President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal calls for more than $14 billion in Social Security funding, which would be close to a 10 percent increase in funding for the agency. According to a message from Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a large portion of the increased funding will be spent on addressing the growing backlog of disability claims where decisions are made by state agencies, which are known as Disability Determination Services (DDS). Other funding priorities identified by Saul include reducing wait times and improving customer service through investing in information technology. Below are some of the budget proposal’s highlights as identified by Social Security.
- Over $5 billion for payroll costs to fund the employees in our frontline operations, such as our field offices, National 800 Number, and processing centers. The Budget would increase staffing for frontline operations including State DDSs by over 6 percent. These employees will build upon our progress to improve critical areas, such as faster service on our National 800 Number, and help us reduce backlogs and wait times. Our total SSA payroll costs are nearly $8 billion to support our frontline operations, hearing operations, and strengthen critical positions, which include Information Systems Developers, Cybersecurity, Policy, Financial Professionals, and Actuaries who provide essential, robust analyses of the status of and changes to SSA-administered programs impacting the lives of most Americans, including the most vulnerable.
- Over $2.7 billion for current staff, additional hiring, and other expenses for the State DDSs to make our disability determinations. This amount includes funding for 1,300 additional employees we are hiring in FY 2021, an increase of about 10 percent. We will maintain the increased staffing levels in FY 2022 to help address a large increase in pending initial disability cases that occurred because of the pandemic, as well as an influx of new applications we expect to receive through the end of FY 2022. Once trained, these employees will help us process significantly more claims than we do now.
- Over $1.1 billion for payroll costs to fund the employees in our hearings operations. We will eliminate the hearings backlog in FY 2022 and position ourselves to handle a large volume of DDS cases that may be appealed to the hearings level in FY 2023.
- More than $2.1 billion for IT services funding to help us maintain and continue modernizing our large IT infrastructure, as well as increase our digital and automated services. Our IT Modernization Plan (2020 Update) focuses on replacing our older legacy systems and technologies and infrastructure they rely on with updated technology that will make service faster, easier, and more customer-focused.
- $96 million in outreach to ensure that SSI benefits reach the most vulnerable eligible individuals, including homeless individuals, children with disabilities, and those with mental and intellectual disabilities. Of the $96 million total, $75 million is additional funding in FY 2022.
- Over $1.7 billion for dedicated program integrity work, which will allow us to complete our cost-effective program integrity reviews and continue to expand our highly successful anti-fraud cooperative disability investigations (CDI) program to all States and U.S. territories.
