Even though my time as the Social Security Administration (SSA) commissioner has ended, the partisan attacks on the agency and my record have not. Just this week, U.S. Reps. John Larson (D-CT) and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) continued to repeat false claims about my tenure as SSA commissioner.
It is disappointing that Rep. Larson continues to play politics with the independent and nonpartisan agency that millions of Americans rely on by continuing to repeat union propaganda meant to undermine my legacy at SSA despite my repeated requests to Rep. Larson and Congress for funding and support to properly staff our offices during the pandemic. Rep. Larson’s recent slanderous attack on me and the agency is to blame me for the backlogged workloads resulting from the pandemic.
On April 21, 2021, I sent a letter to Rep. Larson outlining the need for additional funding to make up for the budgetary and workforce challenges SSA was facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rep. Larson and the House of Representatives ignored this request and as a result, SSA was forced to operate on a budget that was $900 million less than I requested.
The COVID-19 pandemic and a strained SSA budget significantly impacted our ability to complete in-person work like responding to unprocessed mail. Rep. Larson knows this, as he and his staff were briefed about SSA budget shortfalls and in-person workforce shortages one year ago in August 2020.
The only solution to addressing the backlogs of unprocessed mail and other SSA services was to bring SSA workers back to the office. SSA informed Larson and his staff in August of 2020 we needed to start bringing union employees back to the offices involuntarily, but safely, to address workloads that couldn’t be done virtually, such as mail. Despite our warnings, on February 11, 2021, Rep. Larson and his staff objected to our putting a handful of employees in an office in Houston, Texas, to address problems similar to those noted in the recent SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report. Rep. Larson insisted I call him, despite the fact he refused to take my calls when I was seeking assistance in funding. When we spoke, all he wanted to talk about was the union’s concerns about returning to the offices to do critical workloads.
It is hypocritical that Rep. Larson now faults me for backlogged workloads when he and his union bosses at SSA stymied my efforts to address these challenges.
My office briefed Larson’s staff multiple times a week throughout the pandemic. If he had concerns with our response to the pandemic, he should have raised these issues to my attention or even offered to work with me to solve problems. His response then, as it is now, was to engage in political grandstanding and take his direction from the unions. Rep. Larson was the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Social Security the entire time I served as SSA commissioner. If he was so concerned about my management, why didn’t he hold an oversight hearing to address his concerns? He failed to hold a single hearing on the service challenges facing SSA. One might think he was negligent in his duties as Chairman and should resign, but I know he was afraid to allow real facts to come forward. For instance, he avoided my calls when I sought his support for funding and to get cooperation from unions. Rather than conduct meaningful oversight, Rep. Larson prefers to hide behind union talking points and issue uncontested press releases full of lies.
These false and inaccurate claims being made by unions and parroted by Rep. Larson will only further politicize SSA to the detriment of the Americans that rely on it.
SSA beneficiaries need to demand that Reps. Larson and Pascrell start representing the public’s interests and not those of the unions. It is time for SSA to implement the plan I had in place to increase the number of employees in the offices and start scheduling more in person appointments for critical services so there is no need for the public to mail documents. Congress also needs to support my vision to increase the number of appointments provided in our offices and reduce the need for the public to stand in long lines or sit in crowded waiting rooms, which is what happens with a walk-in service channel.
SSA beneficiaries earned their benefits and have the right to quality public service. It is time for Rep. Larson, Rep. Pascrell and others in Congress to start representing SSA beneficiaries and not the unions that line their pockets.
Andrew Saul is the former commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration.