Field Office “Consolidations” Coming

      From Government Executive:

A draft plan for service delivery at the Social Security Administration includes “field office consolidation” as a goal for next year — even as the agency maintains publicly that it isn’t closing field offices.

SSA posted Monday on X that it “is NOT permanently closing field offices. Only underutilized hearing office space has been closed and without permanently closing field offices.” But a plan circulating within the agency includes a goal to “further reduce footprint” in 2026 and beyond. 

The scope of the envisioned "consolidations" is unclear, though the document singles out field offices as on the chopping block next year. …

At the same time the agency is contemplating plans to shutter offices, it also is moving ahead with new identity proofing requirements expected to push more people to those offices. SSA is ending phone service for many of its benefits applications, as well as those looking to make changes to their direct deposit information, leaving them with online or in-person avenues to do so.

Some regional leaders that oversee field offices still haven’t gotten guidance on implementing the changes, which are scheduled to take place next week, according to one current employee.  …

SSA Websites Crashing Under Added Loads

      From Lisa Rein at the Washington Post:

Retirees and disabled people are facing chronic website outages and other access problems as they attempt log in to their online Social Security accounts, even as they are being directed to do more of their business with the agency online.
The website has crashed repeatedly in recent weeks, with outages lasting anywhere from 20 minutes to almost a day, according to six current and former officials with knowledge of the issues. Even when the site is back online, many customers have not been able to sign in to their accounts — or have logged in only to find information missing. For others, access to the system has been slow, requiring repeated tries to get in.
The problems come as the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk, has imposed a downsizing that’s led to 7,000 job cuts and is preparing to push out thousands more employees at an agency that serves 73 million Americans. The new demands from Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service include a 50 percent cut to the technology division responsible for the website and other electronic access.

 

Many of the network outages appear to be caused by an expanded fraud check system imposed by the DOGE team, current and former officials said. The technology staff did not test the new software against a high volume of users to see if the servers could handle the rush, these officials said.

“Complete, Utter Chaos”

      From The Guardian:

Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency. …

“They have these ‘concepts of plans’ that they’re hoping are sticking but in reality, are really hurting American people,” said a longtime SSA employee and military veteran who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “No one knows what’s going on. They’re just coming up with ideas at the top of their head.”  …

“It’s just been a lot of craziness, a lot of foolishness. Until they get rid of Doge and the person in office right now, and the Republicans actually get a backbone and stand up for something for once in their lives, things are just going to be complete chaos. That’s really the best word to describe SSA right now, just complete, utter chaos,” the worker added. “They couldn’t understand the coding, so everything they said SSA was doing illegally, they weren’t. Common sense is something they lack. They don’t know what they’re doing.” …

A Poll

 

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Field Office Losses Under VSIP

     Voluntary Separation Incentive Program is one of several programs designed to induce Social Security employees to leave their jobs. It's probably the most important of the programs as far as the agency's field offices are concerned. Below is a map showing where the worst field office losses have occurred followed by a list of those offices with a 25% or greater loss. As always, click on the image to see it full size but the map is still a bit hard to read even then. The bottom line is that green represents less than 15% loss. Yellow represents 15-25% loss. Red represents greater than 25% loss.

 

Southwest	713-MINDEN LA	37.50%
	A15-COLORADO RIVER BASIN /	28.57%
	840-LAREDO TX	27.78%
	B57-FLAGSTAFF AZ	27.27%
	E24-EL PASO DOWNTOWN TX	25.00%
	B50-MARSHALL TX	25.00%
	859-ROSWELL NM	25.00%
	766-RUSSELLVILLE AR	25.00%
	852-SAN ANTONIO NW TX	24.56%

Frank Bisignano Ringing The Closing Bell At The New York Stock Exchange Yesterday On The Stock Market's Worst Day In Five Years

RIFs Threatened Soon

   From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration — already reeling from plunging customer service following a rapid downsizing under the Trump administration — is drafting plans to begin layoffs of potentially thousands more employees as soon as next week.
The cuts have been ordered by leaders of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team, the U.S. DOGE Service … 

The DOGE team did not provide a specific number of jobs that must be eliminated, officials said, but asked for staff reductions to broad areas of operation, including communications, personnel, legislative and congressional affairs, retirement and disability policy, and other “support components.” Also on the list is the information technology department of about 4,000 employees, which is confronting a flurry of website crashes that has shut out customers from accessing their benefit information. Up to 800 people could be laid off in that department, according to one senior official. …

       And from CNN:

The Social Security Administration plans to slash its technology team by nearly one-third at a time when the agency’s complex and fragile computer systems are crashing more often. Top executives in the agency’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, known as OCIO, have been tasked with cutting 30% of its staff as part of a large-scale reduction-in-force being implemented across the federal government, according to two former employees with direct knowledge of the plan. The office had about 3,200 employees, though it has already lost hundreds of experienced workers due to retirement and separation incentives. (It has also gained some staffers after the agency shuttered other divisions and transferred the functions to OCIO.) …

     If you were trying to crash the agency, this would be how you would do it. I’m not sure that’s the intent. It really doesn’t matter. That’s the effect. 

    

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.  ...