Customer service at the Social Security Administration has been bad for years - and now it’s getting worse.
Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative is leading a Trump administration plan to reduce the SSA workforce by 7,000 people - roughly 12% of the workforce - through voluntary separation or firings, and limiting the scope of services available through the toll-free phone line in a way that is expected to force a much larger number of people to visit overworked field offices to transact business.
Chronic underfunding by Congress of the SSA’s administrative budget over the past decade has pushed the size of its workforce to comparatively low levels through attrition and hiring freezes at a time when its workload is rising as the nation ages and more people apply for benefits. The current workforce is roughly 57,000 today, compared with nearly 68,000 in 2010.
I’ve written often about the need to increase Social Security’s administrative budget. In 2023, combined administrative spending for the retirement and disability programs equaled just 0.4% of benefit outlays. Along with higher funding, the agency needs stability and predictability for its budget so that it can hire and plan to address its service shortcomings.
Experts who follow the agency closely agree that the agency already is in a crisis - and we haven’t hit bottom yet. It’s not just the loss of staff, but expertise - and that’s a view held by both Republicans (outside the Trump administration) and Democrats.
The uncertainty about Social Security’s operations makes it difficult to predict exactly where things are headed. For example, initial DOGE actions pegged dozens of field offices for closure - a step that seems to have since been walked back. But information leaking out of the SSA suggest that more “footprint” cuts could still be on the way.
Currently, it looks like the changes at SSA will have the largest impact on Americans who are least equipped to deal with it - low income seniors, disabled people and others without access to computers or smartphones. Disability applications already are very challenging, with wait times of approximately eight months on initial claim decisions.
And all of this is especially frightening for people who rely on Social Security for all or most of their income.
If you need to do business with Social Security, I offer some suggestions on how to navigate the current chaos in my latest Morningstar column.
What I’m reading
Why cameras are popping up in elder care facilities . . . A big pay boost for Medicare Advantage plans is coming from the Trump administration . . . Rural hospitals and patients are disconnected from modern health care . . . Medicaid cuts could hurt older adults who rely on home care, nursing homes.