Missoula, MT Social Security Office – SSA Office in Missoula, Montana | social security office missoulasocial security office missoula
More than a dozen people, abounding of them government abutment associates and Social Security Administration employees, captivated signs on Reserve Street and in advanced of Missoula’s Social Security appointment Wednesday afternoon during a abutment beef of accepted and accessible approaching account cuts to the program.
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Missoula, MT Social Security Office – SSA Office in Missoula, Montana | social security office missoulaThe assemblage comes at a time aback politicians in Washington, D.C., are debating U.S. spending and tax ante in an attack to adeptness a accommodation to accord with the country’s abiding debt problems.
In the 2012 budgetary year, Social Security spending totaled $773 billion, about 5 percent of the nation’s GDP and one-fifth of federal spending.
The Missoula appointment is bottomward eight advisers this year, abrogation nine acreage personnel, said Pat Collins, a Missoula Social Security employee, abutment affiliate and the bounded abettor for the American Federation of Government Employees.
The advisers whose jobs were cut larboard because of retirement, accent or what Collins alleged attrition. “They are fed up with the way the bureau is actuality managed,” he said, and because of a hiring freeze, it’s not accessible to alter them.
["388"]Despite the abridgement in staff, the Missoula appointment still has three managers, which Collins said is unnecessary.
“One of those administration positions could pay for two acreage positions,” he said.
It’s the acreage offices, he said, who ache the best from cutbacks. The abutment protesters appetite to see agents numbers restored, and to ensure that in the accepted debt talks, there are no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.
Mallory Cretella, a abutment affiliate who has formed at the Missoula appointment for 15 years, said she is afraid about what the cuts will beggarly for her adeptness to do her job.
["388"]“I accept added than 100 claims on my board appropriate now. I feel an obligation to the accessible to serve them. I anguish that bodies won’t get the casework they deserve,” she said.
She is abnormally anxious for the elderly, who she said don’t consistently feel adequate accessing Social Security casework online.
“I feel like I’m answer to them every day because we aloof can’t get to them all,” Cretella said.
In November, Social Security acreage offices cut aback their hours of operation, with the Missoula annex now accessible from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. In January, the appointment will abutting at apex on Wednesdays, to accord advisers time to action claims.
["388"]A contempo assay by the Congressional Account Appointment assured that Social Security paid out $45 billion added in 2011 than it took in, and $58 billion in 2012. The appointment estimates that abutting year, the banknote breeze arrears will be about $75 billion.
Currently, this gap is actuality covered by absorption owed to Social Security on its treasury bonds, with the funds paid for out of the accepted fund. By 2030, the CBO estimates that outlays by Social Security will be 20 percent college than what is paid in, and after changes, the assurance armamentarium won’t be able to pay abounding allowances as aboriginal as 2038.
With 10,000 bodies backward every day, the charge for programs like Social Security is greater than ever, the abutment protesters said. “We’re adverse bottomward a gray tsunami,” Cretella said.
Dillon Kato is a journalism apprentice at the University of Montana and an intern at the Missoulian. He can be accomplished at 523-5251 or at dillon.kato@missoulian.com.
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