Catherine Mulhall, who has multiple sclerosis, has been waiting years to get her Social Security disability benefits.From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution August 3:
Atlanta is arguably the worst place in the country to live if you are too sick or injured to work and have to rely the government for help.
While Social Security hearing offices nationwide are clogged with claims from severely disabled individuals seeking benefits, the two Atlanta locations are known as "the backlog capital of the country."
The Downtown hearing office at Peachtree Center takes 769 days on average — more than two years — to resolve a claim. It has 9,145 claims pending.
The Atlanta North office on Clairmont Road is even worse, with a backlog of 12,497 claims and an average wait of 793 days, according to Social Security figures. Month after month, the two offices consistently rank among the slowest in the country for resolving claims.
The physical and financial health of many of people waiting will deteriorate.
Some will lose their homes and declare bankruptcy. Others will die.
They already have been turned down twice to get to this appeal level, adding years more to their quest for a modest income and access to health care.
Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue calls reducing the backlog in Atlanta and elsewhere nationwide a moral issue. "I don't want to appear self-righteous, but I do want to make it clear that that's the way I view it," said Astrue, appointed commissioner in 2007.
After ignoring the problem for years, Congress gave Social Security money this fiscal year aimed at turning the tide. In December, the agency opened the National Hearing Center in Northern Virginia, where administrative law judges hear cases via video from Atlanta and other backlogged regions.
Social Security also has hired 189 new administrative law judges. Astrue said he has placed as many in Atlanta as the offices can accommodate. Seven new administrative law judges recently came on board at the Downtown office, increasing the number to
13.
"It used to be very uncommon that you would have a claim where someone would die while their appeal was pending," Rick Waitsman, an administrative law judge, said. "Unfortunately, that is becoming much more common. People are dying from what they are complaining of."
More than 2.6 million Americans will file disability claims this year, fueled by the baby boom generation hitting peak disability age.
Even as the number of claims has been steadily rising, Congress has underfunded the Social Security agency for the previous 15 years running, Astrue said.
The demographic shift and the lagging resources are in large part to blame for the backlog of 761,000 people nationwide waiting for hearings.
And The Portland Oregonian has a similar story about Portland being another place where the waits for Social Security payments are extremely long. The newspaper's special report also has videos of the experiences of people with disabilities waiting for their SSDI payments.
Patricia Heimerl landed her first job in high school, bought a house at 22, and worked the last eight years of a long office career at Intel. She paid her bills, built a retirement account and, like most Americans, watched as Social Security took its cut from every paycheck.
Part of those deductions went to an insurance fund that pays benefits to people who become too sick or injured to work. Heimerl couldn't imagine that would ever mean her.
Then it did.
Doctors diagnosed her with fibromyalgia, which causes chronic muscle pain. Heimerl couldn't hold a job.
In January, the Social Security Administration decided that the 55-year-old McMinnville resident was disabled and approved her for benefits.
Here's what it cost her: six years.
Six years fighting Social Security's delays. Six years dealing with lawyers and paperwork. Six years burning through savings and selling her house to survive.
"It's something we've all paid into. So it should be there, if you are in need of it," she says. Instead, "the system you have to work with is a nightmare."