If you can't actually get rid of Social Security as an institution in the near term, you can do everything to undermine it so that it'll be easier to kill off in the long term. That seems to be the philosophy of the latest Republican administration, as the Trump budget would significantly cut staffing in the Social Security Administration.
His budget request calls for almost 1,000 fewer full-time-equivalent work years in 2019 than this year. A full-time-equivalent work year is the amount of work a person toiling full time would do in one year. The amount of overtime allowed staffers to keep up with demand would be less than a third of that in 2017 and just over half the 2018 estimate. […]
At a Senate briefing last month, Julian Blair, a 70-year-old Silver Spring resident, spoke about the hardships that service cuts cause.
"I accompany a 92-year-old neighbor to the Social Security," Blair said. "He's not computer literate … so I'm going with him. We had to go three times before he could get the service he needs because the lines were so long, and he's disabled he can't stand there all day. There was no seats for him."
He went on to talk about how his daughter "almost gave up and cried because she just could not get the service in a timely manner" for her son's survivor benefit after his father died. "That's a shame that should not happen."
"I have a brother that worked 34 years, became disabled," Blair added. "It took him two and a half years (to get a claim processed). What happens in that two and a half years? Savings gone, unemployment gone. So real people, this affects for real people.
"But it's … more than just services. To us, it's a continued effort to dismantle Social Security."
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare keeps track of what all this means. With around 10,000 baby boomers hitting retirement age every day, the demand for services is huge, but the SSA's "operating budget shrank by 11 percent from 2010 to 2017 in inflation-adjusted terms." That means ridiculous delays in service, like a wait of 627 days for a disability hearing.
It means waiting on hold for nearly 20 minutes when calling the 800 line for help, or getting a busy signal 13 percent of the time. It means more than "16,000 visitors were forced to wait more than hour for service each day in August 2017" when going to the offices for assistance. Congress, like the Trump administration, isn't just turning a blind eye, it's doing more harm. "The House-approved FY 2018 appropriations legislation would continue underfunding the agency, freezing SSA's operating funds for another year. The Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed an even more painful reduction of $400 million, nearly 4 percent of the operating budget."
It's even more cynical than the slow death of the Social Security Administration. It's the actual death of thousands of disabled people who die while waiting for a decision on their claim. Wait them all out long enough, and no claims will have to be paid out. It’s all part and parcel of the Republican "small government" philosophy.