The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) recently released a processing time report for requests on disability hearings at Social Security’s Office of Hearings Operation (OHO) indicating Social Security is making some progress of reducing the number of people who are facing endless wait times.
The report showed we start to see progress in the number of cases that are waiting more than 270 days (about 9 months). In just one month, from October to November, the number dropped by more than 18,000 from 456,030 to 437,493. And, there was progress in reducing the number of cases that were waiting a full year for a final disposition as there were 27,000 less cases waiting from October to November.
As you can see the changes are not drastic and it will take a lot of time before there is significant movement of reducing the backlog, but at least things are moving in the right direction.
Decline In Staffing
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) posted updated staffing figures for Social Security showing that staffing levels are less than they were 10 years ago. Considering Social Security is in the midst of the worst backlog of cases it has seen, one culprit might be staffing levels. According to OPM, staffing levels experienced a 3 percent decrease. Back in September 2008 Social Security employed 63,990 people, but just 60,898 in June of 2018. That is 3,000 less employees working at Social Security than there were a decade ago despite the fact that case loads increased rapidly about 10 years ago. Social Security did hire a substantial number of new attorney advisors in June 2018 in an attempt to combat the backlog, so it will be interesting to see how and if those additions have an impact on the Social Security backlog.
