Struggling In Rhinelander

      From WORT in Madison, WI:

The Social Security Administration office in Rhinelander, Wisconsin has recently cut their hours in half due to a severe staffing shortage. This is happening in other locations around the country as the agency has been truncated and starved of operating funds. Labor Radio spoke with Jessica LaPointe, President of both the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, Council 220 and Local 1346.

REPORTER: What is going on with the Social Security Administration in Rhinelander?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: Rhinelander has a field office up there that serves about 35 people a day plus another 40 people that are looking to get a temporary work visa for summer camps and ski resorts and agricultural work visas.

Basically, that field office has reduced their service hours from 9 to 4 to 9 to 12:30 due to under staffing.

REPORTER: What is full staffing there?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: About 12. They were reduced to about 7 over the years and then in the last two years they’ve been reduced to 2.

REPORTER: Why did this happen?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: The 12 to 7 (cut of employees) is a result of budget cuts and limited hiring over the last decade and a half. And then, in January 2025, the Trump administration sent the Department of Government Efficiency to incentivize workers to leave, paid workers about $25,000 to leave. That reduced staff and then that had a snowball effect on attrition where workloads became unmanageable and workers began to burn out and become very stressed.

And then our rights began to get stripped as workers, our workplace flexibilities, our ability to get time off and care for ourselves and our family. That caused more people to leave as pressures began to mount so now they’re down to 2 and now they have to reduce the service hours in the office.

REPORTER: Who does this affect?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: This affects the community of Rhinelander.  The closest field office is about an hour away in Wausau. And then it affects the businesses that now don’t have that office to go to to get their worker visas taken care of, to get replacement social security cards timely.

Now there’s one remaining front desk worker, one remaining claim specialist. They’re also at risk of burnout. …