The Legal Aid Society said it was pleased the city corrected the backlog, but would continue to hold officials accountable for any more delays. The agreement reached with the court last summer mandated fixes due this month. The improvements also meet a federal court order stemming from a class-action lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Legal Aid Society and New York Legal Assistance Group in January 2023 over the delays. “We acted with urgency to address historic increases in the volume of applications, deploying all agency resources and doubling down on efforts to process a significantly higher number of applications over a very short period of time,” DSS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said in a statement. The turnaround on processing cases within 30 days, as required under federal and state laws, is a major boon for New Yorkers grappling with an affordability crisis who were waiting more than a month for extra aid to buy groceries, pay rent or cover other necessities.

Officials with the city Department of Social Services, the agency that oversees public benefits programs, said they have processed more than 600,000 applications since the summer by hiring 1,000 workers, investing in technology and making it easier to use online services. The Adams administration announced on Monday that it has nearly cleared the backlog of pending food stamp and cash aid cases, after more than a year of record-slow processing times and mounting outcry from beneficiaries and advocates.

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