Without budget anomaly, hiring at SSA is restricted and overtime is at ‘historic lows’

Officials at the Social Security Administration said this week that the agency was forced to cut back on two key tools as a result of Congress’ failure to act on the Biden administration’s request for additional funding for the beleaguered agency in its ongoing decision to keep the government open in September. in the fight to improve customer service.

Last month the White House and Commissioner Martin O’Malley warned the MPs failure to include budget anomaly Funding the agency in the proportionate equivalent of the $15.4 billion fiscal year 2025 annual appropriations request that the President proposed in a six-month CR — as originally proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson — would be dire, including the loss of more than 2,000 staff. will lead to results. a hiring freeze and significantly reducing the use of overtime.

Although the quicker enactment of the ongoing order may have delayed the worst-case scenario of a complete hiring freeze or unpaid leave, officials say fixed cost increases have forced the agency to restrict both hiring and overtime.

“We must operate prudently without additional funding during the CR period,” said SSA spokesman Mark Hinkle. “We have had to limit hiring to critical target areas and will not be able to invest in new information technology development. “In addition, we have reduced overtime to historic lows and essentially have no overtime to serve customers waiting in our lobbies late in the day or to clear workloads we cannot reach during main operating hours.”

Hinkle warned that the public will see longer wait times both at field offices and at the agency’s 1-800 number, and that those applying for retirement or disability benefits will wait longer for their claims to be processed and evaluated. He reiterated that if Congress fails to increase funding for the agency through a full-year spending deal or a second continuing resolution, the agency will hit a new 50-year staffing low by Jan. 1 and lose more than 2,000 workers by the end. month of March.

The level funding of the agency’s administrative expenses actually amounts to a budget reduction of 4.2%, as the organization sees its fixed costs increase by approximately $600 million per year. Rich Couture, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 215, which represents employees of the agency’s Office of Hearings Operations, warned that even restrictions on hiring and overtime could jeopardize the agency’s performance. latest progress according to various service criteria.

“The agency has relied heavily on overtime as a tactic to try to increase productivity and service delivery in an environment where we have been understaffed since at least 2010,” Couture said. “We’re at a point in 2024 where our staffing level is approximately 57,000 employees enterprise-wide and we’re managing benefits for 75 million people, whereas in 2010 we had 67,000 employees and were managing benefits for 60 million people. Given this context, overtime was used as a salve to try to ease the pain of understaffing. “But the reality is that we do not have the budget, and we do not have a sustainable budget, to achieve sustainable recruitment, training and retention to meet our critical service delivery needs.”

O’Malley spoke at an event hosted by the Urban Institute on Tuesday, examining the agency’s customer service and budget challenges, praising her work at the agency since the Senate confirmed it in December and criticizing Congress’s decision to cut Social Security’s 1.2% administrative funding. He said he continues to advocate for restoring the rate of annual welfare spending, which has fallen below 1% in recent years.

Since last November, the average wait time at 1-800 has dropped from 42.5 minutes to 11.3 minutes, and for 18 weeks the agency has closed more injury cases than it has opened. However, there are still places where the agency is hanging by a thread.

“How can we make progress on these issues even in the absence of staff?” he said. “This is an open question. In Ohio, we recently lost a field office in Cleveland completely without warning. It just exploded because it doesn’t care about the wear and tear.”

Severely limiting overtime is already having devastating effects on the agency’s workforce, Couture said.

“Some of our employees, especially lower-grade employees, rely on overtime to make ends meet because those wages are no longer competitive,” he said. “We have many people leaving the agency to go to other agencies where they can get better pay for the same or similar work; Not to mention guaranteed remote work and other benefits the agency is unable or unwilling to do. to ensure. This has had a huge impact on recruitment and retention, and again on the overall budget situation and its relationship to staffing and overtime. “This hinders the agency’s ability to fulfill its public mission and hinders the ability of many of our members to provide for themselves and their families.”