Social Security Customer Service

WM Social Security: Strengthening Social Security’s Customer Service, May 17, 2022

Finance: Social Security During COVID: How the Pandemic Hampered Access to Benefits and Strategies for Improving Service Delivery, April 29, 2021

Let me add  (2022) that much of our current price inflation is due to Mr. Mulvaney's deregulation of the NYMEX Oil Futures Floor when he stationed himself as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Authority. The futures market is out of control, and inflation with it. At some point, it will crash, taking the economy with it.

I will allow the scheduled witnesses to deliver the problems and success stories regarding service delivery, which I expect will greatly resemble conditions which occurred at every Driver’s License Renewal office in the nation, although I will draw that parallel. There are more urgent matters, aka, bigger fish to fry, on how Social Security is responding to the Pandemic.

My Driver’s License expired in November 2020. It was disconcerting to need an appointment to get one, but because of the pandemic it was no problem with it expiring in the mean time (of course, I don’t drive anyway, so it was no big deal). Years before, a new license renewal meant almost an hour waiting for my number to be called. When, pre-pandemic I was applying for temporary disability and to get a new card because of a new job, the lines were worse than at the DMV.

This time, there was very little waiting while my number was called to get a license. I imagine that my local Social Security office has done the same things to cope with Covid - at least I hope so. We need to preserve these lessons and create a new normal.

Money will be an issue. We need more Social Security offices and maybe, because they have similar functions, cooperation with the DMV might be in order. It would require cross training citizen service workers, but that just means we would have to pay them more and hire more of them. Just a stray thought. More importantly, building more offices for both DMV and Social Security will take money and it should not require higher driver’s license fees or take away from the pool of money used for benefits. 

Social Security has low administrative costs. It should not have any. The general fund already owes trillions of dollars to the Social Security Trust Fund. Preserve the trust fund a bit more and use general revenues now to fund administration, improvements and more office space. As the pandemic wanes, caution will still be necessary for a while. It is time to build out some infrastructure in both government and leased space.

Now for the bigger fish. In the last 18 months, I can no longer afford big fish. My SSDI was inadequate for food, medicine, clothing and cable. If I owned a vehicle, there is no way I could maintain it or even buy gas. I have an above average benefit, high enough to be ineligible for SNAP or Medicaid. (Update: I and many others may now be able to get SNAP. Not a good thing.) Many are not so lucky, even on a good day. 

In the last few months, days have not been so good. Were it not for stimulus payments, I would have  run out of food as I wrote this and would not have just bought new clothes, from socks and underwear to a jacket I can wear when the Committee finally asks me to testify in person.  While I have wifi, I cannot afford cable and a car is still out of reach.

Let me underline a point. In most months, new underwear is not an option, I rely on free bus rides due to the pandemic and subsidies from Ride On and there is never enough money in that last week before the check comes. When it does arrive, the cupboard is bare.

Bold and underline: food prices are (still) skyrocketing. Part of the problem may be too much money chasing too few goods, but retirees and the disabled find (our)selves between a rock and a hard place. We don’t need stimulus money, we need a COLA.

We don’t need a COLA next year. We are thirsty now - or rather - hungry.

Please address this. Don’t hold hearings, just pass a bill.