Warren, Wyden, Sanders, Gillibrand Press Social Security Head on Plan to Slash Field Office Visits
Lawmakers raise alarm about whether Trump Administration is seeking to “quietly kill field offices,” implement backdoor benefits cuts
“[Y]ou seem to have adopted a slash-first, think-later approach to "modernizing" SSA, and beneficiaries will pay the price.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee; Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP); and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ranking Member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, wrote to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano, pressing him on reports that the agency has a new goal of slashing field office visits by nearly 15 million annually. The agency has not provided details as to how it plans to achieve this goal.
“We are concerned that these efforts are in fact part of a plan to ‘quietly kill[] field offices,’ implementing a back-door cut in benefits by making it harder for Americans to access the Social Security customer services they need,” wrote the senators.
The Trump administration has relentlessly attacked Social Security. Under Commissioner Bisignano, the administration has implemented policy changes that make it harder for Americans to get their benefits, including by implementing burdensome in-person and bug-prone identification processes that force millions more beneficiaries to visit field offices each year — at the same time they are slashing SSA’s workforce by around 7,000 and closing regional offices.
Instead of staffing up to meet these needs, SSA’s field office capacity has significantly declined. Beneficiaries are being forced to wait hours to get help — only to be told they will need to call to schedule an appointment.
Recent reports now indicate that SSA plans to slash field office visits in half. The lawmakers raised concerns that this drastic plan will force beneficiaries to use SSA’s bug-prone website or push them into customer service phone tree “doom-loops” — which will almost certainly force some Americans to suffer from delays in benefits or miss them altogether.
“Once again, you seem to have adopted a slash-first, think-later approach to "modernizing" SSA, and beneficiaries will pay the price,” wrote the senators.
The senators requested critical details on the agency's plans to reduce the number of field office visits, which specific services SSA will deploy for online users and for individuals calling the National 1-800 number, whether beneficiaries will be able to get assistance in field offices without an appointment, the current average wait time to schedule a field office appointment, and more by January 6, 2026.
Senate Dems’ Social Security War Room coordinates Democrats’ fight to defend Social Security, 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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