Almost 110,000 Americans died while waiting for a Social Security disability hearing

And for people who are ill or disabled, the appeals process is a burden.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disability-benefits-gao-report-death-bankruptcies-waiting-hearings/

 

 By Aimee Picchi
August 14, 2020 / 4:57 PM 

The Social Security program, known for its retirement benefits, also provides disability payments to people of all ages who can't work because of a physical or mental condition. But the process required get those benefits can be a bureaucratic nightmare, with applicants — who tend to be older and poorer than most Americans — sometimes waiting years to start collecting.

One measure of just how arduous that process can be: From 2008 to 2019, almost 110,000 people died as they awaited an appeal after initially being denied Social Security disability benefits, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal agency. Between 2014 and 2019, 50,000 people filed for bankruptcy waiting for their cases to be resolved.

The appeals backlog swelled to a median wait time of 839 days — more than two years — in 2015, although by last year the waiting game had shrunk to 506 days, the GAO said.

 "We have had clients who have died while they were waiting for hearings," Claire Grandison, a staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, where she works on applications for so-called Supplemental Security Income (SSI), told CBS MoneyWatch. "We have had clients with horrible outcomes — evictions, utility shut-offs and declining health even before the point that they pass away."

●●● 

 People seeking disability benefits have the right to appeal if the Social Security Administration denies their claim. And most applicants are turned down the first time they apply, with only a quarter of initial applicants approved in some years, according to data from the SSA.

●●●