Burned out. Overworked. Underpaid. Demoralized. Around 1,000 workers at the Social Security Administration (SSA) are leaving the agency each month looking for a better place to work.
In the most recent employee satisfaction survey, SSA ranked dead last in the large agency category. Understaffing has been the cause of poor morale and burnout that drive away new hires and veteran employees alike. Beneficiaries are also hurting as high turnover and understaffing increase backlogs without enough employees to handle the workload.
“We are here today to sound the alarm,” said Jessica LaPointe, president of AFGE Council 220 representing 26,500 SSA employees at field offices and teleservice centers nationwide, at a press conference.
Here are some alarming stats:
The agency’s workforce in fiscal 2022 was the lowest in 25 years while the number of beneficiaries has gone up by more than 10 million in the past decade. SSA essentially serves 10 million more people with 4,000 fewer workers.
It’s not a surprise that the backlog of disability claims went up to 1 million. That’s 60% more than the 2019 backlog.
The time to process these claims also went up from 79 days to 214 days.
One in four SSA staff are eligible to retire.
According to an internal survey, more than half of SSA employees are considering leaving the agency due to burnout, inferior compensation, and lack of flexibility.
The same survey showed that 4 out of 10 employees are looking to leave the agency within the next year and about one-quarter are planning to do so.
8% of survey respondents knew a coworker who took their own life due to work-related stress.
“The minimum wage in many states is $15 or more, yet many of our technical and specialized positions start at a GS-5, which equates to a base pay of $15.75 per hour,” said Rich Couture, president of AFGE Council 215 representing workers in the Office of Hearing Operations, at the press conference. “There’s no offering of telework or remote work, student loan repayment programs, childcare or other subsidies to support workers that are common at other agencies and employers outside of government. Given the lack of pay and benefits, it’s no wonder that SSA has lost, per its own data, almost 4,500 employees in fiscal 2022.”
Couture added that the more people leave, the more workload the current staff has.
To fix the staffing crisis, SSA needs to do everything it can to keep the current employees and stop them from leaving. Hiring new workers is not enough as it takes years for them to get up to speed.
“If you replace them even one for one with new employees, those employees don’t have the same experience. They’re learning — they’re not going to be as fast. Our programs are complex. The more you do it, the more you become proficient at it, the faster you get at being able to maneuver the systems, being able to make decisions on those claims,” said Angela DiGeronimo, a regional vice president for AFGE Council 220.
Edwin Osorio, president of AFGE Local 3369 and first vice president of SSA Council 220, said SSA must be fully funded and staffed so that it could provide vital support for the most vulnerable populations. He recounted his own experience having to leave school early when he was a child because of an illness. But he was able to have food on the table and roof above his head because of the Supplemental Security Income disability benefit. When he was able to work, the only place he would ever want to work for was SSA.
“I want to do my part,” he said. “Social Security is a promise that’s been made to the vulnerable. It’s as American as baseball and apple pie.”
AFGE is urging Congress to increase SSA’s budget to $17.39 billion, which is $1.4 billion above the president’s request in order to rebuild the agency.
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