From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is overwhelming its local offices by forcing millions more people to seek in-person service while cutting thousands of staff who provide that help. These offices, which primarily serve seniors, people with disabilities, and bereaved families, helped nearly 32 million visitors last year. But under a new policy set to take effect in August, beneficiaries will be forced to take millions of unnecessary trips to field offices, where they will face longer waits for appointments and slower processing times.
As of mid-August, SSA will no longer allow Social Security beneficiaries to perform routine tasks solely by phone — changing their addresses, checking the status of claims, requesting benefit verification letters, or asking for tax forms — as they’ve been able to do for decades. Instead, beneficiaries seeking to complete those tasks by phone will need to complete a multi-factor, multi-step online verification process to generate a one-time PIN code to help prove their identity.
The new PIN code process will be impossible for many beneficiaries to complete. And if they can’t, they’ll need to travel to a field office. That will require 3.4 million more people to travel to SSA offices annually, by the agency’s own estimates. This will create a significant new burden, particularly for those who live in rural areas or have transportation or mobility difficulties.
The AARP is expressing opposition to this decision.
Hi, I'm a reporter with a large national publication. If you work in a field office and are open to talking about the recent changes, please contact me: tsbernard@nytimes.com
ReplyDeleteWorse yet is they are taking the service representatives that normally help the public at the window and sticking them on the 800# because the Commissioner lied to Congress about call times on the 800#. This means the claims representatives that process and adjudicate claims will now have to handle this increased workload and the public will have to wait even longer to receive benefits.
ReplyDeletefrank! Technology isn’t going to solve this problem… hiring 20,000 people at this point isn’t even going to help the short term, it takes 1.5 to 2 years to train a Service Representative, 3+ years to train a claims representative, 5-7 years to get a technical expert.
Disability claims - 1-2 years, reconsideration 1-2 years, hearing 1-2 years… so if you are disabled expect these times, and this isn’t going to get better so if you can’t survive potentially 6 years to win a hearing, you might want to call Congress to get social security more workers.
Oh not to mention we can’t get things fixed because HQ and ROs are virtually vacant and that was the support staff… imagine running a company or military operation with no staff… they will keep hiring contractors at 3 times the pay as a Fed employee but keep letting them sell you the BS that the government is saving money!
AARP has not been aggressive as they should. This will be another excuse to privatize the agency. The agencies numerous problems is why individuals are applying early for their benefits. .
ReplyDeleteThis is nuts if true
ReplyDeleteIt’s illogical and doesn’t make any sense -so then it probably is true
DeleteIt is!! More members of Congress should be hitting up ‘ole Frankie to explain himself. So far I only see Senator Warren fighting for us. Why is that?
DeleteIt's true. The link to "estimates" in this post goes to OMB. A Federal Register notice with more information and the opportunity to comment is at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/07/21/2025-13607/agency-information-collection-activities-proposed-request-and-comment-request (it's #5 on the list of documents)
DeleteI wonder if this is why Evangelista got the boot.
ReplyDeleteDid he get the boot?
DeleteMore shit-stirring? The two day old transmittal on COA has none of this.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be true- CNN has picked it up now.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/politics/social-security-extra-verification
Didn't this same story come out a few months ago and then nothing happened?
ReplyDeleteThere hasn’t been anything shared with staff yet about this.
ReplyDeleteIt's now optional. In other words, nobody will ever use it. Nobody will choose to use SAP if they can just answer identifying questions.
ReplyDeleteIt will probably be optional as in, if you don’t use it you have the option to go into the office.
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