Report: Vets Aren’t Receiving Benefits

It’s called “the backlog.” More than 1.3 million claims were filed last year to the Department of Veterans Affairs, double the number from 10 years ago. Even though the organization has added nearly 4,000 new workers since 2008, less than 80 percent of those claims were completed. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of veterans are either not receiving or are being forced to wait punishing lengths of time for decisions on claims for disability, pension, and educational benefits. At the start of this week, 890,000 pension and compensation claims were pending, The New York Times reports.