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By Joshua Norman
jdnorman@sunherald.com

The much-hyped, baby boomer-induced Social Security crisis is not on its way, despite what you may have heard. It is already here.

The American Association of People with Disabilities and Allsup Inc., a Social Security disability representation company, released state rankings Tuesday on the massive backlog in the federal Social Security Disability Insurance program and touted it as a negative manifestation of the crisis.

The report said hearing offices in Mississippi have the eighth worst backlog in the country. The report states that in Mississippi, more than 16,000 people are waiting for a decision on their disability claim.

Jim Allsup, founder of Allsup Inc., said in a conference call Tuesday the massive national backlog is an early manifestation of exactly how bad the Social Security crisis will be as boomers age.

"The easy way to describe it is there's growing workloads and at the same time there's declining staff through retirement," Allsup said.

The average age of people seeking disability is about 50. Between 2000 and 2004, there was a 62 percent increase in the number of claims, Allsup said. In the same period, 2,000 workers for SSDI have been lost and their positions not filled.

Mark Hinkle, spokesman for the Social Security Administration, said the loss in workers is due in no small part to Congress appropriating for the SSA less than what was needed and what the executive branch asked for.

"We're about $1 billion short over the last six years," Hinkle said. "Couple that with some new work that we've gotten over the years in terms of Social Security number verifications and how we issue Social Security cards and the Medicare prescription drug program... these have all kind of strained our resources."

There is reason for some optimism, though, said Andrew Imparato, president of AAPD.

"We feel like Congress is paying attention," he said.

Hinkle said the promises have been many and he hopes Congress helps the SSA out soon.

"So far they're actually talking about giving us more money than the president requested," Hinkle said.