More Americans apply for Social Security Disability Insurance — and wait

Ray Shuga, a retired truck driver, twiddled his thumbs for about two years between the time he applied for Social Security Disability Insurance and the arrival of his first check.social security logo

“There are so many people applying for disability, they are just way, way backed up,” he says.

So he and his wife waited while the federal government tried to catch up with demand. Or at least catch up with them.

“We were counting pennies left and right,” Shuga says. “We couldn’t buy anything, couldn’t do anything. My pickup had problems. My wife’s car had problems. But we got by.”

As first reported in the Dec. 18, 2009 Dave Lieber column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, across America, hundreds of thousands of people are waiting to hear back about their initial application to get SSDI benefits, paid to people who are under retirement age but can no longer work because of a disability.

That number of applicants almost doubled in one year, the Social Security Administration says.

If statistics hold true, about two-thirds of them will be denied and go on to appeal that initial decision.

While they wait, many of those folks are probably counting pennies like Ray Shuga.

The numbers are growing because, in addition to aging baby boomers, more Americans are applying for disability in a poor economy. A monthly payment can be $1,000 or more.

Even though SSA says the wait is declining, any wait of a year or more can send some applicants into near-poverty. While they wait, they can’t work and receive little or no income. Some lose their house and their health insurance. Many deplete their savings.

“Even when it’s getting better, it’s still too long for people to wait for an appeal,” says Ethel Zelenske, director of government affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives.

“They planned for baby boomers getting old, but who could plan for the economy going into such a tailspin? That’s really thrown people off. And Congress is aware and giving the agency more money to deal with it. But that’s a really difficult situation.”

Zelenske said many workers don’t apply for benefits if they become impaired as long as they can keep working. That’s why the recession has brought a surge in applications.

“If they lose their job, it’s not likely they will find a job somewhere else,” she said. “There really are no options for them. What’s available to them is filing for benefits.”

With unemployment hovering at a high level, the expected influx of applicants — from 2.6 million in 2008 to 3.3 million next year — will cause a greater backlog for hearings, she predicts.

Last month, Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael J. Astrue told Congress that the process is improving because people can now apply electronically.

The agency received $500 million in stimulus funds this year to help process the backlog. Some 8,600 employees were quickly hired. “We also maximized the use of overtime across the agency,” Astrue said.

For some, he said, the wait has been 1,000 days. Two years ago, there were 65,000 cases pending for that length of time. But the number is dropping.

“No one should have to wait years for a decision on their benefit claim,” he said.

Social Security Administration Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll told Congress last month that requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge can still mean “a wait of over 800 days.”

CTWatchdog was alerted to the SSDI backlog by a representative of Allsup Inc., a third-party company that helps Americans file claims and in return takes a percentage of the initial retroactive payment if an applicant is successful.

Spokesman Dan Allsup says the Belleville, Ill., company has a 99 percent success rate when applicants stick with Allsup through the entire process. (For its efforts, the company gets paid 25 percent of any retroactive benefits with a cap of $6,000.)

Allsup says many applicants need help because questions on the application must be answered properly.

He explains: “A typical question is ‘Can you go shopping?’ The typical applicant will say, ‘Well, yeah, I can go shopping.’ But we go into it much deeper. We find out he has to have a neighbor take him to the store. Once in the store, he uses a motorized scooter. And he has to ask an employee to get items off a high shelf for him.

“These questions need to be answered in full,” Allsup says.

Ray Shuga says when he finally won his case, Allsup was paid $5,300 out of the initial $32,000 check. But he says it was worth it.

“We were so far behind in bills and everything, but we got caught up,” he says.

The Social Security Administration’s position on third-party companies helping applicants fight the backlog?

A Social Security spokesman tells me that’s “entirely up to the person applying for benefits.”