Davis Opening Statement at Joint Subcommittee Hearing with Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley

(As prepared for delivery)

I want to welcome Commissioner O’Malley. We look forward to working with you to protect and strengthen the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the essential benefits it provides.

Every American relies on Social Security for birth to death protection. For generations, every American has counted on SSA to deliver Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, or SSI, at critical life moments – when they retire, become disabled, fall into poverty as they age, or lose a wage earner. I look forward to working with you to keep that promise to my constituents in Chicago and across the country.

I also appreciate that the President’s budget continues his strong, unwavering support for universal, comprehensive paid family and medical leave – the kind of leave that is guaranteed in nearly every other country in the world. So many workers and small businesses have told us that paid leave is the key to keeping talented, hard-working people in the workforce and unlocking our economy’s full potential. Last Congress, Democrats on this Committee passed universal paid leave legislation for the first time in Congress’s history. We look forward to doing it again, with the President’s help, and making it the law of the land.

SSA works for every American, and this budget would give you the tools to do it well. I am alarmed that House Republican chaos and dysfunction has delayed SSA’s budget this year and forced a hiring freeze, compounding staffing challenges forced by past budget cuts. Those staffing shortages have done unacceptable damage to the amount of time that Americans have to wait for SSA’s vital help, and Congress needs to fix that right now.

Staffing shortages and loss of skilled staff affect our constituents in other ways, too. For example, one in every 365 Black children is born with Sickle Cell Disease, which puts them at high risk for life-threatening conditions and subjects them to debilitating pain. Children with Sickle Cell rely on SSI benefits so their families can afford basic necessities and take time off work to make sure they get medical care.

My Democratic colleagues on the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee recently flagged an urgent concern for the Commissioner related to the serious flaws in the current criteria for determining whether children with Sickle Cell qualify for SSI. I know the Commissioner heard me about what a priority fixing this is for us. I also know that revising the criteria will take hard work from trained staff, and providing the necessary resources for that is Congress’s job. I look forward to partnering with the Commissioner for immediate action.

Commissioner O’Malley, we are pleased to have you here today. And we are even more pleased to see the energy and commitment that you and President Biden are bringing to the vitally important job of protecting Social Security, our economy, and the most vulnerable Americans.