Millions of disabled and elderly people could not get help applying for Social Security benefits due to the abrupt halt to nearly all in-person operations, a new report found — undermining President Biden’s pledge to ensure equitable government services.
With its 1,230 field offices closed for two years, millions of disabled and poor elderly people could not get help applying for Social Security benefits, and for many of them, there was no online option, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Thursday.
The auditors found that Social Security is unable to track the racial and ethnic backgrounds of those it serves, hampering its ability to understand its at-risk population. Almost two years after the president released an executive order mandating that federal agencies “ensure their missions advance racial equity and support for underserved communities,” the agency has not settled on a strategy to collect this data, the report found.
The lawmakers — Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee chairman Rep. John B. Larson and Rep. Danny K. Davis , who leads the subcommittee on worker and family support — concluded that the agency, weakened by years of budget cuts and confronting thousands of staff departures in recent years, “must be more adequately funded” to restore customer service and improve its outreach.
Phone service exploded by 70 percent. But with the increase came long wait times and busy rates and “system instability” caused when a new phone system was rolled out starting in 2021, peaking at an average wait of 36 minutes.
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