This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org
By Jake Johnson
The Trump administration is reportedly looking to dramatically reduce the number of people who visit Social Security field offices across the United States, a plan that Democratic lawmakers warned is yet another scheme to disrupt and ultimately cut benefits.
Nextgov/FCW viewed internal Social Security Administration (SSA) planning documents showing that the agency is aiming for “no more than 15 million total” in-person visits to field offices in fiscal year 2026—half the level of the prior fiscal year.
“Under Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the agency is aiming to push people to interact with Social Security online instead of going to a field office or calling the agency, although Bisignano told lawmakers in June that, even with his focus on technology, the agency is not ‘getting rid of field offices,’ despite reports of planned closures,” Nextgov/FCW reported Monday.
One anonymous SSA staffer told the outlet that agency leadership wants “fewer people in the front door and they want all work that doesn’t require direct customer interactions to be centralized.”
“They appear to be quietly killing field offices,” the staffer said.
The plan comes after the Trump administration carried out the largest staffing cut in SSA history, cutting the agency’s workforce by around 7,000. The cut left one SSA worker for every 1,480 beneficiaries, resulting in understaffed field offices and overwhelmed phone operations.
Beneficiaries have also repeatedly faced issues this year attempting to access the Social Security website, problems that SSA’s plan to curb field office visits could exacerbate.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the lawmakers spearheading a probe into Bisignano’s questionable tenure at the fintech company Fiserv, said in response to the new reporting that “this sure sounds like another way to make it even harder for Americans to get the benefits they’ve earned.”
In a social media post on Monday, Warren highlighted testimony from seniors who have faced long wait times and other difficulties while seeking assistance from SSA under Bisignano’s leadership:
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Nextgov/FCW that “between staffing reductions, more restrictive documentation requirements for Americans to get assistance on the phones, and rapid reorganization of offices around the country, it’s difficult to see how” SSA’s goal of slashing visits to field offices “will lead to anything other than worse service and more challenges at Social Security.”
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