Federal Employees News Digest
SSA employees telework their way through backlog
- By FEND Staff
- May 18, 2020

A months-long backlog of claims at the Social Security Administration is being drawn down fast -- and telework has been the key to the turnaround.
After a long White House-ordered cutback on remote work, SSA has resumed telework during the COVID-19 crisis -- and that increase has permitted more efficient processing of new claims and appeals of denied claims, according to an NPR report.
The report quotes an official with the American Federation of Government Employees as well as official SSA productivity reports. Over the past month and a half, according to those sources, the backlog of claims has fallen by 11%, an improvement the sources say is a result of telework.