I am a career SSA employee, with 36 years of service. Fewer employees means a continuation of the degradation of public service that began years ago, an erosion of quality and performance and greater costs to the Social Security trust funds and general revenues. We perform fewer reviews on Disability cases, so people who recover and go to work continue to receive benefits. We perform fewer reviews on SSI recipients, so individuals whose circumstances change continue to receive payments in the wrong amount. Incorrect payments increase and the ability to recoup them decreases. We no longer have the time to explain the myriad of options available to people who need to carefully plan their retirement in an increasingly complex financial world. Our elected representative must realize that the impact will be borne by their constituents!
Jed Natkin
AFGE Local 3369
Social Security Administration, Somers, NY
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As an SCT at ODAR the e-file technology makes workup of cases so much more efficient. We have lots of training and ability to workup disability cases. I would love to see more training and focus on non-disability issues. We need to assist field offices’ efforts to stop payments to such claimants as you wrote about who are no longer entitled to benefits. We need to learn more about non-disability issues and how to prepare such cases for hearings. The disability training we initially received at our two-week (now one week) training was very complete. Time for more training. You are very right.