SSA exists to serve us

To the editor:

Some years ago, I was trained by the staff of the Social Security Administration office in Anchorage to complete applications for Social Security benefits and Social Security disability benefits, called Social Security Outreach, Access and Recovery Initiative.

Homeless persons are the targeted population for these services. As one might imagine, homeless persons do not necessarily have access to computers and email, certainly not with the capacity to supply documentation required for completing the very complex Social Security application forms. At the time it sounded like Social Security was attempting to become more “user friendly.”

Anyone who has ever attempted to communicate by telephone with the offices of the Social Security Administration knows what a minefield there is called the telephone tree. It is almost impossible to talk directly with a living, breathing human being. Indeed, one can telephone the White House in Washington, D.C., and have one’s call answered by a human being. And you can send an email to the President. But Social Security Administration does not publish email address for its staff and does not publish direct telephone numbers for its staff; certainly not administrators.

It is becoming abundantly clear how the Republican Party thinks about Social Security. They want to abolish it, but the Democratic Party is not much better given that they maintain this defensive fortress around the Social Security Administration. Increasingly, the Social Security Administration demonstrates it does not care at all for its constituents, has little interest in facilitating access to services and has a primary goal of the denial of any benefits whenever possible.

What Commissioner Michael J. Astrue and his staff fail to recognize is that they work for us. They are our employees. We pay their salaries. To echo an old butter commercial, “It’s not nice to annoy your bosses.”

I propose a way to get their attention and help them understand how they can be more helpful. We have an election scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 6, in which we will select our next President.

I invite anyone who has ever had difficulty communicating with the Social Security Administration to join me on a picket line in front of the Federal Building in Anchorage where the offices of Social Security are housed. I invite all the news media to be present as well.

Perhaps such a demonstration might help the Social Security Administration understand that they exist to serve us — not that we exist to annoy them.

Israel Nelson

Wasilla