Statement by Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, on the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget
Reading Time: 3 MinutesLast Updated: March 9, 2023
The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The Budget details a blueprint to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and reduce the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share—all while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 per year pays more in taxes.
“Our programs affect individuals throughout their lives: from birth, to entering the workforce, to facing a disability or loss, and to retirement. The broad and critical nature of our programs drives our request for the resources necessary to improve our service to the public.”
The President’s FY 2024 Budget request for the Social Security Administration (SSA) proposes $15.5 billion in discretionary budget authority. The Budget will:
Improve Service Delivery: The Budget provides an increase of $1.4 billion, a 10-percent increase over our FY 2023 enacted level to improve customer service at our field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, people with disabilities, and their families while maintaining the integrity of our programs. Each year, we process more than 6 million retirement, survivors, and Medicare claims and more than 2 million disability and SSI claims. The Budget supports increased staffing levels from FY 2023, allowing us to process about a half million more disability cases in FY 2024 than we completed in FY 2022 and significantly reduce wait times for those decisions.
Advance Equity and Accessibility: We are one of the most important anti-poverty programs in the country. We remain committed to administering our programs in a way that promotes equity and fairness. We are making it easier for people to access the services they rely on, including individuals experiencing homelessness, children with disabilities, and people with mental and intellectual disabilities. The Budget makes investments in these areas to support SSI outreach work, including collaborating with government agencies and other third-party organizations in local communities to provide convenient access to our services and ensure members of the public are aware of their potential benefit eligibility.
We are also committed to enhancing the diversity and richness of our workforce to strengthen and maintain an inclusive work environment that values individual differences and treats employees with dignity and respect; thereby, enriching our current workforce, which is driven by our public service mission. This Budget continues our efforts to hire and promote the Nation’s best talent and build a diverse and representative workforce and ensure that all employees have equal opportunities to advance in their chosen careers.
Modernize our Information Technology: The Budget continues investment in our information technology (IT) to reduce the burden on the public, modernize our website and online services, and provide an improved customer experience. To accelerate our progress, the Budget includes $50 million in dedicated no-year funding for our Benefits Modernization efforts. Our Benefits Modernization efforts will provide our employees with better technology tools to determine eligibility and process claims in order to better serve the public. The Benefits Modernization project is in addition to the efforts we are taking to sustain our systems.
Provides National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave: The vast majority of America’s workers do not have access to paid family leave, including three out of four private sector workers. Among the lowest-paid workers, who are predominantly women and workers of color, 92 percent have no access to paid family leave through their employers. As many as one in five retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member, which negatively impacts families as well as the Nation’s labor supply and productivity. The Budget proposes to establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by SSA. The program would: provide workers with progressive, partial wage replacement to take time off for family and medical reasons; include robust administrative funding; and use an inclusive family definition. The Budget would provide up to 12 weeks of leave to allow eligible workers to take time off to: care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. The Budget would also provide up to three days to grieve the death of a loved one. The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress to make this critical investment and strengthen America’s economy.
Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility, the Budget more than fully pays for its investments—reducing deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share.
For more information on the President’s FY 2024 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.
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Stevie F.
Hi I have been disabled since I was 12 years old. At 18 I applied for SSI. 11 months later I was turned down and I filed an appeal right away. It has now been 15 months since the appeal was filed. So after 26 months my application appears completely stalled. I just turned 20. My life is not a easy one. I am dependent on this SSI being approved. Please Help.
A.C.
Hi, Stevie. We are sorry to hear about your condition and situation. For your security, we do not have access to private information in this venue. We encourage you to continue to work with your local Social Security office for assistance. You may also be eligible to receive social services from the state in which you live. These services include free meals, housekeeping help, transportation, or help with other problems. To get information about services in your area and find out if you qualify, you will need to contact your state or local social services or welfare office. We hope this helps.
Diana w.
Hello.
My question does not respond to this article.
The school district that I work in gives a certain amount of money to the staff to help pay for medical bills. and prescriptions. The employees can contribute to this account also before taxes are taken out of our paychecks. It is called an H S I ( health savings account). This year I am starting to collect my social security and I have to sign up for medicare. I am not retiring. Since I will be starting my social security I am not allowed to contribute or receive any money from my employer towards my HSI. My question is I will still have medical bills and prescriptions, that my fellow co-workers will have also, but they will get a little help and I will not get that luxury. I am curious why this is, and how does this get changed. Thank you for your time. Diana
Nett
We can agree to disagree. At the end of the day, the only ones that can help us is us. SSDI, SSI & SS benefits are all tanking under EVERY administration. There are some comments that are more political than judicial & that’s fine. For those of us fighting for SSDI backpay or denied claims for unjust reasons while we’re still continuing to pay taxes into a system that is complicating a simple entitlement/impairment matter is ridiculous!! Do you have enough work credit? If yes, is the condition part of the SSDI impairment list? If yes, has all medical documents needed to prove your claim been submitted? If yes, then why is the claim being denied? If I die while in the process of appealing the denial, why is my family not entitled to my benefits? If 30 yrs of paying into the system that is supposed to be my safety net if I’m unable to work (under THEIR regulations, not ours) & I’m denied, why do you think it’s okay to just keep 30 yrs of my money to recoup funds from some reckless decisions YOUR people made when I was merely a child. The parties of those decision makers no longer matter. What happened 38 yrs ago should not in anyway still be affecting us/our families today. The government is NOT exempt from lawsuits. Amendments 5 & 14 clearly states we have a right to due process, so why are we still fighting with you about a claimed filed in 2015 & that person has since passed from the impairment that caused them to be disabled in the first place? Instead of arguing amongst ourselves, how about joining together & filing a federal tort suit for violations of our 5th & 14th amendment rights & settle the political aspects at the polls. I’m in Michigan & I filed my tort claim in March. If more people are willing to file against SSA for similar reasons, it can’t be ignored. All they can tell us is no, right? It’s 2023 & who will be in office in 2025 is irrelevant. Getting the case heard in a timely manner is the only thing that counts now. Too many of us have lost homes, jobs, cars, waiting for a decision that should be made in the same manner that causes them to garnish your wages & tax returns for not paying. They’re no more important than we are & they need to be held to a higher standard & forced to be accountable for their actions so that our kids & grands won’t have to deal with this mess in the future. That’s just my two cents. Thank you.
Fred K.
Nett you covered a lot of ground there. Although its very much appreciated that we live in a country that recognizes
and should continue to recognize the special needs of our
senior citizens and disabled population, the system is not
perfect and has its faults, some red tape is necessary to help prevent fraud but some is going over board like in my
legally blind girl friend’s case who received disability and had to prove periodically that she was still blind. Then there is the formula used for COLA. Its nice to recognize that the cost of living goes up just because the calendar has reached another Jan. 1st, but the formula used for that increase is way out of touch with reality mainly due to the housing mess. The gov’t has stats on the average cost of the sky high mortgages and rents all over the country. Can’t pay and you might get evicted. I’m sorry but the sidewalk is not a suitable living facility for an elderly disabled person. So what could help? Don’t just get after the rich, get after the greedy and bring prices down in every sector. I remember when cigarettes were 25 cents a pack, gas was 28 cents a gallon, a Caddy Eldorado was 5k and my Pontiac was 2K both new. Tickets at Yankee stadium were $2 for the bleachers and I can go on, but if your on SS you are old enough to remember that too. Gen Z is getting robbed! That’s my 2 cents, oh wait that’s 98 cents worth now.
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