Social Security is our only universal retirement and disability income program, and the work of the Social Security Administration touches all our lives at one point or another. That’s why I worry so much about the the deterioration of customer service provided to the public in recent years by the Social Security Administration.
I’ve been writing about this a great deal over the past year, starting with an expose for the Sunday New York Times last November. That piece looked at how repeated cuts to the agency’s administrative budget over the past decade by Congress has forced the closing of field offices, staff cuts, and long delays on Social Security’s toll-free line -and an unconscionable backlog of people waiting for appeal hearings on disability insurance claims. Here’s one especially onerous statistic: in 2016, nearly 10,000 Americans died while waiting for a disability appeal to be heard and decided. I also recently covered a related story - the cutback of mailings of crucial annual Social Security benefit statements. That also is a budget-related decision, and a really dumb one.
Congress cut Social Security’s budget nearly 11% between 2010 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation. During the same time, the number of beneficiaries grew by more than 16 percent. The Social Security beneficiary rolls are growing quickly as the nation ages. This year, the agency will pay more than a trillion dollars in benefits to 69 million Americans. The agency forecasts that the beneficiary rolls will increase 43% over the next two decades.
All of this was in the news again this week with the decision of three former commissioners of the Social Security Administration to speak up by writing a letter to leaders in Congress, urging changes in the process used to set Social Security’s administrative budget. The letter was sent to 19 key lawmakers, including the leadership of both parties and the chairs and ranking members of all the key congressional committees controlling budget, appropriations and finance.
This was a remarkable, unprecedented step - partly because of its bipartisan nature. The letter was signed by two commissioners appointed in the past by Democratic presidents, and one by a Republican. You can read that story here, and the letter can be downloaded here, along with a list of the key Congressional leaders who received it.
One thing that should outrage all of us is that we pay for these services with our payroll tax contributions. The Social Security administrative budget is funded through the same payroll taxes that fund benefits. Currently, workers and employers split a tax of 12.4%.
The problem here really is not that there is an anti-Social Security caucus in Congress that wants to chop its administrative budget. If anything, Social Security offices are the kind of thing lawmakers want to protect - losing a field office is a little like losing a military base in your district.
The main issue is that the agency’s administrative budget is counted as part of the federal budget due to a somewhat disputed interpretation of federal law by the Office of Management and Budget. That means the Social Security administrative budget must compete with other non-defense discretionary spending needs. And since budget caps were enacted in 2011, that has forced these administrative budget cuts.
Joining me on the podcast this week to talk about all this is one of the foremost experts in the nation on the finances of Social Security. Kathleen Romig is a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, DC, where she works on Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, and other budget issues. Earlier in her career, she worked at the Social Security Administration, for the Social Security Advisory Board, and the Congressional Research Service.
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When will Congress fix Social Security's declining customer service?