SOCIAL SECURITY ADVISORY BOARD

STATEMENT ON THE SUPPLEMENTAL 

SECURITY INCOME PROGRAM 

Public Law 104-193 requires that members of the Social Security Advisory Board 

be given an opportunity, either individually or jointly, to include their views in the 

Social Security Administration’s annual report to the President and the Congress on 

the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

We appreciate the opportunity to present our views on this important program and 

we have asked the Social Security Administration to include the following statement 

of views in this year’s annual report, due May 30, 2001.

VIEWS OF THE BOARD REGARDING 

SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC

In 1994, when the Congress passed legislation establishing the Social Security 

Administration as an independent agency, it also created a bipartisan Advisory Board 

to advise the Congress, the President, and the Commissioner of Social Security on 

matters relating to both the Social Security (OASDI) programs, and the Supplemental 

Security Income (SSI) program. The statute directs the Board, among other 

responsibilities, to make recommendations with respect to the quality of service that 

SSA provides to the public. 

In response to that mandate, the Board has undertaken an extensive study of the 

agency’s service to the public as it relates to beneficiaries of both the Social Security 

and SSI programs. Since the Board began its work in 1996, it has made on-site visits 

to Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pasadena, Oakland, and 

Downey, California; Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Dallas and Austin, 

Texas; New York City and Brooklyn, New York; Atlanta, Marietta, Rome, and 

Tucker, Georgia; Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; Kansas 

City, Kansas; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit and Lansing, Michigan; New Orleans and 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Richmond, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; and 

Wilmington, Delaware. These visits have given the Board a point-of-service view of 

the challenges facing those who administer the SSI and OASDI programs, and the 

needs of those whom the programs are intended to serve. The Board has met with 

Social Security Administration staff at all levels, State and local officials, and 

advocates for SSI applicants and beneficiaries. It has also held public hearings in 

San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

The following comments reflect the work we have completed at this point in time. 

The Board has issued several reports that discuss service delivery issues, including 

How SSA’s Disability Programs Can Be Improved, issued in August 1998; How the 

Social Security Administration Can Improve Its Service to the Public, issued in 

September 1999; Charting the Future of Social Security’s Disability Programs: The 
2

Need for Fundamental Change, issued in January 2001; and Agenda for Social 

Security: Challenges for the New Congress and the New Administration, issued in 

February 2001.

In our comments in previous annual reports, we have discussed a broad range of 

issues and recommendations relating to the SSI program specifically. Because of its 

urgency, in this year’s report we have chosen to emphasize one particular issue that 

we believe requires priority attention by the agency, the Administration, and the 

Congress: the need to ensure that the Social Security Administration has sufficient 

resources not only to avert the potential crisis in service delivery that we believe is on 

the agency’s horizon, but to move beyond to provide the higher level of service that 

the public deserves. 

When the Congress enacted the SSI program in 1972, it gave SSA the 

responsibility of administering the new program largely because of the agency’s 

record of providing high quality service to aged and disabled individuals and because 

it wanted the individuals who were to become its beneficiaries to receive this same 

high quality service. It was assumed that SSA could fairly easily absorb this new 

responsibility because estimates by the agency indicated that a large portion of SSI 

beneficiaries would also be receiving Social Security benefits. During the discussions 

leading up to enactment, the Congress was assured that the agency would be able to 

take on the additional administrative burden without compromising its earlier high 

standards. 

In fact, SSA badly underestimated the difficulties it would experience in 

administering the needs-based SSI program. At the time SSI was enacted it was 

estimated that the aged would constitute nearly three-quarters of the caseload. In 

reality, in the early months of the program approximately three out of every four 

applications were for disability benefits, which required far more work on the part of 

the agency and the State Disability Determination Services than had been anticipated. 

Interviewing and making determinations of income and resource eligibility for both 

aged and disabled claimants required substantially more time than had been budgeted 

by the agency. 

Because of its urgency, in this year’s report we have 

chosen to emphasize one particular issue that we 

believe requires priority attention by the agency, the 

Administration, and the Congress: the need to ensure 

that the Social Security Administration has sufficient 

resources not only to avert the potential crisis in service 

delivery that we believe is on the agency’s horizon,

 but to move beyond to provide the higher level 

of service that the public deserves.
3

Many of the agency’s field offices were overwhelmed by the large number of 

applicants who lined up outside their doors and large backlogs developed. 

Newspapers carried stories describing nearly chaotic conditions. Despite these 

problems, most individuals who were transferred to SSI from State welfare rolls 

received their benefit checks. There were thousands, however, who did not, and 

many who were paid received more or less than they were owed. Field offices, 

particularly in large urban areas, were flooded with individuals seeking to correct 

their payments. 

 

To prevent a serious breakdown in service, SSA requested a major increase in 

staffing (which was only partially provided) and instituted massive use of overtime. 

Despite extraordinary efforts by SSA employees throughout the system, service in 

many parts of the country for both Social Security and SSI claimants remained far 

below SSA’s own standards for a number of years after implementation of the SSI 

program. It took SSA almost a decade to recover from this unfortunate experience 

and to conduct SSI operations relatively smoothly.

We cite this brief history of the early days of the SSI program to underscore the 

damage that can occur to both individuals and institutions when there is failure to 

provide the level of resources needed to carry out important governmental 

responsibilities.

When policy makers and the public think about the work of the Social Security 

Administration, they think first of all of Social Security retirement benefits – the 

benefits enacted by the Congress in 1935 that today make up more than 80 percent of 

the agency’s total benefit expenditures. But over the years the agency has been given 

additional responsibilities. Foremost in importance from the perspective of resources 

– because they are the most complex and costly to administer – are the Disability 

Insurance program, which was implemented in 1957, and the SSI program, which 

was implemented in 1974. In addition, SSA has been given the task of determining 

eligibility for Medicare and performing work on behalf of the Medicaid, Food Stamp, 

Railroad Retirement, and Black Lung programs. Most recently, in 1999, the 

Congress enacted legislation giving SSA the responsibility for overseeing 

implementation of a new Ticket to Work program aimed at returning SSI and DI 

beneficiaries to work. All of these important and varied responsibilities add to the 

complexity and the volume of the work that employees must perform. 

Today, SSA is not operating in the same extreme crisis mode that it experienced 

in the early years of the SSI program, but its problems are serious and will soon 

worsen to an extreme crisis if the agency does not have the level of resources required 

to carry out the complex tasks that policy makers have given it. 

Today, SSA is not operating in the same extreme crisis mode 

that it experienced in the early years of the SSI program,

 but its problems are serious and will soon worsen to an 

extreme crisis if the agency does not have the level of 

resources required to carry out the complex tasks 

that policy makers have given it.
4

SSA’s large service delivery responsibilities are reflected in its basic workload 

statistics. In fiscal year 2000, the agency processed more than 277 million earnings 

reports and more than 6.6 million claims for Social Security and SSI benefits. The 

agency’s 1,300 field offices had about 27 million visitors and about 87 million calls 

were placed to its 800 number. A determination as to whether a claimant was 

disabled was made on behalf of more than two million individuals.

Over the last decade, the number of people receiving Social Security and SSI 

benefits grew at a rate significantly faster than the population as a whole. This 

disproportionate growth will accelerate as the baby boom generation ages, placing 

increasing pressures on the Social Security Administration to find ways to keep pace. 

Between 2000 and 2020, the general population is expected to grow by about 

16 percent. But the number of Social Security beneficiaries is expected to grow by 

53 percent, from more than 45 million today to more than 69 million. The number of 

SSI beneficiaries has also experienced dramatic growth over the last two decades, 

increasing by nearly 60 percent between 1980 and 2000. Between 2000 and 2020, 

SSA’s actuaries are projecting growth of 20 percent. Moreover, more than 9 out of 

10 applications for SSI are for disability, which, because of the intensive nature of the 

work these applications require, will have important consequences for SSA’s 

administrative capacities. 

Increase in Beneficiaries

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Millions

OASI

DI

SSI

Over the last decade, the number of people receiving 

Social Security and SSI benefits grew at a rate 

significantly faster than the population as a whole. This 

disproportionate growth will accelerate as the baby 

boom generation ages, placing increasing pressures 

on the Social Security Administration

 to find ways to keep pace.
5

The combination of the growth in workloads with a large wave of retirements by 

SSA’s own aging workforce will place extraordinary pressures on the agency to meet 

the public’s needs for service. SSA estimates that by 2010 over 22,000 of its 62,000 

permanent Federal employees will retire and another 7,000 will leave the agency for 

other reasons. This is nearly half of the current workforce. More than 80 percent of 

the agency’s upper level managers and executives will be eligible to retire by 2010. 

The loss of large numbers of experienced employees will make training and 

mentoring of new employees extremely difficult. In addition, many believe that the 

agency will be required to adapt to a new type of workforce. Instead of the long-term 

employees that SSA has been able to count on in the past, they expect future 

employees, who they believe will have different expectations about long term 

employment, to remain with the agency for much briefer periods. 

Projected SSA Workforce Attrition

FY 2001-2016

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

2001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016

The combination of the growth in workloads with a large 

wave of retirements by SSA’s own aging workforce will

 place extraordinary pressures on the agency to meet

the public’s needs for service.
6

SSA will be facing these challenges with a workforce that is already inadequate to 

meet its needs. Since 1982, downsizing has resulted in a 29 percent decline in the 

number of employees who work in the agency’s regional and field offices, teleservice 

centers, and program service centers. Over recent years the number of managers and 

supervisors in field offices and teleservice centers has been cut by nearly one-half, 

reducing the capacity to provide the training and mentoring needed to ensure the 

quality and accuracy of the work that is being performed.

The agency’s resource problems are most apparent in direct service delivery 

settings. Heavy workloads and pressures to meet processing times mean that field 

office employees often do not have sufficient time to help claimants understand 

complex disability and SSI eligibility rules or to help them file adequately 

documented claims. The result may be an improper denial of benefits, and a claimant 

may suffer a prolonged period without benefits while going through the agency’s 

slow and overloaded appeals process. 

Since 1982, downsizing has resulted in a 29 percent 

decline in the number of employees who work in the 

agency’s regional and field offices, teleservice 

centers, and program service centers.

SSA On-Duty Employment*

FY 1975-2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Thousands

Total Field**

* Includes full-time, part-time, temporary, seasonal,

 and student employees as of the end of the fiscal year.

** Includes employees in regional and field offices, program 

 service centers, and teleservice centers.
7

As the Board has stated in its reports, many who visit one of SSA’s field offices 

encounter overcrowded waiting areas and long waits for service. Field office 

managers and other employees, as well as witnesses at the Board’s public hearings, 

have told the Board that in many offices, primarily urban offices, lengthy waits of as 

much as 2, 3, or 4 hours are not uncommon. 

In a recent survey of field office managers by the National Council of Social 

Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), more than three-quarters said that 

the quality of work produced by their office has declined. More than half attributed 

this to five factors: the reduction in the number of supervisory staff, the elimination or 

reduction of case reviews, the increasing complexity of the work, a decrease in staff 

training, and staff shortcuts in performing their work. Managers express frustration 

that they cannot provide the level of service they think they should. They are also 

frustrated that the situation seems to continue to deteriorate. In a recent meeting with 

the Board, a group of managers from the San Francisco area expressed agreement 

with the statement of one who observed that “Things are worse than two years ago,” 

when the Board first drew attention to the service to the public issue in its report 

titled, How the Social Security Administration Can Improve Its Service to the Public. 

At a recent hearing by the Board in Philadelphia, a witness from Community 

Legal Services referred to SSA’s field offices as “gravely understaffed.” A witness 

from the Mayor’s Commission on Services to the Aging, commenting on the lack of 

assistance and tedious waits that individuals experienced in one field office, 

recommended that SSA staff be given the tools and training they need to deliver good 

service.

As witnesses at this and other hearings have pointed out, however, there are other 

components of the SSA system that also need improvement. Telephone service is 

inadequate, with too many callers unable to get prompt service either through the 

agency’s 800 number or in field offices. In 2000, of the more than 76 million calls 

actually received by the 800 number, nearly 17 million were abandoned by the caller, 

either while waiting for an agent to handle the call or before using automated 

services. The 800 number cannot serve anyone who speaks a language other than 

English or Spanish. 

Telephone service in field offices is also inadequate. Nearly 73 percent of field 

office managers who responded to the NCSSMA survey said that their office did not 

provide acceptable telephone service to the public. Nearly 84 percent said this was 

due to lack of staff. 

The overburdened disability claims process is complex and slow, with every 

component lacking the staff needed to process cases both carefully and timely. In 

2000, it took on average about 4 months for an SSI claim to be processed through the 

initial stage of the process. Those filing an appeal to the administrative law judge 

level waited nearly an additional year for a determination. Average processing time 

at the Appeals Council level of appeal was 505 days. 
8

Processing applications for retirement and survivor benefits can sometimes 

involve complex issues, such as determination of child dependency or existence of 

common-law marriages. But nearly all SSI applications are complex in that they 

require determinations of an individual’s income, resources, living arrangements, age, 

and citizenship, some or all of which may be very difficult to ascertain and may 

change over time. 

The problem is compounded when the application is for disability benefits. 

Disability applications, whether they are for DI or SSI, are inherently difficult and 

time consuming to evaluate, involving the gathering of lengthy work and medical 

histories. Many claimants have language, mental impairment, or other barriers to 

communication and lack documentation of their impairments. The work of the 

disability adjudicator has also become considerably more difficult as the result of 

court decisions and the agency’s own regulations and rulings, which require them 

DI and SSI Claims Process: Steps and

Average Processing Time *

FY 2000

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION STATE AGENCIES

 

 

 

 

* Processing times shown above are additive.

** Field office processing time includes all components of the field office work, including taking the 

 claim and processing it after the State agency makes a determination.

*** SSA reports DDS initial processing time by programs; average total processing time (DI and SSI) is

 not available.

  SSA does not have data available for SSI reconsideration processing times.

 SSA Field Offices**  1

DI: 23.2 days

SSI: 35.5 days

Claimant starts 

here

Office of Hearings and Appeals 4

 Administrative Law Judges

 297 days

Office of Hearings and Appeals 5

 Appeals Council

 505 days

Disability Determination Services 2

Initial Decision***

DI: 81.5 days

SSI: 84.5 days

 Disability Determination Services 3

Reconsideration ****

DI: 62.8 days

 FEDERAL COURTS 6

18 months
9

increasingly to apply subjective judgment, for example, in determining the weight 

that should be given to the opinion of the claimant’s treating physician, or whether 

the claimant’s allegations of pain are credible.

SSI disability beneficiaries also confront a major problem in the form of 

overpayments by the agency. At a hearing before the Ways and Means Social 

Security Subcommittee, one witness commented, “the disability community often 

views the potential for overpayments as a distinct work disincentive.” The 

experience of people with disabilities is that “numerous reports to SSA and their 

request to adjust benefits often go unheeded by the administration."

 

It is clear from our visits to the field that lack of sufficient staff to process 

earnings information provided by beneficiaries is a significant factor contributing to 

the growth in the number and amount of SSI overpayments. In fiscal year 2000, SSA 

processed 3.3 million SSI overpayments, more than twice as many as in 1990. 

Despite this large number of clearances, the number of unresolved SSI overpayments 

pending in field offices at the end of fiscal year 2000 was twice what it was at the end 

of 1990.

The above-cited examples are among the most obvious serious gaps in SSA’s 

service delivery. But it is also important to note that high quality service to the public 

includes ensuring that taxpayers’ dollars are expended accurately, which means that 

fraud, waste, and abuse must be minimized. It includes safeguarding individual 

privacy, a responsibility that becomes ever more challenging as SSA moves toward 

delivering service by the Internet, and it also includes an issue that has been 

highlighted by SSA’s Inspector General – the need of the agency to do more to 

protect the integrity of the enumeration process. We agree that greater care needs to 

be taken to ensure that Social Security numbers are issued properly, which could 

reduce the likelihood of the use of fraudulent numbers to commit financial fraud or 

other crimes.

In recent years, SSA has issued a number of reports outlining the steps that it is 

taking to address some of the problems cited above and to improve its service to the 

public. These include increased efforts to plan the workforce transition to respond to 

the impending retirement wave, new and expanded training programs, changes in the 

disability process, increased availability of services over the Internet, upgrading of 

telephone equipment, and increased program integrity efforts, including additional 

uses of data sharing across government programs.

 All of these efforts are helpful, but they are dependent upon a trained cadre of 

employees to carry them out. At present staffing levels, we believe that SSA’s 

service to the public is at high risk of being unable to meet the public’s needs and 

expectations for service. 

At present staffing levels, we believe that SSA’s 

service to the public is at high risk of being unable to 

meet the public’s needs and expectations for service.
10

We are pleased that the Commissioner used the authority provided in the 1994 

independent agency legislation to submit a budget request for 2001 and 2002 that 

provided for modest but much-needed increases in staffing for the agency. Although 

the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress did not agree to support the 

Commissioner’s 2001 request, we would urge that as the appropriations process 

proceeds this year, close attention be given to the agency’s urgent resource needs. 

We believe that the Commissioner’s request understates the agency’s needs, and that 

the agency should provide the documentation needed to make clear where and how its 

service delivery needs to be improved and aggressively seek the resources needed to 

carry out its mission. 

The Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs provide vital 

income support to millions of individuals and their families. They have broad public 

support, generated not only by the benefits that are paid each month, but also by the 

responsive and caring service that employees of the Social Security Administration 

have provided for more than six decades. SSA’s dedicated workers have a tradition 

of providing high quality service to the public. In our observation, they care deeply 

about safeguarding the funds that they dispense and are concerned about the integrity 

of their work. But today, they lack the tools they need to do their job. We strongly 

urge the new Administration and the new Congress to provide them with the 

resources and support they need to fulfill their important responsibilities. 

 

The Social Security and Supplemental Security Income 

programs provide vital income support to millions of 

individuals and their families. They have broad public 

support, generated not only by the benefits that are paid 

each month, but also by the responsive and caring service 

that employees of the Social Security Administration have 

provided for more than six decades. SSA’s dedicated 

workers have a tradition of providing high quality service to 

the public. In our observation, they care deeply about 

safeguarding the funds that they dispense and are 

concerned about the integrity of their work. But today, 

they lack the tools they need to do their job.
11

THE SSI ANNUAL REPORT

This fifth “Annual Report of the Supplemental Security Income Program” by the 

Social Security Administration provides a comprehensive review of program data. 

However, we continue to be troubled by the fact that the agency is not using its 

annual report to address broad policy issues.

In October 1998, SSA issued a report on the management of the SSI program that 

described administrative initiatives that the agency has established to improve its 

stewardship of the SSI program. In March 1999, a report was issued on the

management of the disability programs, and more recently, in November 2000, SSA 

issued a report that updated and expanded its earlier report on the SSI program. 

Although these reports provide useful information on activities that the agency is 

undertaking that affect the SSI program and its beneficiaries, we believe that policy 

makers would find it helpful if the agency would use the SSI annual report as a forum 

in which it formulates and communicates a comprehensive overview of the program.

As we have stated previously, we believe that the SSI annual report should be 

more than a statistical report. In the future, the Social Security Administration should 

consider using it as a way of bringing to the attention of policy makers both the policy 

issues that it believes need to be resolved, and the difficulties the agency is 

encountering in administering the program. This is vital information that can help the 

Congress, the Administration, and the public to become better informed about the 

challenges SSA faces with respect to the SSI program, and the need to address them.

Stanford G. Ross

Chairman

 Jo Anne Barnhart Martha Keys

 David Podoff Sylvester J. Schieber Gerald Shea