Speach by Commissioner of the Social Security Administration

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration spoke to the National Organization of Social Security Claimant's Representatives today. My impression is that he appears to have a good grip on the problems confronting him and the desire to make the changes necessary at SSA to try and fix them. He spoke of the baby boomer generation and the affect it is going to have on the Social Security system. He mentioned the obvious increase in the amount of people who will be on Social Security as a problem. What I did not consider and thought was quite interesting is that there is another problem from the baby boomers reaching retirement age. Many SSA employees are older as a result of the many hiring freezes that have occurred over the years. So many experienced SSA employees will be retiring as well. He mentioned that SSA will drop below 60,000 employees which is the lowest rate since the 70s. This tells me that more claims plus less SSA employees equals more delays in processing of claims. He also mentioned that 150 new ALJs will begin working in June. I will be reporting more on what The Commissioner had to say at my Social Security Disability website.