Shortly after taking the oath of office President Donald Trump signed and executive order instituting a hiring freeze on federal employees, which included a hiring freeze for Social Security employees. This is an important move because Social Security is facing its largest hearing backlog in the nation’s history where more than a million people are waiting for a disability hearing to be scheduled. Wait times have increase substantially recently where thousands of people have now been waiting more than two years. Obviously a hiring freeze will only increase wait times as Social Security, many times, does not have staff place to deal with increased workloads. After the hiring freeze was instituted it only increased speculation that wait times would get even worse.
Two Florida congressmen realize how bad a hiring freeze at Social Security is for the American people and wrote a letter to Trump requesting that Social Security be exempt from the hiring freeze.
The letter from U.S. Rep. Darren Soto and U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, both Democrats, was signed by a total of 50 lawmakers requesting that the hiring freeze at Social Security be ended.
“Unfortunately, our current trajectory has us headed in the wrong direction,” the letter to Trump read. “Since 2010, the administrative budget of SSA has declined by 10 percent, after adjusting for inflation, while the number of beneficiaries has increased by more than 12 percent. This had led to the closure of 64 field offices nationwide, a disability hearings backlog with an average of a 540-day waiting period, increased wait times at every point of contact, and extended durations for retirement and disability appointments.”
The letter was sent to the president March 21, but lawmakers have not received any response as of yet, so the hiring freeze for Social Security remains in effect.
