Initiatives by Elon Musk's “Department of Government Efficiency” team to cut staff and other resources at the Social Security Administration are effectively cutting benefits, according to congressional Democrats and other advocates.
“When you make it impossible for people to meet or talk to anyone about their Social Security benefits, that is a benefit cut,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, at a news conference March 3.
Murray spoke about Musk and his DOGE team’s recent moves to implement changes at the Social Security Administration alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
The SSA “recently set a staffing target of 50,000, down from the current level of approximately 57,000 employees,” according to a Feb. 28 news release. The government agency — which operates with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices — also said it will “reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions,” as the current structure is “no longer sustainable.”
“With 7,000 Social Security workers being fired, the benefits are in trouble. You have to wait longer. How about when someone doesn't get their check and needs it to pay the rent … and you have to wait for hours to talk to somebody (on the phone)? You know how frustrating that is?” Schumer said at the news conference March 3, adding that it could lead to people not receiving their benefits.
Advocates speaking at the National Institute on Retirement Security’s Annual Retirement Policy Conference on March 4 echoed those points.
“I think the effects of what DOGE is doing right now is basically a benefit cut,” said Tracey Gronniger, managing director of economic security at Justice in Aging, an advocacy organization for low-income older adults, during a conference panel on Social Security. “It’s making it harder for people to access benefits when you cut the number of SSA field offices, when you cut the staffing, when you consolidate regional offices … that is a level of expertise and knowledge that they are losing.”
If SSA closed a field office in a lot of areas, including rural areas, “you could be traveling hundreds of miles to get to a field office. And there's some business that you can't do online,” said Joel Eskovitz, senior director of Social Security and savings at the AARP Public Policy Institute, during the same panel.
Eskovitz added that SSA already made a change at the beginning of the year that now requires individuals visiting field offices to make an appointment first, and he has heard from many AARP members that they wait on hold for hours, which is an indication of how important the program is.
