Reopening Social Security offices is just the first step to serving those in need

More than two years after COVID-19 caused the Social Security Administration to close its 1,230 local offices, which had served 43 million people annually, most offices quietly reopened on April 7.

This almost unpublicized, stealth reopening is a long-overdue step to restore vital services to older adults and people with disabilities, including the families of children with severe, disabling health conditions. Most are in need of in-person services to obtain vital benefits, including Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applicants and beneficiaries.

Even before COVID, the Social Security Administration faced a funding and service shortfall. Over the last decade, the Social Security Administration’s operating budget fell 13% while beneficiaries served increased by 21%.

Congressional budget cuts have meant reduced staffing. Social Security currently has 8,600 fewer employees than it did in 2010, 1,500 of whom departed since the start of COVID. At the crossroads of immense need and historic underinvestment, the Social Security Administration urgently requires major additional funding from Congress now.

» READ MORE: Reopening of Social Security offices expected to bring crowds and confusion

The pandemic has added new challenges — an estimated 200,000 children have lost one or both parents to COVID, leaving many eligible for survivors benefits. The long-term effects of COVID create disabling conditions that warrant SSDI or SSI benefits for many Americans.

Adequate staffing — both in person and over the phone — is essential. People need to speak face-to-face with a representative from Social Security to understand the complex rules governing benefits, especially SSI, which as a means-tested program has arbitrary income and resource limits.

People with limited English proficiency need in-person or over-the-phone interpreter help; the Social Security Administration’s online and telephone services are only available in Spanish, and even then, the translation online is very limited and phone trees are hard to navigate.

Despite repeated calls from advocates, the Social Security Administration fails to have an SSI online application for low-income older adults and people, including children, with disabilities. People are unable to submit information to correct common bureaucratic errors, such as incorrect information on property ownership and bank accounts, or provide necessary documentation like birth, marriage, and death certificates and green cards.

The digital divide means that many older adults and low-income people do not have consistent, high-speed internet access necessary to file an appeal and review information about Social Security claims.

The pronounced failings of the Social Security Administration’s outdated phone system led the General Accountability Office and the Social Security Administration to report last year that nearly half of all calls went unanswered. There was also a litany of issues with delayed mail service, which was especially problematic with the tight deadlines to contact the Social Security Administration before benefits are suspended or reduced.

The closure of offices at all levels of the Social Security Administration due to COVID also led to an unprecedented decline in SSI applications and awards. In the last two years, there were over half a million fewer SSI awards, with disproportionate impacts for people of color.

SSI is the critical lifeline for millions of very low-income disabled and older adults, providing an average benefit of $624 monthly. Nowhere have SSI recipients been hit harder than Pennsylvania, which saw the largest percentage decline of all 50 states, with SSI awards falling over 26% from 2019 to 2020. New SSI awards in January were the lowest number on record for the nation in the 22 years the Social Security Administration has tracked data.

“Nowhere have SSI recipients been hit harder than Pennsylvania.”

At Community Legal Services, we have seen firsthand the obstacles to benefits access. Our clients call local offices and can’t get through to file an appeal for a denial of benefits. When someone with the Social Security Administration tells them they need to fill out a form, it never arrives in the mail, or the paperwork arrives after the response deadline.

Our clients are terrified when they receive letters that say their benefits will stop since they cannot figure out what documentation the Social Security Administration needs, or how to get it to their local office. The Social Security Administration’s drop boxes have limited hours, and many understandably fear leaving original, hard-to-replace documents like green cards or birth certificates.

As it reopens offices, the Social Security Administration should concentrate staff in areas of greatest need; resolve backlogs, totaling nearly a million within the Social Security Administration’s state disability determination agencies; and reinstate benefits that have been reduced or terminated. Above all else, reopening must provide for same-day, walk-in service to deliver vital benefits to older adults, people with disabilities, and families of children with severe, disabling health conditions.

To reopen as it should, though, the Social Security Administration needs money to operate — money that it doesn’t have. Congress has an obligation to correct its underfunding for the nation’s most critical income security system that lifts more people out of poverty than any other program. Lower-income Philadelphians, doubly slammed by COVID and Social Security office closures, are awaiting help.

Jonathan Stein is the former general counsel and Katharine Vengraitis is a staff attorney at Community Legal Services, Philadelphia.