For the more than 1 million Americans with pending decisions for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits, the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce will assuredly make it harder to receive approval, meaning even longer wait times to receive their benefits.
Already, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has a backlog of claims on track to exceed 2 million beneficiaries (PDF), even if current staffing levels remain flat. Shortages in trained staff in recent years have increased the number of pending claims, increasing wait times. On average, applicants for SSDI and SSI disability benefits currently wait seven months for an initial eligibility determination, twice the prepandemic wait time.
With adequate staffing, experienced SSA workers make a meaningful difference for hundreds of people. On-time social security payments allow beneficiaries to pay bills, buy groceries, and stay out of poverty. The existing shortage of disability examiners has already hurt potential beneficiaries’ ability to meet their daily needs. Further staffing cuts would exacerbate backlogs and lengthen wait times.
How do shortages of SSA staff create Social Security payment delays?
Underfunding and COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions first caused SSDI and SSI application backlogs, which have been made worse by slow hiring processes and high turnover rates. The shortage of disability examiners in state disability determination service offices—positions which are fully funded by SSA—have only worsened these backlogs.
In 2023, a fully trained disability examiner resolved an average of 579 initial eligibility determinations a year (PDF). But staffing shortages mean fully trained examiners must take time to train new hires, reducing their productivity. The number of fully trained disability examiners who were not training others dropped from 6,627 in 2018 to 5,252 in 2023, and pending claims increased. More staffing cuts will likely prolong this trend, leading to even larger backlogs.
Source: Stephen C. Goss and Michael L. Stephens,“Social Security Disability Claims Pending Determination: Past and Projected,” Social Security Administration, May 2024, https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_notes/note163.pdf;
Chantel Boyens and Jack Smalligan, Social Security Customer Service Challenges: Causes, Impacts, and Solutions, AARP, July 2024 https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/ppi/topics/work-finances-retirement/social-security/social-security-customer-service-challenges-causes-impacts-solutions.doi.10.26419-2fppi.00239.001.pdf.
Notes: Shortages of trained staff not training others were shown to be causally correlated statistically with the increasing backlog in disability claims.
Without enough staff to address claim backlogs, wait times to receive benefits increase, which can place people with disabilities at risk of serious negative health and financial outcomes. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, wait times have increased by 100 percent, now taking more than six months on average for an initial decision to be made.
Once determined eligible for SSDI or SSI benefits, an applicant receives retroactive back payments. But any claims not processed in one year are shifted to the workload for the next year. As such, understaffing the application process can lead to staff having to reduplicate work and spend additional time updating already collected medical and financial evidence when claims are held up for longer periods.
However, the administration’s effort to shrink the number of government workers is not happening in isolation. Many federal agencies, including SSA, imposed hiring freezes last year when Congress enacted flat funding through March. If those freezes will be lifted is uncertain for now. Currently, wait times vary widely across the country, from 61 days in Idaho to 370 in Georgia. Any added delays resulting from the new administration’s staffing cuts will be worse for people in states with already long delays.
Without adequate funding and staffing, SSA cannot provide applicants needed benefits, often for an extended period. During a period of government-wide downsizing, the loss of administrative staff at the SSA will degrade service, leading to delays, long wait times, and a likely increase in poverty among older adults and people with disabilities.
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