By Dennis Quick

In 2005, Summerville resident Don Longest became too sick to work. The traveling sales representative for an Atlanta-based company developed cancer due to his exposure to Agent Orange during his military service in Vietnam.

Agent Orange is a chemical the U.S. military used to kill and defoliate plants. It was not until a few years ago that his health began to decline due to the exposure to the chemical. Eventually he was forced to reduce his workload until finally he could not work at all. The cancer rendered Longest completely disabled.

Severely ill or injured U.S. workers, like Longest, who file Social Security disability claims must wait a while before their checks arrive. Cutbacks in Social Security Administration personnel have produced a backlog, forcing claimants to wait from 18 months to two years to receive money from Social Security disability benefits, said North Charleston-based disability benefits attorney Robertson Wendt Jr.

Longest filed his initial Social Security disability claims about three years ago. He received his first Social Security check three months ago.

During the wait, he and his family lived by a financial thread.

Longest and his wife survived on their savings, eventually depleting it. Lack of money caused them to fall behind on their house payments. Fortunately, the Veterans Administration covered Longest’s chemotherapy treatments, which otherwise would have cost about $1,800 a month, Longest said.

Longest is one of nearly 136,000 disabled S.C. workers who are Social Security beneficiaries. His case is typical of disabled workers who have faced or currently are facing financial ruin because of the claims backlog, Wendt said.

“People are losing things like their houses and cars because they have to wait up to two years to get their money,” Wendt said.

In Charleston, the average processing time for Social Security disability claims is 507 days, compared with 524 days in Columbia and 594 days in Greenville, according to a report from the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives.

Nationwide, more than 700,000 people are awaiting hearings on their Social Security and Supplemental Security disability claims.

“Because of this large backlog, severely disabled individuals often must wait years to get the benefits they need for basic economic survival,” according to a statement issued in May by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.

Nationally, disability claimants receive an average of $960 per month, Wendt said.

Applying for Social Security disability benefits is a three-step process. Only 30% of claimants get their applications approved when they first file, and that approval process usually takes four to six months. The second try is a rubber-stamp rejection. On the third try, claimants must appeal at a hearing before a federal judge, Wendt said.

The appeal level is where the delays are, Wendt said.

The House Ways and Means Committee cited the lack of administrative law judges as a major reason for the claims backlog.

“The Social Security Administration needs administrative law judges to help clear the backlog, so that (people) applying for disability benefits can get the support they need as soon as possible,” said Rep. Michael R. McNulty, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.

In 1999, there were 1,090 Administrative Law judges handling 311,958 cases. In 2005, 1,096 judges handled 711,284 cases, according to a 2006 Social Security Advisory Board Report.

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on the backlog May 1. That hearing was followed by a May 23 Senate Finance Committee hearing in which the hiring of more administrative law judges and a new electronic case processing and management system were among the solutions recommended by Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael J. Astrue.

Yet these solutions require more money. For fiscal year 2008, Astrue requested a Social Security Administration budget of $10.44 billion. President George W. Bush requested $9.6 billion for Social Security.

President Bush’s request “is simply not adequate” for the hiring of more judges and support staff, said Nancy Shor, executive director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives. NOSSCR suggested at least a $10.1 billion for Social Security’s budget.

By the numbers

• 711,248 Social Security disability claims nationwide in 2006
• 136,000 disabled workers in South Carolina
• 1,096 administrative law judges nationwide
• $960 average benefit received per month
• 594 average claim processing time in Greenville
• 524 average claim processing time in Columbia
• 507 average claim processing time in Charleston