More than 1 million Americans await a hearing to see whether they qualify for disability benefits from Social Security, with the average wait nearly two years - longer than some of them will live.
An additional 8 million get disability benefits from Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for poor people who don’t qualify for Social Security.
Last year, the agency’s budget was $12.6 billion, roughly the same as it was in 2011, even though an additional 6 million people receive either retirement or disability benefits from Social Security.
Chris Hoffman worked as a mason, laying bricks and tile and pouring concrete. He had terrible back pain for much of his life, but he kept working until a series of heart attacks. He applied for Social Security disability benefits in 2014 but was denied. He appealed to an administrative law judge.
In November, Hoffman died at 58, following his fourth heart attack. Ten months later, the judge ruled that he was entitled to benefits.
“It wasn’t that he was limited, it was that he wasn’t able to do anything,” said Hoffman’s son, Dustin.
Last year there were 7,400 people on waitlists who were dead, according to a report by Social Security’s inspector general.
Chris Shuler couldn’t attend his hearing.
Shuler was working as an airplane mechanic in Oklahoma when he was exposed to some chemicals and developed severe respiratory problems, said his wife, Elizabeth Shuler. The medicine he took for his lungs affected his bones and he eventually had two hip replacements, she said.
Chris Shuler applied for Social Security disability payments in 2012 and was denied almost immediately, his wife said. He died in July 2015 from an infection that started in his hip, just before his 40th birthday.
Four months later Elizabeth Shuler attended her husband’s hearing on his behalf.
“I wanted to make sure I at least saw a judge,” she said. “The judge said it was a no-brainer.“