Internal Documents Reveal Benefit Claims Are Taking 25% Longer to Process; Identified Only 2 Claims Out of 110,000 as Requiring Further Investigation
Washington, D.C. — Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, issued the following statement regarding NextGov.com’s reporting on the impact of recent changes to how benefit claims are being processed at the Social Security Administration (SSA):
“If Commissioner Bigisano wants to regain the trust of the American people, he should begin by ending the disruptive and counterproductive practices introduced at the Social Security Administration during the so-called ‘DOGE era.’
“The disorganized and hastily implemented changes pushed by the DOGE team have only caused a 25% slowdown in the time it’s taking to process a claim. The SSA now faces a backlog of more than 140,000 unprocessed retirement claims that are over 60 days old.
“This is unacceptable. More than 10,000 Americans reach retirement age every day and every additional month a worker waits for their claim to be processed is a month of earned benefits they will never receive.
“Americans have paid into Social Security throughout their working lives, and we have earned our guaranteed benefits. Our payroll contributions also fund the workforce and operations of the Social Security Administration, and we deserve timely, efficient service.”
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Contact: Lisa Cutler at [email protected]
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