Social Security Fury Over 'Inhumane' Treatment of Customers - Newsweek
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are increasingly concerned about the Social Security Administration's (SSA) "inhumane" treatment of customers. Speaking during a congressional panel, politicians pressed Linda Kerr-David, Social Security's acting assistant deputy commissioner of operations, to defend what they described as widespread failures in the disability benefits system, including chronic claims backlogs and customer service phone delays. Republican Representative Drew Ferguson, chairman of the Social Security panel of the House Committee on Way and Means, called the consequences of the SSA issues "devastating." "Let me put this in plain English: the SSA is unable to keep up with the claims it has but is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get more claims, dollars that should instead be going to provide claimants with faster decisions," Ferguson said. "Meanwhile, the SSA is sitting on solutions that would modernize and streaml...