I thought that the reasons claims were up 14 percent was because we were fighting two wars for the past 8 years... but I'm told that the numbers don't bear that out. Lord knows that I only rarely get a Global War On Terror (GWOT) vet's claim. Almost all of my claims are Vietnam vets and retired peacetime vets, coming in for their first claim ever, or claiming every condition under the sun as secondary to their service connected condition.
I think it's the economy. Social Security is experiencing exactly the same thing we are.
<i>Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.
What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.
"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed."</i>
I'm not trying to justify our backlog, but rather to shed some light on part of a multifactorial cause.
*/ The comments and opinions expressed above are solely those of the commenter in their personal capacity and do not in any way represent the Department of Veterans Affairs. */
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JamesBreckenridge
I thought that the reasons claims were up 14 percent was because we were fighting two wars for the past 8 years... but I'm told that the numbers don't bear that out. Lord knows that I only rarely get a Global War On Terror (GWOT) vet's claim. Almost all of my claims are Vietnam vets and retired peacetime vets, coming in for their first claim ever, or claiming every condition under the sun as secondary to their service connected condition.
I think it's the economy. Social Security is experiencing exactly the same thing we are.
<i>Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.
What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.
"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed."</i>
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_...y_retirements_8
I'm not trying to justify our backlog, but rather to shed some light on part of a multifactorial cause.
*/ The comments and opinions expressed above are solely those of the commenter in their personal capacity and do not in any way represent the Department of Veterans Affairs. */
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