The Social Security Agency, which distributes benefits to tens of millions of retired workers, people with disabilities and their families, is in crisis.
Billionaire Elon Musk's Government Efficiency (DOGE) is turning his eyes to find social security fraud, so agents are trying to abandon 12% of the workforce, or 7,000 workers. Leland Dudek, who took over as the Social Security Agency's representative committee in February, ousted officials and urged others to resign in protest of his leader. He canceled a research agreement with a university that has closed six regional offices, a study of demographic trends.
Additionally, the agency recently announced that it will no longer allow claimants to immediately confirm their identity on the phone and will instead request that they go online or directly to the field office.
As a result, according to a Washington Post report, the field office has become so understaffed that there aren't enough people for managers to handle cell phones, so managers have doubled the receptionist in answering calls at the front desk. The phone line is clogged and beneficiaries wait 4-5 hours to connect with customer service representatives. Congressional offices and AARPs are paying attention to the surge in calls from constituents concerned about Social Security benefits. The Social Security Administration website has also crashed several times.
All this is happening due to Trump officials' claims that Social Security is plagued by fraud. Trump and Musk falsely claim that many people who have been dead for decades are still receiving Social Security benefits. Despite these claims, experts say the Trump administration is exaggerating the issue very much. A federal judge whose mask's team stopped access to sensitive personal data said Doge “started searching for proverbs needles in the haystack without any specific knowledge that it was in the haystack.”
The current confusion was largely anticipated. Martin O'Malley, a former Democratic governor of Maryland who served as Social Security Commission during the Biden administration, warned that Doge's actions were threatening to disrupt the system and disrupt profits.
Trump has insisted that he will not cut Social Security. However, critics worry that his administration's attacks on social security (all pose as if to go after fraud, waste and abuse) have placed Social Security on the path to privatization.
Trump administration officials have also acknowledged the potential disruption in Social Security payments. For example, billionaire and former Wall Street executive, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, argued that people would not complain without Social Security payments, saying only those committing fraud would try to raise concerns. “Let's say Social Security didn't send their checks this month. My 94-year-old stepmother said she didn't call or complain,” he said in an interview with the podcast. “She didn't. She'd think something was messed up and she'd get it next month. The con artists are always making the loudest noise, screaming, screaming, complaining.”
But the reality is that millions of people rely on social security to achieve their goals. The program draws more than 20 million people from poverty each year than any other federal program. So if the Trump administration doesn't immediately separate Social Security from this crisis, many will be complaining. And Lutnick will soon learn that his predictions are likely to be very wrong.
