Just about everyone who works pays taxes into the fund for federal disability benefits. But mercifully, relatively few people ever collect. To qualify, you must be unable to work, and your disability must be of such severity that you’ll be out for at least a year or you’re likely to die from it.

Those criteria are tough but necessary to ensure that resources go to the neediest Americans. In the past several years, however, another hurdle has been erected, one that is unacceptable and inhumane. Processing delays, mounting since 2000, have left more than one million applicants languishing without help, some for years.

The most acute bottlenecks are at the appeals level, where the average processing time is now 515 days  compared with 274 days in 2000. Such delays are especially pernicious because slightly more than one-quarter of all approved claims are awarded after an appeal hearing, and nearly two-thirds of the people who appeal ultimately prevail. Without the benefits they are entitled to, far too many applicants get sicker and experience severe economic hardship, including foreclosures and even homelessness. Some applicants die before their appeals are heard.

The fault lies primarily with Congress. For many years, lawmakers have consistently cut into the budget for the Social Security Administration, which administers the disability program. Since 2000, the cumulative shortfall  the difference between what the agency has asked for and what Congress has appropriated  is $4.4 billion, with more than $2 billion of that in the last few years.