission for the record.”  Once you have followed the online instructions, email and ATTACH your submission as a Word or WordPerfect document to the email address provided, in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below, by close of business Wednesday, May 7, 2008.  Finally, please note that due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. Capitol Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office Buildings.  For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202) 225-1721.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee.

1.   All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in Word or WordPerfect format and MUST NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including attachments.  Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record.

2.  Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing.  Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased.  All exhibit material not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee.

3.  All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons, and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears.  A supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the name, company, address, telephone and fax numbers of each witness.

Note:  All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World Wide Web at http://waysandmeans.house.gov.

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above.

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