From the Washington Post:
... The administration’s ongoing shake-ups of the workforce, from buyout offers to firings to sweeping reorganizations, are also undermining efficiency.
At the Social Security Administration, for example, Trump officials and DOGE pushed thousands of central-office workers to take lower-level positions answering phones in field offices, threatening to fire whoever did not make the jump, according to emails reviewed by The Post and interviews with a half dozen agency employees.
Chaos has ensued across field offices in the weeks since the reassignments took effect, staffers said. Claims processing has bogged down as regular field office staff — already overburdened because of widespread resignations and retirements — are pulled off their normal duties to train incoming administrators and analysts.
But the backlog means the trainings are being shortened and rushed through, employees said, so inexperienced, reassigned staffers start work unprepared. That leads to more mistakes, more requests for help and more backed-up claims — and more time wasted all around.
To sum it up, “you now have half the staff with very little knowledge of how to do the work,” one relocated staffer said. “And the other half of staff overwhelmed with work and unable to really train or mentor these new folks.”
Asked about the reassignments, Social Security provided an emailed statement from an unnamed official, whom it declined to identify. The statement said DOGE’s work at Social Security had charted a new, better course for the agency.
“The voluntary reassignment of approximately 2,000 employees to direct service positions has not caused disruptions at the agency,” the statement read. “As these employees complete their training and become fully proficient in their new positions, they will further accelerate the progress the agency is making.” ...
36 comments:
What happens when the "voluntary reassignments," whose agreements included the absurd "not signed under duress or coercion" declaration, are themselves ruled illegal? Further chaos and disruption! Entirely avoidable. Thanks, Trump and Musk.
"Voluntary?" SMH.
They’re also doing the reverse now: asking mid-level staff to do the work formerly done by higher level staff who were moved to lower level field positions. The whole system is being crushed.
We have not seen any significant new problems in our dealings with the agency. The agency has had service problems for years but those who seek to make political points will ignore that fact and act as if they are brand new. We did notice that when all this first started it seemed as if phone calls were being answered faster and the folks seemed more eager to be helpful. I suspected that was due to some fear for their jobs. You really have to read things like this keeping in mind the perspective of the reporters is to find problems to blame on an administration they despise. Our experience does not support this article, at all.
The public is behind the SSA employees and I’m wondering why they haven’t staged a protest. At this point, they don’t have anything to lose since somebody has to do the job and AI is on its way. The 800 million new Commissioner is making the rounds to make sure his minions are acting accordingly. The public and SSA employees lose but Wall Street is salivating.
What a joke! Voluntary reassignments to the Field were made under duress. And as everyone knows, anything done under duress is invalid and unenforceable. The work the HQ and RO reassignees previously did were extremely important to supporting the FO's, TSC's and PSC's. FO are not the be all and end all. The dedicated employees there handle generally the simpler stuff. Most Social Security claims are quite complex and raise issues regarding relationships and households and resources. FO's do not have the time, training or experience to handle these issues and thus the need for specialized staffs to support them. None of that support is being provided and issues have festered along with backlogs. Claimant's payments are being affected! Bring back the HQ and RO support staffs before it is too late!
They sold the people who took the reassignments a bill of goods. FO work is brutal.
From the HQ perspective, to say there is no chaos is a lie. There is no current accurate staff roster or org chart. Service ticket systems don’t work, nobody responds to requests for help, we have no idea which counterparts in other DC offices exist etc and it take a minor miracle to get anything moving. A report I send to Congress used to take a day each time I compiled data from each of the DCs. It’s been three weeks since I started this report and still don’t have responses because nobody is there to give me data. And this is statutorily required. It’s total disorganization and would be embarrassing if anyone ran a company this way. Frank just got here so he has a grace period, but a big priority needs to be finalizing staff, offices, and work assignments.
You are completely wrong! Visit any FO or call a TSC and you will find severely decimated services. Granted the agency suffered due to previous lack of manpower and funding, but the last 4 months have been horrendous and have seen those services become truly unavailable. Try finding out your disability claim status when SSA does not have resources (state liaison support staff) to check with the state agencies. Try getting an adjustment made to your over payment or monthly benefit. Try to get your non- initial claim or post adjudicative action processed. As an employee, try to get the building's air conditioner to work reliably or cleanup from the recent broken water pipe. Try to get supplies such as pens, paper and toilet paper. Try these then come back and say things are going smoothly at SSA.
Heckuva job Sleazy E! Your Peter Pan Posse sure knows how to sabotage Social Security!
"The dedicated employees there handle generally the simpler stuff."
Lol.
We interact with the agency all day, every day, mostly by phone. Yes, there are service problems but we have not noticed anything significantly worse than it has been for years. You mentioned problems getting updates, there is one local office we deal with that, for more than 2 years has not answered the phone. We sometimes have to email the regional office to get in touch with anyone. But again, this is not a change from the last few years. I know that same office has long lines for in person service. Again, no change from past years. But, a reporter would see that and act like its all brand new just to blame Trump.
Who is "we" and what are your typical interactions with the Agency?
Wow 9:04 that kool aid must taste amazing!
It always has been brutal, anyone with any semblance of how the Agency works knew that.
Just saying, that response sounds like the kind of pablum one gets from an AI chatbox prompt...
More "newspeak" from an unnamed gutless doge psychopath. "Ignorance is strength!"
Yep. HQ troll.
Some of these changes will affect us like slow rot. Those at the bottom are for sure being asked to take on what the middle was doing. And some of what the middle was doing, cannot be done by others. It’s simply not getting done. This pulls from production. As does training the newly reassigned folks.
@ Anonymous 11:54 am “ We sometimes have to email the regional office to get in touch with anyone.” You should to email that regional office again and see if you get a response because many regional offices are no longer there and those employees that used to help out have been “voluntary” reassigned.
FO work is necessary, important, and you get used to it.
Help is needed in the FO and those who are reassigned are needed. Actually there should be more forced reassignments to front line positions, , for the good of the agency and the American taxpayer.
It's been 2 months and we still don't have an accurate org chart or email distribution lists. No one knows who still works here or where to send half the things we need to send.
Yes but DOGE saved zillions on all that fraud they uncovered at SSA...
No org charts, no business plans, only total chaos in SSA. Thanks doge. For nothing!
I sure do miss vhelp!
https://www.ssa.gov/budget/assets/materials/2026/2026BO.pdf
Pg 7 shows Frank plans to submit a FY26 budget to remove 3573 work years for full time equivalents. It looks suspiciously like the additional number of employees they want to lay off.
There is nothing efficient with these reassignments. Many FOs were not prepared for these reassignees. There was no training plan and any regional support is gone. Most of the reassignees do not have programmatic background, which causes a strain on the current FO resources as they are being pulled away to train these people all while trying to manage their overwhelming workloads. The solution isn’t sending everyone to the FO. There needs to be support. This was the stupidest way to try to address the insufficient frontline staffing numbers.
Addressing the frontline shortage was never the plan. Undermining the existing organizational structure while being able to pretend it is a benefit to customer service was the plan.
I doubt it. They’ll get more than 3573 WY with just normal attrition.
@8:21 - TRUTH!!!
I am hearing that senior management made errors implementing the DRP2, admin time. Management is trying to figure out if they need to bring the people who accepted DRP2 back into the office before September. Anyone else hear these rumors?
@9:04 15-year SSA employee here. The WashPost article significantly understates the disorder, inefficiencies, and brain drain that DOGE caused. Of course the overall affect isn’t immediately clear to customers— it takes time to trickle down. I predict the impact will be staggering.
@4:06 The answer is not reassignments — it’s ability to hire more staff in the first place. FOs have been chronically understaffed for years. So have PCs. So have other components. Shifting people around only makes our problems worse by trashing whatever training and expertise individuals have built over their careers
A little honesty about the complexity of the work, both internally and to Congress and OPM, would go a long way toward solving this problem. If SSA would acknowledge that field staff are doing GS-12 or higher level work and get authorization to pay them GS-12 or higher wages, they wouldn’t face these chronic staffing shortages.
And they keep renaming all the teams and divisions that distribution lists that were correct yesterday aren’t correct today. We are being asked to do things that we haven’t done there’s been no retraining whatsoever and no one left with prior experience because they took early retirement. I sure wish I could have.
Many of OGC’s best lawyers left on the deferred resignation program. People with years and years of experience and expertise decided they didn’t have to continue to endure the mistreatment and could fare better in the private sector. They’re getting paid for five months while they find a better-paying job and give up on their dream of public service. I’m questioning why I didn’t follow suit.
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