The Social Security Administration has sent a letter to employees, warning them of potential furloughs should the House Republicans proposed budget in this year's continuing resolution pass.
A top Social Security Administration official warned workers they may have to take furloughs if cuts proposed by House Republicans take effect.
Associate Commissioner Jay Clary, who oversees labor management at the agency, wrote to a federal workers’ union Thursday, alerting the union to start negotiating furlough terms because of the House’s proposal to slash funds by $125 million.
“Given the potential of reduced congressional appropriations for the remainder of the fiscal year, the agency is issuing this notice at this time in the event that a furlough may become necessary,” Clary wrote in the letter to the American Federation of Government Employees. The union represents at least 48,000 of the agency’s 70,000 employees.
The GOP budget would allocate $10.7 billion for 2011, while President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget asks for $12.5 billion for the agency, which dispenses checks to 53 million people each month.
That's a more an 9 percent budget cut for the SSA, and would result in very real impacts for Social Security beneficiaries and new enrollees:
SSA is already operating under a partial hiring freeze because of the current continuing resolution, which is likely to result in nearly 3,500 lost jobs for 2011. According to SSA, the additional cuts made by the Republican continuing resolution (the equivalent of four weeks of furloughs) would leave SSA so short staffed that it could result in the following:
- 400,000 people would not have their retirement, survivors, and Medicare applications processed this year, resulting in a large backlog of unprocessed retirement and survivor claims for the first time in SSA history.
- 290,000 people would not have their initial disability benefit applications processed, which means disabled workers, who already wait months for their applications to be processed, will wait an average of 30 days longer.
- 70,000 fewer people will get a disability appeals hearing this year, which means workers waiting to present an appeal to a judge, who already wait over a year, will wait longer.
- 32,000 fewer continuing disability reviews, which means wasting millions of dollars on improper payments now.
Democrats on the House Ways and Means committee have been sounding the alarm on the potential damage to the SSA since the GOP proposal was released. Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Xavier Becerra points out that “threats of a Social Security shutdown are real. With $1.7 billion in reckless and shortsighted cuts being proposed for the Social Security Administration’s operating budget, employees are now being prepared for a furlough."
“The consequences of this Republican budget cut would be felt by seniors and people with disabilities throughout the country,” said Ways and Means Ranking Member Sander Levin. “There are few budget cuts more irresponsible than those that fall on the backs of our seniors and people with disabilities, yet that’s exactly who this Republican proposal would end up hurting.”
It's hard to say, but likely, that there's a political motive behind these proposed cuts to this program in particular--undermining Social Security by all means at their disposable has been priority one in the GOP playbook for decades. If they can further that cause by hamstringing the SSA in fulfilling its mission, that's what they'll do. No matter who it hurts.