This week, The Washington Post came out with a lengthy article on the huge backlog faced by the Administrative Law Judges of the Social Security Administration. Most of the findings of the article are no big surprise to me. The article states that ALJ's are 990,399 cases behind. The Post described the process as "The Biggest Backlog in the Federal Government". It notes that the SSA's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has a much bigger backlog than Veteran's Affairs, that has 526,000 vets waiting and, than the patent office, that has 606,000 patents pending.
As most of the readers of this blog know, the experience of waiting in the backlog is extremely painful. Disability claimants must wait without any financial resources until their cases are heard. Here is a link to the article: The Biggest Backlog in Federal Government. I suggest that you read it and send a copy with a little note to your Congressman and Senators.
On other not so great news, on January of next year SSDI beneficiaries will get a 1.7 cost of living increase or COLA. It is estimated that this increase represents an average of $20 extra a month per recipient. What does this cover? Not even the cost of one prescription... Congress enacted this automatic increases in 1975, when inflation was high and there was a lot of pressure to regularly raise benefits.
