Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Record cutbacks at Social Security as retirement claims surge

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/record-cutbacks-at-social-security-as-retirement-claims-surge/

By JAKE MILLER CBS NEWS June 18, 2014

As the gradual retirement of the Baby Boomers foists more people onto its rolls than ever before, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has been reducing services and shuttering field offices at a record clip, according to a report released Wednesday by a bipartisan Senate committee.

The SSA has closed 64 field offices since 2010, including over two-dozen in just the last year, marking the largest five-year decline in service locations in the agency's history, the Senate Special Committee on Aging notes. It has also reduced a number of in-person services, trying to shift seniors and other beneficiaries into an online system, and it has cut roughly 11,000 workers from its payroll in the last three years.

As a result of these closures, the report says, "communities are too often left without the resources they need."

-----

SSA officials have blamed the cutbacks on budget constraints, saying they've been squeezed between increasing demand and the same budget pressures that have affected the entire federal government.

The SSA has seen a "staggering" 27 percent increase in retirement claims since 2007, from 2.6 million to 3.3 million, according to testimony prepared for the hearing on Wednesday for Nancy Berryhill, a deputy commissioner with the SSA.

The report notes the fiscal crunch facing the SSA, explaining, "Continuing budget constraints, which began at the start of the decade, have forced SSA to make difficult decisions to reduce service to the public."

-----

No comments:

Post a Comment