Action Alert: Ask Senators to Adequately Fund SSA!!

Take Action:
http://capwiz. com/thearc/ utr/1/CVSHHHKHBU /OGNPHHKOEJ/ 1250594336

Background:

People with severe disabilities are dependent on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to promptly and fairly process their applications for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security disability benefits for their basic economic survival. Under the current budget situation, people with severe disabilities have experienced increasingly long delays and decreased services in accessing these critical benefits. Processing times, especially at the hearing level, have reached intolerable levels with claimants waiting as long as three years just to receive a hearing. The main reason for the increase in the disability claims backlogs is that SSA has not received adequate funds to provide its mandated services. In every fiscal year since FY 2000, Congress has appropriated less than both the SSA Commissioner and the President have requested.

SSA's administrative funding shortfalls have resulted in growing backlogs in initial and hearing decisions on disability claims, the largest in history, that have been described by Members of Congress as "tragic," "unconscionable, " and "an unmitigated disaster." The impact of the delays on individuals with disabilities has been extremely detrimental. Behind each number and claim is an individual with disabilities whose life is coming unraveled while waiting for his or her claim to be properly decided families are torn apart; homes are lost; medical conditions deteriorate; once stable financial security crumbles; and many claimants die while waiting for a decision. Click here http://capwiz. com/thearc/ utr/1/CVSHHHKHBU /AHEWHHKOEK/ 1250594336
to read individual stories on the effect the backlog of SSA hearings has had on people with disabilities from across the country.

Status:

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education is scheduled to mark up its appropriation bill this Tuesday, June 19.

Take Action!

Please e-mail your Senators asking them to urge their colleagues on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education to support an appropriation for the Social Security Administration (SSA) for its Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE) of, at a minimum, the amount allowed in the Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Resolution Conference Report $10.1 billion. A sample email has been provided.

Source: Disability Policy Collaboration of the Arc and United Cerebral Palsy