Trump’s Social Security Administration to cut thousands of jobs : NPR

The Social Safety Administration (SSA) introduced Friday that it goals to chop some 7,000 jobs to align with an government order from President Trump to broadly slash the federal workforce.

The deliberate job cuts are elevating considerations about staffing on the company that disburses retirement advantages, in addition to incapacity and survivor advantages, to tens of thousands and thousands of Individuals.

“The company plans to cut back the scale of its bloated workforce and organizational construction, with a big deal with features and workers who don’t immediately present mission crucial providers,” the SSA stated in a news release Friday afternoon. “Social Safety just lately set a staffing goal of fifty,000, down from the present degree of roughly 57,000 workers.”

Advocates say lengthy wait occasions for providers have plagued the company for years, and its present staffing is already at a couple of 50-year low.

Forward of the looming broader cuts, various senior employees members have departed the SSA, together with a minimum of 5 of eight individuals within the influential position of regional commissioner, in response to a staffing memo shared with NPR by a senior SSA official who was not licensed to talk to the press.

“SSA has operated with a regional construction consisting of 10 workplaces, which is not sustainable,” the Friday information launch stated. “The company will cut back the regional construction in all company parts right down to 4 areas.”

Morale on the company is extraordinarily low, the senior SSA supply stated, as employees members are crying in conferences and managers are attempting to reassure their workers throughout a time of nice uncertainty.

“The general public goes to endure terribly on account of this,” the supply wrote to NPR. “Native subject workplaces will shut, maintain occasions will improve, and folks shall be sicker, hungry, or die when checks do not arrive or a incapacity listening to is delayed only one month too late.”

“Hopefully Congress takes observe of the mass resignation of the Regional Commissioners and begins asking questions,” the supply concluded.

Wealthy Couture — a spokesman for AFGE SSA Normal Committee, a union representing roughly 42,000 Social Safety staff — instructed NPR, “AFGE is adamantly against any mass layoffs” of its staff, “whether or not frontline or help employees.” Entrance-line staff immediately help beneficiaries, the variety of whom, he stated, will increase by 10,000 individuals each day.

“SSA is at its lowest staffing ranges in 50 years whereas taking good care of extra Individuals than ever,” Couture stated in an announcement. “We have to retain our frontline staff who immediately serve the general public in addition to these staff who present crucial help for the frontlines. Any cuts will in the end harm the general public and undermine supply of Social Safety advantages.”

Trump has said that Social Safety “will not be touched” as he continues to make sweeping cuts to the federal authorities.

The company’s information launch stated the deliberate reorganization will “prioritize customer support.” It added: “SSA is dedicated to make sure this plan has a optimistic impact on the supply of Social Safety providers.”

Friday’s announcement from the SSA adopted guidance on Wednesday from the Trump administration for federal companies to develop plans for the large-scale elimination of positions, consistent with Trump’s Feb. 11 government order.

New management raises new considerations on the SSA

Till now, the SSA has been largely spared from efforts, primarily overseen by billionaire Elon Musk, to slash the scale of the federal authorities. That features a federal hiring freeze and more moderen dismissals of enormous numbers of mostly newer workers.

New management on the company has carried out extra focused modifications, like closing its Workplace of Civil Rights and Equal Alternative.

Any change to Social Safety that might have an effect on advantages is usually thought of a political legal responsibility. Social Safety stays one of the most popular government programs, and it’s how most Individuals put together for retirement.

To that finish, Trump and Republican congressional leaders have vowed to guard Social Safety from their deliberate cuts to authorities spending.

However within the final week or so, the company has confronted a lot of the identical chaos and disruption which were skilled by different federal departments. Modifications on the company are additionally resulting in worries amongst workers and cybersecurity consultants concerning the safety of delicate information.

The company’s prior appearing commissioner, Michelle King, was just lately changed after clashing with associates of Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity who sought entry to delicate private knowledge held by the company. That is in response to the senior SSA official who spoke to NPR on situation of anonymity. King has not responded to NPR’s requests for remark.

King has been changed by Leland Dudek, who was being investigated internally earlier than being promoted, in response to the SSA official.

The safety of delicate knowledge is among the high considerations for SSA workers.

“SSA is extremely threat averse. And for good purpose,” the SSA official stated. “The information we home is intimate and complete. Each U.S. man, lady and baby (dwelling and useless) has a Social Safety quantity and information of their work, earnings, tax, incapacity and civil relationships. And now DOGE has entry to all of it.”

The SSA’s servers are huge, complicated and archaic, processing billions of information factors a day, typically utilizing programming languages that few persons are aware of, the supply continued. These techniques are already underneath fixed assault by digital adversaries from around the globe, creating a continuing problem for these tasked with defending the techniques.

There aren’t any indications that the engineers working with DOGE have gone by way of required coaching to guard federal information, the supply stated, nor particular agency-level coaching to work in every division’s distinctive techniques. Lawmakers have already begun to raise the alarm about cybersecurity considerations concerning DOGE’s entry to federal techniques, whereas legal cases about DOGE’s entry are ongoing.

Musk says he is making an attempt to guard Social Safety — however parrots baseless claims

Musk stated on social media that his purpose is to not slash Social Safety advantages however to “cease the intense ranges of fraud happening, in order that [SSA] stays solvent and protects the social safety checks of sincere Individuals.”

Musk has not offered proof for his declare of “excessive ranges of fraud.” He has pointed to recipients within the SSA database who’re impossibly listed as effectively over 100 years previous.

However a 2023 report from the company’s Workplace of the Inspector Normal stated that there have been almost 19 million Social Safety number-holders age 100-plus who did not have details about their deaths within the system and that “virtually not one of the 18.9 million numberholders at the moment obtain SSA funds.”

Appearing Commissioner Dudek himself knocked down Musk’s declare as effectively.

Advocates complain of long-running points with incapacity advantages

And now the company is making ready for a big lower to its workforce.

Charles Corridor, an lawyer who has been representing Social Safety incapacity claimants specifically since 1979, stated staffing points on the company have been a persistent drawback for individuals in search of advantages.

“Incapacity claims have been progressively affected by Social Safety’s lack of staffing, actually for a minimum of 20 years,” he stated. “It actually has grow to be increasingly of a difficulty.”

Max Richtman, president and CEO of the Nationwide Committee to Protect Social Safety and Medicare, instructed NPR that the method to get incapacity advantages, specifically, is “so cumbersome and troublesome to navigate” and insufficiently staffed that within the final couple of years, “about 10,000 claimants who appealed for his or her advantages die ready for his or her declare to be resolved.”

Corridor stated enhancements in know-how have additionally but to cowl this improve in workload. As a result of incapacity claims are carried out on paper and are labor-intensive, know-how shouldn’t be sufficient to unravel the issue.

“It requires quite a lot of manpower,” Corridor stated. “That is way more labor-intensive than individuals would think about. … They solely assume by way of retirement advantages, that are comparatively easy, however the different workloads get fairly sophisticated.”

Richtman stated that wait occasions for help from company employees are solely going to worsen if the Trump administration makes deep cuts within the workforce. He stated Individuals pay into Social Safety by way of a payroll tax, in order that they should entry these advantages.

“It actually needs to be checked out, I believe, by way of a distinct lens and the remainder of, you realize, no matter else is going on on the federal authorities and downsizing,” he stated.