Eduardo Bolsonaro defende Magno Malta contra Barroso

Last year, the Social Security backlog was at about 750,000 claims. Commissioner Astrue has said that due to the current state of the economy, disability claims have increased by about 10 percent, which means about 250,000 additional cases will be added to the backlog. This is an increase the at the Agency neither projected or budgeted for, so the backlog will inevitably continue to grow. Astrue commented that despite the increase in cases that the Administration will face, they will not be able to hire more staff because they are operating on a resolution through March which provides funding at the fiscal 2008 levels. Astrue commented that “help is already too late…the tidal wave is hitting us, and we don’t have the money to staff up appropriately.”

I recently read an article in Time magazine (Sept. 18 issue) about how our economy is changing as a result of the downturn. Many of the companies that laid people off have realized that they can function without those jobs. They are more profitable. They are “lean and mean”. Those jobs are gone. They no longer exist.