Sanders, Larson Introduce Bill to Improve and Restore Social Security Service

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON, June 27 – Following reports that the wait for a Social Security disability appeals decision reached an all-time high of more than 600 days, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) introduced legislation Wednesday to give the Social Security Administration the funds necessary to restore timely service to beneficiaries.

Sanders and Larson’s legislation would address the 1 million-person disability backlog, speed up the time it takes for seniors and persons with disabilities to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits and prevent the Social Security Administration from closing field offices that provide essential services to the American people.

To do so, the bill would set the Social Security’s administrative funding at 1.5 percent of overall benefit payments, eliminate the five-month waiting period for approved Social Security disability recipients and the two-year waiting period for disability beneficiaries to qualify to receive Medicare, and implement a moratorium on all closures of field offices and contact stations.

As the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders proposed and secured a $480 million increase in the Social Security Administration’s operating budget in the recent omnibus. But even with that increase in funding, Social Security’s operating budget is still nearly $600 million lower today, adjusting for inflation, than it was in 2009 while the number of Americans receiving Social Security has gone up by nearly 10 million.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-larson-introduce-bill-to-improve-and-restore-social-security-service