MW Social Security plans to axe thousands of workers nationwide. What could it mean for you?

By Paul Brandus

'Significant' job cuts are coming for Social Security that will only make the program less efficient

Who will answer the phone?

The Social Security Administration estimates that it receives nearly 30 million visits to its offices around the country each year - there are 1,230 of those offices - along with 80 million phone calls to its toll-free number.

The calls come in at such a heavy rate that the average wait time, the SSA says, is 84 minutes. If you don't want to wait, you can request a callback - and the average amount of time it takes to get that call, it says, is two hours and nine minutes.

Those visits and phone calls are set to increase, given that thousands of ?baby ?boomers are retiring each day and applying for benefits - a trend projected to continue through 2029. That's on top of the nearly 69 million Americans who receive monthly benefits now.

To handle this tidal wave of humanity, the SSA has about 60,000 employees - dedicated public servants who do things such as helping Americans apply for and receive the benefits they have worked their entire lives for, ?issuing Social Security card?s, and working out thorny claiming and tax calculations.

Read: Social Security Administration announces 'massive' reorganization, 'significant' job cuts

It would seem odd, then, that in the name of "efficiency," the Trump administration has announced big cuts to Social Security - job cuts, that is.

In its Thursday night ?press release, the SSA didn't say how many jobs would be cut, only that? they would be "significant." The Associated Press, citing one source who requested anonymity in order to discuss details openly, said this could mean perhaps 7,000 workers. The AP also cited a second source who said job cuts could ultimately be far bigger - as much as half the agency's workforce, or some 30,000 employees.

Both sources said that the SSA's new acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, instructed senior staffers earlier this week to produce a plan that eliminated half of the workforce, with half the cuts coming at SSA headquarters in Washington and the other half in regional offices around the country.

The coming job cuts follow earlier news that at least? 10 Social Security offices around the country are now, or will be, shut down. The closures, at the behest of the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, hit both red and blue states:

-- White Plains, N.Y.

-- Logan, W?. Va.

-- Carlsbad, Calif?.

-- Roanoke Rapids, ?N.C.

-- Batesville, Ark?.

-- Columbus, Ohio

-- Okemos, Mich?.

-- Nacogdoches, Texas

-- Green Bay, Wis?.

-- Las Vegas

So? who will answer those 80 million calls? Who will assist the 30 million visitors?

Will more offices close? When? Where? How many? Requests for comment on all this from both the SSA and the White House have thus far gone unanswered.

"Cutting staffing is an obstruction to getting the benefits we have earned over our working careers," says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a Washington-based advocacy organization. "The Social Security Administration is already chronically understaffed. Now, the Trump administration wants to demolish it?."

Efficient for whom?

Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest man and the face of the Trump administration's efforts to cut federal spending, has claimed - without verifiable proof - ?that Social Security is riddled with widespread fraud. The unsubstantiated? charge has raised fears that the stage is being set for actual benefit cuts to the venerable program, which marks its 90th anniversary this summer.

??And what of his claims of greater efficiency? Perhaps Musk should actually visit a Social Security office like the one in White Plains, N.Y., about 30 miles north of New York City. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, points out that this one office serves citizens across seven counties and currently has more than 2,000 cases pending. When it closes in May, she warns that beneficiaries, many of them elderly or disabled, will have to travel up to 135 miles to the next closest office, which for some will be in another state.

So when Musk says "efficient," I ask, efficient for whom, exactly?

Meanwhile, as Musk takes his chainsaw to the federal government, what about the glaring conflicts of interest that swirl around him? He's the chief executive of two important companies - Tesla $(TSLA)$ and SpaceX - which do billions of dollars in business with the federal government. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Musk's vast businesses were built on $38 billion in federal funding - contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits - exactly the kind of pork that Republicans love to take aim at. ?

Musk could at least hold a news conference and answer some questions about this sort of hypocrisy. So far he has refused. And Congress could get a spine and assume its constitutional responsibility as a check on the executive branch.

No luck, there, either.

On SiriusXM Thursday, one of Social Security's biggest advocates in Congress, Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat, said that at a minimum, Musk should file a public financial disclosure and face review for his potential conflicts of interest by the independent Office of Government Ethics.

But that office has itself been the target of cuts, with President Donald Trump firing the federal government's top ethics official.

I want to stress here that what's being cut are Social Security employees and offices, not Social Security benefits. But are these job cuts a precursor to going after benefits themselves?

To his credit, Trump has insisted that the idea of benefit cuts is a nonstarter, although it's also worth noting that as a private citizen, he trashed Social Security as a "huge Ponzi scheme" and said that Americans would be better off playing the lottery (in a previous column, I explained why that is a foolish claim).

But regardless of what the president says, news about "cuts" anywhere in the vicinity of Social Security will drive headlines and ?fuel uncertainty among citizens. This is the sort of thing that is fertile ground for scam artists, who for years have used Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to prey upon seniors, stealing their money, their personal data ?and sometimes their entire identities.

Look for scammers to take advantage of office closures and layoffs to set up boiler-room phone operations, send out emails and realistic-looking letters and more? in an attempt to rip off Americans. I suspect we'll soon be hearing more stories about folks who were either confused or too trusting and wound up getting burned by the inevitable scams that will pop up.

Our elected leaders must do more, not less, to stop this. They must also do more to reassure the 69 million Americans now on Social Security - and the millions who will follow in the years ahead - that their benefits are safe and that they will get what they have been promised and deserve.

Slashing workers, closing offices and adding more stress to an already overburdened and underfunded system sends exactly the opposite message.

-Paul Brandus

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February 28, 2025 11:41 ET (16:41 GMT)

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