Workers Blame Low Pay and Understaffing for New York’s Benefits Backlog

Five workers across the state, most of whom have been granted anonymity to avoid retaliation at work, told New York Focus that their pay had not kept pace with inflation, and that their offices have been unable to replace workers leaving for the private sector. Several said new employees haven’t been granted the benefits that were on offer when more senior staffers started decades ago. Some said that health care and retirement benefits have been pared back, and that their colleagues apply themselves for the public benefits they give out.

And while the pandemic did increase the number of applications, total caseloads aren’t unprecedented. More New Yorkers received food stamps in 2015 than in 2020, 2021, or 2022.

“There’s this narrative that Covid really caused this. And I will say in my department, that’s not correct at all,” said Sara Fuller, an employee in the Onondaga County Department of Children and Family Services and a volunteer union officer. “Poor management caused this. That’s it.”

Workers described a vicious cycle in which understaffing leads to overwork, which in turn leads to resignations and slow recruitment.

“It’s like a snowball effect,” said a worker in Oswego County. “Applications are coming in but they’re not getting processed in a timely manner. Then the applicants call in, so that makes more work for the frontline people that answer the phones.”

“People get angry,” she continued. “The mental exhaustion is crazy. You go home and you just don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“We were there when our state, our county, our community needed us,” the Broome County worker said. “We don’t understand why they’re not there for us now.”

A 2016 union contract shifted new social services workers in the county to a healthcare plan that would charge them a higher share of the premium. The state has gradually pared back its retirement benefits over the last 30 years, too.

Compensation and working conditions vary across the state, since New York is one of only 10 states that delegates public benefits administration to individual counties rather than administering it at the state level, leaving each county’s employees to bargain for their own contract.

In Onondaga County last month, workers protested outside their office building in Syracuse to call for better working conditions. They held signs that read, “More than praise we need a raise,” and “We support the vulnerable. Who supports us?”

Statewide, delays are beginning to improve: The share of SNAP applications approved within 30 days rose from 68 percent in January to 80 percent in April, according to the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), the state agency tasked with overseeing county social service departments.

“We continue to work with the counties to improve case processing timeliness,” said OTDA spokesperson Anthony Farmer. “While challenges remain, these efforts are already showing positive results.”

But the agency acknowledges there’s not much it can do to crack down on counties that flout guidelines beyond cutting funding — which would risk lengthening delays even more. And it doesn’t monitor staffing levels in counties.

Some workers predicted that delays may be about to get worse. The federal debt ceiling deal adds new work requirements for food stamps, which could add to administrative burden. And paperwork is picking up for other benefits handled by the same staff. Legislation passed by Congress in March 2020 allowed millions of low-income New Yorkers on Medicaid to keep their coverage without renewing. Workers were therefore reassigned from Medicaid to SNAP, said Paul Brady, who headed the Department of Social Services in Schenectady County until last year.