The performing chief of the Social Safety Administration reportedly instructed managers earlier this week to attract up plans for a 50% reduce to the company’s workforce, a push that advocates and lawmakers mentioned would end result within the gutting or whole closure of native discipline workplaces — and sure profit disruptions.
The American Prospect first reported the request from Leland Dudek, whom Trump installed as SSA commissioner earlier this month after the company’s former head resigned following a conflict with Elon Musk’s deputies over their makes an attempt to access extremely delicate private knowledge. On the time he was elevated to the helm of SSA, Dudek was under investigation for allegedly sharing info with Musk’s group improperly.
In keeping with the Prospect, the deadline for SSA managers to adjust to Dudek’s request for mass-firing plans was Wednesday afternoon.
“The choice may goal one of many authorities’s most outstanding public-facing initiatives: SSA discipline workplaces, the place seniors, folks with disabilities, and survivors whose dad and mom have died can join advantages and get info,” the outlet famous. “In an e-mail to the Prospect, SSA wouldn’t verify any reductions in its workforce past the abolition of two small inner workplaces introduced this week… Sources have imagined to the Prospect that the terminations are being completed piecemeal to keep away from headlines of tens of hundreds of jobs misplaced.”
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, mentioned in a press release Wednesday that Dudek’s push for large-scale employees cuts reveals the Trump administration and Elon Musk need to “demolish” SSA.
“Opposite to what Elon Musk and his acolytes might consider, AI chatbots aren’t any substitute for in-person service from a human being,” mentioned Altman. “People apply for Social Safety advantages on the most weak occasions of their lives. Furthermore, many individuals who search info might have hassle articulating and even realizing what questions they should ask.”
“If Musk’s plan goes by way of, it’ll deny many People access to their hard-earned Social Safety advantages. Area workplaces across the nation will shut. Wait occasions for the 1-800 quantity will soar,” Altman warned. “DOGE claims to be involved about fraud, however one of the simplest ways to detect fraud is thru face-to-face contacts with people who can detect suspicious responses and may learn physique language. It’s not too late to cease this catastrophe. We urge everybody to name their members of Congress and inform them that native Social Safety workplaces should keep open and absolutely staffed.”
Within the wake of the Prospect’s story, Authorities Government reported that 5 of the eight regional SSA commissioners “whose workplaces oversee and assist the company’s frontline workplaces throughout the nation” have determined to go away their posts on the finish of this week amid the Trump administration’s onslaught against the federal workforce.
“Their departures come amid rumors of impending employees cuts at SSA, the place the workforce is already at a 50-year low and has toiled amid a customer support disaster born of lack of funding,” Authorities Government famous. “A long time of congressional neglect have seen the company’s administrative finances, which for many years sat at 1.2% of profit outlays, shrink to below 1%.”
The outlet added that “regional commissioners aren’t the one ones leaving SSA. An unknown variety of different staff are additionally leaving the company, which shuttered its civil rights and transformation workplaces this week.”
Martin O’Malley, the previous Maryland governor who served as SSA commissioner below the Biden administration, wrote late Wednesday that “Social Safety is being pushed to a complete system collapse.”
“I give the DOGE youngsters and co-President Musk 30-90 days earlier than they crater it to the purpose of interruption of advantages,” O’Malley added.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a champion of Social Safety and vocal supporter of increasing advantages, said in a press release that “Donald Trump pledged no cuts to Social Safety on the marketing campaign path, however now he and Elon Musk have plans to do precisely that.”
“Let me be clear — shedding half of the workforce on the Social Safety Administration and shuttering discipline workplaces will imply the delay, disruption, and denial of advantages,” mentioned Larson. “That is nothing greater than a backdoor profit reduce and an insult to People who’ve paid into the system and earned their Social Safety — all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the rich. This has nothing to do with ‘governmental effectivity.’”
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