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Across the nation, nearly 750,000 seriously ill people who say they are unable to work are awaiting a decision on disability payments. Nancy Olson, 53, of Milwaukee said she has been waiting for almost two years.
"I have nothing, absolutely nothing," said Olson, a former photographer now living in a friend's home. "I paid into the system since I was 16 years old. I am in dire straits. It hurts now when I need help and there is no response."
Workers who have paid Social Security taxes and can't work until retirement are eligible for subsidized health insurance and a monthly stipend that averages about $980.
Last month, an all-time high of nearly 11,000 Milwaukee residents were waiting for a hearing to determine whether they qualify for the benefit, according to an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That's an increase of about 19 percent since September 2005.
The hearings are held at the Milwaukee Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, which trails the national average in the time it takes to process a case. In July, the national average per case was one year, 6 months, while the Milwaukee office took about 1 year, 10 months.
"It's horrible," said U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who sits on the House Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the Social Security Administration. "No doubt about it, this is a crisis."
The problem, officials say, is funding.
In the past seven years, the Social Security Administration has received $5 billion less than it requested, Sylvester J. Schieber, chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board, told Ryan's committee.
"Social Security has been downsizing its work force, and it is not because it wants to," Schieber said. "What they need is more people. It is an extremely serious problem."
Records show that the Milwaukee hearings office has 12 full-time administrative law judges. Each would have to hear about 913 cases in a year - almost double the national average - to clear the current backlog.
Sometimes the delays are a result of mismanagement, attorney Lynn Mack said. Social Security loses three or four of her clients' files each year, she said.
"That may not seem like a lot, but they should never lose any files," Mack said.
Gerald Keyes, 59, of Milwaukee, suffered a stroke this year and is nearly blind. A retired sanitation worker whose savings are running out, Keyes has been waiting for over a year for a decision in his case.
"I need to have this approved quickly, or I will be in the Rescue Mission," he said.
