“‘This is not the greatness of America. This is not acceptable.’”
Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland and President Joe Biden’s nominee for Social Security Administration commissioner, wants to fix the retirement program.
During his nomination hearing on Thursday, O’Malley said the Social Security Administration serves 50% more customers and beneficiaries today than it did 20 years ago, with the same amount of staff. He also called out long telephone wait times and delays in approval of disability-benefit claims.
He intends to take a “data-driven” approach to the problem, he said, and to bring qualified leaders together to talk regularly about what to fix. “I have no doubt whatsoever the dedicated, patriotic and hardworking men and women of the Social Security Administration of the United States are up to this moment. And so am I,” he said during his opening remarks. He also said the role would be “the honor of a lifetime.”
About 71 million people currently collect Social Security benefits, including retirement, disability and Supplemental Security Insurance, according to the agency. The average retirement benefit is $1,794 per month, while the average disability-insurance benefit is $1,350. The agency also pays out benefits to children and spouses of retired workers and to survivors, including children, widows and parents, of deceased workers.
Members of the Senate Finance Committee asked O’Malley about his approach to fixing the issues facing Social Security, including the program’s approaching insolvency, delays in the disability-claims process and inaccurate overpayment problems. O’Malley called these “lagging indicators” and said in his experience, it is important to measure the actions that could solve those problems.
As a mayor and a governor, O’Malley said, he learned that it’s crucial to bring leaders together every two weeks to ask, “Are the things we’re doing working or not?” If the answer was yes, he said, the group would reconvene in anther two weeks to continue that job, and if the answer was no, they would change tactics.
Some senators touched on the possible politics of his nomination. Biden fired Andrew Saul, the former Social Security Administration commissioner, who was nominated by President Donald Trump. “Your predecessor was fired for politics,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, told O’Malley during the hearing. O’Malley responded that there may have been “creative tension,” but that the Social Security Administration is meant to be independent. He said he would prefer the committee be provided with “reliable” information it can make policy around.
The trust funds that support Social Security’s retirement and disability benefits are expected to run out of money in 2034, according to the trustees’ report. At that point, beneficiaries could see their checks reduced by 20%. Since the program’s inception in 1935, Congress has never let it falter, but politicians have yet to decide how to address the current funding issue.
Biden nominated O’Malley for the commissioner role in July, after the program went two years without a permanent commissioner.
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