Can The DOGE Kiddie Korps Survive Outside The Tech Hothouse?

     Over the decades it’s been my experience that people new to the Social Security world dramatically underestimate the complexity and sensitivity of the work that the Social Security Administration does. I wonder how long it will take for DOGE employees to figure this out. I doubt that their arrogance can long coexist with knowledge of just how complex Social Security is. 

     As an example of the complexity let’s imagine a recent widow calling in to ask about benefits she might be able to receive. Sounds like that would be a common sort of transaction and it is. Here’s some of the questions that should come up and there are plenty more that may come up:

• How old are you?
• Do you have any minor children?
• Do you have any disabled adult children?
• Are you working and, if so, how much are you earning?
• How much income of any kind do you have now?
• How much do you have in the way of resources, such as money in the bank?
• Are you disabled?

     Depending on the answers to those questions and potentially more, the widow and members of her family may be entitled to these sorts of benefits and she and others in her family may easily be entitled to two or three of these at the same time:

• Aged widows benefits
• Disabled widows benefits
• Child benefits
• Disabled adult child benefits
• Mothers benefits
• SSI
• Retirement benefits
• Disability Insurance Benefits

      If you think that there are online systems available now or in the near future able to seamlessly help a grieving woman whose only online device is a cell phone deal with all this online you just don’t understand people, much less grieving people and you must not have dealt with what passes for AI service now.

     The DOGE people aren’t used to working in an environment including multiple legacy systems. They’re never had to cope with computer illiterates. Those benighted souls weren’t the customers they were aiming at or cared about. They’ve never had to deal with anything like Social Security’s complexity. It will take them at least a couple of years to begin to learn it and I do mean “begin.” They really need to know it in depth and that can take a decade or more. They’re not going to be around the agency anywhere near that long.

It Was Possible!

      Heather Schewedel writes for Slate on what it’s like to correct a mistake in the date that Social Security has down for your birthday. Not fun.

This Burden Falls Heavily On Trump Voters

      From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The Trump Administration and DOGE have implemented new phone service restrictions that the Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates will require people to make over 1.93 million additional trips to understaffed Social Security field offices each year. Even without any traffic, these additional trips will lead to over a million hours wasted on unnecessary travel each year.

Nationally, assuming no traffic, half of all seniors must drive at least 33 minutes for a field office visit, and nearly a quarter of seniors (13.5 million) live more than an hour’s drive roundtrip from their nearest field office.

 ...

Appendix: State Fact Sheets

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• District of Columbia
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Virgin Islands
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

Waiting In Schenectady

    People are waiting for service in Schenectady but, in truth, they're waiting everywhere.

Improving Service Easy For A Man Who Has Run A Much Bigger Organization

      From Federal News Network:

The new head of the Social Security Administration is looking to get call wait times down to “single digits,” as part of this strategy to make the agency a “digital-first organization.”

An SSA official told Federal News Network that the agency’s monthly average call wait time dropped from 30 minutes in January to just about 12 minutes in May, when including callers who were given a “callback” option and didn’t have to remain on hold.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told employees in an all-hands meeting on Thursday that was agency’s “best performance” since it started tracking these metrics. But said he plans to cut call wait times to a fraction of that using artificial intelligence tools.

“We’re going to get that thing down to single digits,” he said.

Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive who led a financial tech company before joining the Trump administration, told employees he was “using AI before it was AI,” and oversaw financial organizations that processed a higher volume of payments than SSA does.

“Much bigger orgs, much bigger problems — but not as important. Can you see the difference? Here we do $1.5 trillion a year. In my last job, we did $2.5 trillion a day. This is more important than that, though,” he said. …

Less Is More?

      From the Washington Post:

Democrats, after weeks of struggling to find a message that resonates with ordinary Americans while President Donald Trump dominates the news, are beginning to settle on one: the allegation that Trump and his allies are crippling Social Security. …

“For much of the country, Washington might as well be Mars for all the connection it has to them,” Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the committee that oversees Social Security, said in an interview. “But Social Security is something where there is connective tissue between the government and the people.” …

Michael Astrue, who led the Social Security Administration under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — and says he voted for Trump — sharply criticized cuts to the agency by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.
“I think you have a group of very immature people coming out of Silicon Valley bro culture, and they have decided federal agencies are filled with bad people doing bad things, and if you go in and hack away, and you don’t have to know what you are doing, you can improve it because less is more,” Astrue said. …

The White House has shown uncharacteristic concern that the Democratic message on Social Security could resonate. The president has made clear to top aides that he does not like seeing the agency in the news so often and so negatively, one senior Social Security official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk about a sensitive issue. …

Is Social Security In Compliance With This?

 42 U.S.C. §405(t) In any case in which an individual visits a field office of the Social Security Administration and represents during the visit to an officer or employee of the Social Security Administration in the office that the individual’s visit is occasioned by—

(1) the receipt of a notice from the Social Security Administration indicating a time limit for response by the individual, or

(2) the theft, loss, or nonreceipt of a benefit payment under this title,

the Commissioner of Social Security shall ensure that the individual is granted a face-to-face interview at the office with an officer or employee of the Social Security Administration before the close of business on the day of the visit.

I Wonder What Happened

 

What Are You Supposed To Do?

      A piece in the Los Angeles Times lays out the situation. Social Security can’t answer its phones. They won’t see you if you show up at the office. Their online systems are a shambles. What are you supposed to do?

Does This Register With Republican Politicians From Rural Areas?

     From The Administrative Burden Experienced by U.S. Rural Residents Accessing Social Security Administration Benefit Programs in 2024 by Debra L. Brucker, Stacia Bach, Megan Henly, Andrew Houtenville and Kelly Nye-Lengerman

Abstract: This project used a community-engaged qualitative research approach to address the following research aims: 1) examine information- and service-related barriers that rural persons with disabilities, family members of persons with disabilities, and older adults face in accessing information about and services related to U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) benefit programs, and 2) solicit recommendations for community-level and SSA-level actions that could improve rural resident access to information and services. ... Conducted in 2024 in the State of New Hampshire, the research team first engaged with twelve individuals who had lived experience of disability and/or were older adults (age 62+) to jointly develop focus group questions and recruitment strategies. The research team then held in-person and virtual focus groups and interviews with 40 rural residents to address the research aims noted above. The qualitative analysis revealed that rural residents, particularly those attempting to access or receiving disability benefits, experienced high levels of administrative burden. Persons with stronger social networks were better able to overcome these barriers to services. Regardless of type of benefit receipt, people very strongly preferred having access to an SSA field office in person instead of communicating with SSA by e-mail, mail, or phone. Most rural residents did not prefer using technology to communicate with SSA as many had limited access to and knowledge about technology.  ...

Chaotic Conditions At Social Security -- But Maybe The Post Office Will Help

 

    From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk. ...

Depending on the time of day, a recorded message [on the 800 line] tells callers that their wait on hold will last more than 120 minutes or 180 minutes. Some report being on hold for four or five hours. A callback function was only available three out of 12 times when a reporter for The Post called the toll-free line last week, presumably because the queue that day was so long that the call would not be returned by close of business. ...

On Monday, Dudek said the agency is working with U.S. Postal Service on an agreement to take on new requirements to verify claimants’ identities. ...

Meanwhile, a DOGE-imposed spending freeze has left many field offices without paper, pens and the phone headsets staff need to do their jobs communicating with callers — at the exact moment phone calls are spiking, the employee in Indiana said.

The freeze drove all federal credit cards to a $1 limit. Social Security saw the number of its approved purchasers reduced to about a dozen people for 1,300 offices, said one agency employee in the Northeast.

...

Rushing Teleservice Cuts

      From Axios:

The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios. …

Driving the news: Acting commissioner Leland Dudek said the changes in question would usually take two years to implement, but will be made in two weeks instead, the two sources said on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation. 

• Dudek also said the changes, happening so fast and with little public understanding, will create opportunities for scammers, one of the sources said.
• There will be individuals who will be victims of fraud as a result of the changes, Dudek said, according to one attendee. He said in the past Social Security had been too "thoughtful" in considering beneficiaries before making changes. …

     Why, exactly, would they be in a rush to cut telephone service?  It’s like they really embrace being evil.

Afternoon Roundup

     There are so many news articles coming out about Social Security that it's hard to keep up. Let me share a few that seem notable to me:

• MSN --  Trump’s nominee to lead Social Security Administration to face questions over DOGE cuts
• Paul Krugman --  Social Security: A Time for Outrage
• Government Executive --  Regional boards for federal agency coordination officially disbanded 
• Michigan Live -- AARP calls latest Social Security changes ‘deeply unacceptable.’ Will you be impacted? 
• CNBC --  Senators press Trump Social Security nominee on his views about privatizing the agency
• WSJ -- Dealing With Social Security Is Heading From Bad to Worse

Hasn't Worked Before, Won't Work Now

 

     Lawrence Glickman writes about the long, long history of calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme." Repeating this lie endlessly for almost 90 years doesn't make it true. It just points out how pathetically ineffective the argument is. Accept reality. The right wing has no conceivable path to eliminating Social Security or even significantly changing it, apart from what it's doing, defunding its administration, and that will ultimately prove to be horrendously unpopular as I think even they know. They just feel so strongly about this that they're willing to do a suicide charge.

A Poll

 

online polls

Does DOGE Care?

      From some television station in Cleveland:

AVON LAKE, Ohio — An Avon Lake couple tried to change their address but faced issues after dealing with the Social Security Administration (SSA) systems for hours.

Gloria and Walton Britton moved to Avon Lake last month and began changing their address so that credit cards and other bills, including social security, were sent to the right location. They spent days on the phone trying to reach someone to make the address change, but nobody ever answered.

"Hurt, frustrated, disrespected," Gloria said. 

She tried to reach someone at the Social Security administration’s office but said it was impossible.

"I gave up one day after three hours of sitting on hold and didn't even get a call back option," Gloria explained.

The couple even tried to log in through the SSA’s website but could not reach the page where they could change their address or set up an appointment. …

O'Malley's Tenure As Commissioner

     From a piece in Government Executive about Martin O'Malley's too brief tenure as Commissioner of Social Security:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley on Wednesday described his nearly a year in charge of the embattled agency responsible for administering Americans’ retirement and disability benefits as one of the “greatest honors” of his career in government and politics. ..

O’Malley told Government Executive on Wednesday that he was “enormously proud” of the agency’s beleaguered workforce, which was able to find significant customer service improvements despite operating at a 50-year staffing low and serving the most beneficiaries in history. ...

[T]he public’s preference for telephonic and video disability hearings–with 90% of new requests being through those avenues–has made it easier to optimize administrative law judges’ workloads regardless of geographic location. ...

Jim Borland, the agency’s assistant deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, said he will be retiring after a 40-year career in the federal government next month, and that this final year was “the most fun” he’s had at work in those four decades. ...

Coming Soon -- Walk-In Service To End

     

    If you're a Social Security employee who thinks this is great, remember that there is little efficiency gained here. You'll feel less harried mainly because workloads are reduced by discouraging the public from doing business with Social Security in the first place and by extending time frames for service out potentially by months. There is a significant percentage of the population who aren't capable of jumping through even a few hoops. They'll wait in your waiting room to see someone but they won't call repeatedly trying to make an appointment only to get frustrated after 30 minutes or more and hang up. Yes, you can go to the field office and make an appointment there to come back in a month or two but many people won't keep that appointment. They've got problems that keep them from working and from keeping appointments. That's frustrating but those people are a significant percentage of the population the agency is supposed to be serving.

    Imagine this. Your Social Security checks suddenly end. Your Medicare is terminated. All of your bank accounts and credit cards are frozen. You have no way of paying your bills or even buying food. Someone tells you that the problem is that you're been declared dead. You have no idea who decided you were dead After a month of desperation, someone tells you that the problem is at Social Security. You immediately go down to the local Social Security field office hoping for a quick resolution of the problem but all that happens is that you have to make an appointment two months out into the future. How would you feel?

In Person Service Matters

    From Effects Of Suspending In-Person Services At Social Security Administration Field Offices On Disability Applications And Allowances by Monica Farid, Michael T. Anderson, Gina Freeman, and Christopher Earles, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications ...

The paper found that:

• There were systematic differences in the characteristics of applicants by mode of application. In-person applicants were older, less likely to have completed high school, and less likely to speak English compared to phone or online applicants.
  

• The suspension caused a 6-percent decrease in the volume of applications, implying that not everyone who wanted to apply in-person was able to apply using other modes. The effect was larger for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications compared to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) applications.
  

• The suspension of in-person services caused some would-be in-person applicants to apply by phone, but it did not cause an increase in the volume of online applications.
  

• We did not find evidence that the suspension disproportionately affected groups of applicants defined by educational attainment, age, or English-speaking status.
  

• Our estimates imply that in-person service suspensions explain more than 50 percent of the decline in SSI and DI applications during the pandemic. ...
  

    The first and fourth points above seem to be in tension with each other.

Not Now, Not Later, Not Ever

     A Richmond, VA television station reports on a local case. SSI disability benefits were approved almost immediately for a child with a rare genetic disorder but the case has been sitting at the local Social Security field office for five months awaiting payment. 

    Undoubtedly, there's some complication. Anything complicated goes into the "Not now, not later, not ever" pile. They'll get to it when they have time but they never do. Why spend the time to complete action on one difficult case when you can easily process five uncomplicated cases in the same amount of time? Except that in this case they will because the case has been publicized.

    Is this happening because the Social Security employees are lazy? No, they're just overwhelmed with work and they're judged based upon the raw number of cases they complete. There's constant pressure to produce numbers. The easiest way to produce numbers is to work on the easiest cases first and let the difficult cases pile up. It makes sense from the point of view of an individual employee or manager but it's a horribly unfair situation as I expect those employees and managers know.

    By the way, when I say we're at the "Not now, not later, not ever" stage, I'm not exaggerating. I've got a fee petition pending at a payment center for more than three years. It's gathering dust because they're busy with other things, like answering Social Security's 800 number and the agency isn't tracking fee petitions. When are they ever going to be not so busy? It would take a major political change.