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Budget cuts have forced the Social Security Administration to close dozens of field offices even as millions of baby boomers approach retirement, swamping the agency with applications for benefits, a senior agency official told Congress Wednesday.
While people can file for benefits online, plenty of older people prefer some human interaction when taking the big step of claiming Social Security. The Social Security Administration served more than 43 million visitors at its field offices in fiscal year 2013, according to the report (although not all these people were filing for retirement benefits). Retirees also use the offices to get replacement cards or ask questions about their benefits.
Historically, folks didn’t have to go to far to visit one of the country’s field offices. Yet over the past five years, the agency has shuttered about 60 of these field offices–leaving 1,245 offices left in 2014–and has also closed 533 temporary mobile offices, according to the Senate report.
From fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2013, Congress granted the Social Security Administration $2.7 billion less than President Barack Obama had requested. While funding ticked up in fiscal year 2014–for a total of just over $11.5 billion–the prior years of low funding, coupled with a hiring freeze, prompted the office closures, according to the report.
Senate committee members expressed concern that the agency was closing offices arbitrarily, without taking important factors into account, such as whether public transportation existed to the next-closest office.
Committee members called on the Social Security Administration to create a uniform policy for closing offices.
To encourage more people to apply for retirement benefits online, the Social Security Administration last year launched YouTube videos featuring cats in fedoras with voiceovers extolling the ease of the online application process.
Agencies/Canadajournal
This is the same mentality that caused the crisis in the VA. The government has an obligation to the people who are entitled to benefits from government agencies to make sure those government agencies can provide the services they’re required to perform. Cutting the personnel necessary to achieve that goal is just an excuse to avoid responsibility. Just as many veterans died waiting for medical care, you’ll now have many seniors and disabled die waiting for their social security claims to be processed.
This is the same group of liberal baloney BS that the media gives us whenever something really stupid happens. Oh…they are closing it because Congress didn’t give them quite enough money. Dear Libs, how about telling the do-nothings that have been on welfare and food stamps and rental assistance, and free phones and free health care, and free child care, and on and on and on and on…..to get off their backsides and start supporting themselves and stop pumping out kids? Cuz you know, the elderly who worked all their lives and the veterans who fought and were wounded for the country take a little more precedence. Won’t happen, cuz all Democrats want is political power and they will sell their souls and the future of the country to get that power now.