WHY YOUR DISABILITY CASE IS REALLY SO SLOW!

It's a well known fact that it takes forever to get a new Social Security disability application processed. Many claimants wait 18 to 24 months for a decision and many die before getting a decision.

Why is this happening? Here's the real story.

In March 2020 when COVID began, the Social Security Administration (SSA) panicked. They furloughed between one-third and one-half of their staff to "work from home."

The agency was already under-staffed and was having a hard time keeping up with its workload. Then COVID practically shut the agency down.

Of course, no "work from home" situation is going to be as effective as supervised routines in the office. You just don't expect it. But that's not the real picture.

It turns out that those thousands of employees who were supposedly working from home were not working. Not at all. They do not have secure computers at home; therefore, they cannot access and work on secure Social Security files from home. They were simply furloughed with full pay and full benefits but most of them were not working at all.

Before COVID, the average worker at the state Disability Determination Service handled about 80 cases at one time. After the 2020 furlough, that caseload almost tripled. Now, the average employee handles not 80 cases, but up to 180.

To add to the problem, workers were shuffled between home and the office. One employee remarked, "I am working from home this week; next week who knows where I will be."

Thus, the relatively little bit of continuity and routine that SSA had (and it was precious little) was further compromised.

Thus, the time required to process a disability case went from 3 or 4 months to an average of about 15 months!

This is a shame for the hundreds of thousands of truly disabled claimants who are dying, doing without medical care, losing their homes, cars and becoming more destitute by the day.

Besides fixing this overwhelming crisis, the US Congress piddles with worthless legislation that does little more than cement votes among special interest groups.

If the US government really wanted to make a sensible COVID relief effort, it would pour a few billion dollars into helping Social Security get back to work.

Don't expect anything to change soon. Sadly, the Social Security Administration continues to use the "COVID pandemic," (now called the "COVID Challenge") to explain why they can't do their jobs. Your new disability claim will be stonewalled, stalled, neglected, lost and delayed for who-knows-how-long because one worker is now trying to do the work of two or three!