As we method the tip of 2023, I’m reflecting on all that the Social Safety Administration has completed, regardless of appreciable challenges. It’s been my nice privilege to guide Social Safety’s roughly 60,000 workers for the previous two and one-half years, and I’m so happy with the work they’ve performed to satisfy our mission.
For greater than 85 years, Social Safety has offered revenue safety for retirees, adults and kids with disabilities, and households who lose a wage earner. With a purpose to pay advantages, we additionally concern hundreds of thousands of Social Safety Numbers (SSN), preserve the nation’s wage information, and extra. The scope of what we do is big, and we’re proud to serve the general public day-after-day. Regardless of our current historical past of continual underfunding, Social Safety stays among the many most trusted businesses within the Federal Authorities.
Social Safety’s prime precedence is, and all the time might be, working to supply high-quality, well timed customer support. Social Safety workers ship roughly $1.4 trillion in advantages to greater than 70 million individuals annually. Every week, our workers serve over 500,000 individuals in over 1,000 workplaces throughout the nation.
Regardless of inadequate budgets, we have now prioritized enterprise, coverage and expertise enhancements to serve you higher. For guests to our native area workplaces, we expanded cellular check-in and instituted a web based scheduling system for individuals who want an appointment for a Social Safety card. We additionally up to date our check-in kiosks to make them extra accessible and enhance the general check-in course of.
Our redesigned web site, launched in December 2022, is less complicated to navigate, extra task-oriented, and gives extra self-service choices and elevated digital companies, making it simpler for individuals to use for advantages and substitute SSN playing cards. Clients can begin—and sometimes full—their SSN card requests and purposes for sure advantages on-line, and our new Workplace of Transformation not too long ago launched a web based software that may permit prospects to electronically signal and add sure paperwork. These enhancements permit hundreds of thousands of individuals to finish their enterprise on-line rapidly and securely, saving time for our prospects and liberating up extra time for our workers to assist prospects with extra advanced wants in-person and course of extra circumstances.
Regardless of these efforts, the mixed impact of the pandemic and continual underfunding have taken a toll on our workers. It has led to excessive attrition and backlogs. Our finances instantly drives the extent of service we will present. Backside line, we want sufficient well-trained workers to make sure we will meet your wants. New hires are essential to start to cut back rising backlogs and enhance service. I’m happy that the funding we obtained in fiscal 12 months (FY) 2023 allowed us to rent practically 8,000 workers prior to now 12 months, however we should be capable of preserve this staffing degree. Utilizing focused methods, we have now additionally lowered the backlog of hearings to a 21-year low and started to handle the backlog of preliminary incapacity claims. With sustained and adequate funding in keeping with the President’s FY 2024 finances request, I’m assured that we will construct on our progress and retain the very best certified workforce.
We proceed working to enhance fairness and entry for all prospects via partnerships and coverage initiatives. Our newly established Workplace of Native American Partnerships is piloting cellular companies by sending SSA workers to well being amenities in distant areas and bettering video service supply in Tribal communities. We’ve additionally labored with the Biden-Harris Administration and different businesses to advertise Financial Influence Funds, the Reasonably priced Connectivity Program, and Youngster Tax Credit, so our prospects might find out about and profit from these packages with out affecting their Social Safety advantages or Supplemental Safety Earnings funds.
To make it simpler for individuals searching for advantages from Social Safety to acquire authorized illustration, we elevated our consultant charges for the primary time in 13 years and carried out outreach to the unrepresented to assist them put together for hearings. We’re simplifying our incapacity redetermination and overpayment notices so that they’re shorter, simpler to know, and fewer burdensome for our prospects. We additionally made vital progress towards simplifying our guidelines round in-kind help and upkeep and previous related work, with the intention to scale back burdens on each candidates and workers. We developed Social Safety’s first complete Restricted English Proficiency coverage to assist prospects with little or no understanding of English entry our info and companies. Additional, we usually meet with advocates, specialists, and different exterior stakeholders to pay attention and collect suggestions on our efforts to repeatedly enhance.
Social Safety stays a trusted program and company, one which the general public more and more depends on. We’ve added at the least 8 million extra beneficiaries prior to now 10 years alone. It’s crucial that we will maintain and help our workforce, enhance our prospects’ expertise, talk clearly with the general public, and hone our insurance policies and procedures to supply the service the general public expects and deserves. With adequate and sustained monetary help from Congress, Social Safety can proceed to construct on our accomplishments in 2024 and a few years to return.
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