Recession brings surge in disability benefit claims
August 1st, 2009From the Associated Press:
Social Security officials say they expect an unprecedented wave of new disability claim applications, as aging and injured baby boomers lose their jobs in the recession. There are worries that the extraordinary increase will add to processing delays that have plagued the agency for years.
It’s expected that the agency will receive 3.3 million new claims in the next year, an estimate that’s grown by 300,000 claims in just the past few months. The number of people waiting to have a claim processed is up 30 percent since last fall, to more than 736,000.
Making matters worse, at least 10 states have furloughed the federally-funded employees who process benefit claims.
“We’re going to be moving backwards this year, the question is how much,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “The trend line isn’t good.”
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