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DOGE and the Social Security Administration: Reporting From the Front Lines (2) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-19

At the end of February, I posted a diary providing my perspective on the changes and swirling rumors surrounding DOGE’s intervention in the Social Security Administration. Recently, there have been several widely read DK diaries which have amplified misinformation about what is going on. I will not minimize the real dangers of the changes. At the same time, FUD, trolling, misinformation, and panic are a feature of DOGE, not a bug. Lets keep our heads shall we and avoid clickbait? To that end:

Take everything you read in the press, and moreso on blogs, podcasts and other nontraditional media with a ton of salt; poor sourcing is endemic and the journalism has been rife with errors. Perhaps most hilariously (from the perspective of gallows humor), The Washington Post (correctly) scooped:



“Social Security leadership is now considering a proposal to end telephone service for claims processing and direct-deposit bank account transactions, instead directing elderly and disabled people to the internet and in-person field offices, according to one of the people and the records”, then took a (false) victory lap shortly afterwards stating:



“ The Social Security Administration late Wednesday abandoned plans it was considering to end phone service for millions of Americans filing retirement and disability claims after The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team was weighing the change to root out alleged fraud.”



scooped: “Social Security leadership is now considering a proposal to end telephone service for claims processing and direct-deposit bank account transactions, instead directing elderly and disabled people to the internet and in-person field offices, according to one of the people and the records”, then took a (false) victory lap shortly afterwards stating: “ This is, of course, precisely the change officially announced yesterday. Beyond the change to Direct Deposit changes, which means that anyone who does not have sufficient internet connectivity will have to visit an office in person, it is unclear what the effect will be in practice. We do not know as of my writing this whether this means that all phone appointments for claims will be discontinued, whether will still have phone appointments but someone will have to visit the office as a separate step, or whether there will be means other than an in-office visit or a mySSA account to verify identity.



Please be careful with claims along the lines of “dozens or hundreds of Social Security Offices are set to close”. The root of these claims appears to be a misunderstanding of how offices are situated — over 70% of our Field Offices are in leased commercial space, with the remainder in federally owned buildings. Leases come and go, and while offices are not relocated frequently, it does happen from time to time. If a Social Security office is in a federal building that may or may not be sold, it does not follow that the office itself will close. The same goes for leased offices, many are poorly situated in terms of usable space, technology, accessibility, and local infrastructure.



Short dish: just because an Field Office is on a list with a terminated lease, or is in a federal building up for sale does not mean it is set to close, relocate, or consolidate.



We are indeed bleeding staff, but not at the alarmist levels frequently reported in the press. Of our roughly 57,000 employees as of the beginning of the year 2,477 have taken an early out. 2,259 have accepted offers of reassignment from non-critical to critical duties. There have not been any firings of probationary employees. RIF is not expected. Per our Acting Commisioner:



“The overwhelming response on reassignment to direct service roles has reinforced my view that our employees hold a high level of commitment to executing on our mission and prefer to do so in one-on-one interactions with the customer. Based on that response, we are now in a good position to avoid reliance on involuntary reductions in our workforce for this fiscal year.”



Effectively what we are seeing is classic Wall Street “downsiding” within the agency — new management comes in and fires the upper management, guts the middle management, and everyone hopes against hope that we have not lost a critical cog in the wheel. Our systems, are antiquated, clunky, and buggy on a good day. My fear is that I will go to work at some point in the near future to find that we are unable to do our jobs due to technology failure, and there will be no one who knows how to fix the problem.

As before, I am happy to answer questions.

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