Warren, Wyden, Gillibrand Press Social Security Head on Plans to Strip Employees of Civil Service Protections, Pave Way for Mass Firings
Lawmakers sound alarm on plans to recategorize thousands of SSA workers as Schedule F “policy-making” employees — making it easier to replace them with DOGE lackeys
“Converting these SSA employees’ status is a deliberate maneuver to make it easier to get rid of critical SSA staff, endangering the program and the benefits earned by millions of Americans.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ranking Member on the Senate Aging Committee, pressed new Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Frank Bisignano on reported plans to recategorize thousands of workers as Schedule F “policy-making” employees.
The move, which is set to impact frontline employees who work directly with Americans to provide services, will endanger the agency by stripping employees of their civil service protections, making it easier for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to replace nonpolitical federal workers with political lackeys and to accelerate its mass layoff across the administration.
“Converting these SSA employees’ status is a deliberate maneuver to make it easier to get rid of critical SSA staff, endangering the program and the benefits earned by millions of Americans,” wrote the lawmakers.
Last month, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) proposed “Schedule F” as a new category of government employee that have “important policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties.” Schedule F workers are employed at-will, meaning they can be fired at any point, and do not have the same rights that protect federal government employees from termination absent “misconduct, neglect of duty, (and) malfeasance.” Additionally, it is not clear that Schedule F employees are included in collective bargaining units or eligible for union representation.
SSA leadership has interpreted the “important policy-determining” language in President Trump’s executive order to apply to a large swath of SSA employees. SSA has reclassified tens of thousands of employees — including those who ensure recipients get their monthly benefits — as high-level decision-making “Schedule F” employees. In practice, this reclassification enables the Trump administration to replace anyone who refuses DOGE’s potentially illegal orders — making senior Social Security staffers rank-and-file employees at will and ultimately politicizing Social Security.
“SSA’s broad reclassification of employees under seemingly false pretenses appears to be a deliberate effort to allow DOGE to purge SSA of the employees who work dutifully to make sure Americans receive their earned benefits. Since President Trump’s inauguration, the administration, led by Elon Musk, has been hellbent on dismantling SSA — which he has called a ‘Ponzi scheme,’” wrote the lawmakers.
The reclassification does not just apply to senior leadership and policy-makers. The former Acting Commissioner for the SSA, Leland Dudek — who has remained at the agency as a senior advisor — announced that SSA would reclassify broad swaths of the workforce as Schedule F, including frontline workers making as little as $40,000 and handling the day-to-day responsibilities of servicing Americans directly.
“This means that — in addition to replacing long-serving employees with your DOGE acolytes — you can cut large swaths of the SSA workforce to effectuate DOGE’s goal of slashing the agency,” wrote the lawmakers. “This broad reclassification will enable you — at DOGE’s behest — to slash the SSA workforce while stripping protections that typically apply to federal workers.”
This is the latest in DOGE’s efforts to cut Social Security and SSI benefits or prevent seniors and people with disabilities from obtaining their earned benefits. Under the Trump administration, Americans have struggled to access their Social Security benefits, faced hours-long lines at SSA offices, endured extended wait times on phone lines, and dealt with repeated SSA.gov website crashes. Some Americans have even been wrongly cut off from benefits, threatening their ability to pay their bills.
“Converting SSA employees to Schedule F will enable President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE to stack the SSA with lackeys willing to implement policies aimed at restricting Americans’ access to their benefits, while firing the hardworking frontline workers who make sure recipients get their monthly check. In other words, this will enable DOGE and the Trump administration to continue its crusade to cut Social Security benefits,” concluded the lawmakers.
Senators Warren and Wyden recently led the launch of Senate Dems’ Social Security War Room, a coordinated effort to fight back against the Trump administration’s attack on Americans’ Social Security. The War Room coordinates messaging across the Senate Democratic Caucus and external stakeholders; encourages grassroots engagement by providing opportunities for Americans to share what Social Security means to them; and educates Senate staff, the American public, and stakeholders about Republicans’ agenda and their continued cuts to Americans’ Social Security services and benefits.
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