According to the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) statement on Social Security’s management and performance challenges at the end of fiscal year 2016, there are now more than 1.1 million people who are waiting for hearings on disability claims, a number that has never been reached before.
A closer look at the report indicates things have gotten progressively worse between 2010 and 2016. Some of the highlights or rather lowlights include:
- The average processing time for a hearing increased 27 percent from 426 in 2010 to 543 in 2016;
- The pending hearings backlog grew from 59 percent from 705,367 people in 2010 to the current number of 1,122,014 in 20106.
- There is also a growing backlog at the Appeals Council. If a claimant is denied at the hearing level they can appeal the decision to the Appeals Council. Since 2010 the Appeals Council workload has increased by 21 percent. The average processing time for the Appeals Council has increased from 345 days to about 389 days.
Claimants who are going through the disability process may have hopes that Social Security will rectify this backlog problem, but those high hopes will probably not come to fruition as the backlog problem will probably even grow larger over the next several years. Right now a resolution that continues funding Social Security’s operating budget will probably be up sometime this spring. At this time Congress will decide on Social Security’s operating budget. Unfortunately the party in charge of Congress has indicated numerous times it wants to cut spending, which is not a good sign for Social Security. The fact is that even if Social Security’s operating budget is not reduced, backlogs are going to continue to increase and if there is any reduction in the operating budget for Social Security, backlogs will not only increase, but increase dramatically compared to where they are today. To learn more about the OIG’s latest report click here.
