FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2025
CONTACT: press@opportunitywisconsin.org
ICYMI: Cuts to Social Security administration lead to website crashes, long wait times, and unanswered calls
“What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating”
MADISON, Wis. – In case you missed it, multiple reports detail how reckless cuts by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE are making it tougher for seniors to access their Social Security benefits. With cuts to key systems, phone calls are going unanswered, wait times are increasing, and the website has crashed multiple times – all delaying benefits for those who have already paid into the system.
“The reckless cuts from President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE are hurting seniors and tearing down the Social Security system that so many Wisconsinites depend on,” said Opportunity Wisconsin Program Director Meghan Roh. “Congressmen Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden like to say they believe in protecting Social Security, but their refusal to speak out against Trump and Musk and these disastrous cuts shows what they really believe. While critical programs are being dismantled and set up to fail, Republicans in Congress are still pushing more massive tax breaks to the ulta-rich and big corporations – it’s time for them to prioritize working families and seniors instead.”
Wall Street Journal: Dealing With Social Security Is Heading From Bad to Worse
The federal agency that administers Social Security benefits is facing a customer-service mess.
The Social Security Administration is cutting staff, restricting what recipients can do over the phone and closing some local field offices that help people in person. The number of retirees claiming benefits has risen in recent years as baby boomers age.
Few federal agencies reach as far into Americans’ lives as the Social Security Administration, which delivers a monthly check to some 70 million people. Many fear that the changes, part of President Trump’s push to overhaul the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency, are eroding confidence in the nearly 90-year-old program.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a recent podcast interview that if Social Security checks were hypothetically delayed, it might catch those guilty of fraud because they would make “the loudest noise screaming, yelling and complaining.”
Starting March 31, people who want to file for retirement, survivor or disability benefits or change their direct deposit information can no longer complete the process by phone, the agency said Tuesday. Instead they must do so online or at a field office.
The agency said it is stopping phone claims as part of an effort to reduce fraud and strengthen identity-proofing procedures. The Social Security agency has estimated that improper payments represent 0.3% of total benefits.
Washington Post: Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down
The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones in place of receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. Amid all this, the agency no longer has a system to monitor customer experience because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors, and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining the already struggling organization’s ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.
“What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in an interview. “I have people approaching me all the time in their 70s and 80s, and they’re beside themselves. They don’t know what’s coming.”
But current and former officials, advocates and others who interact with the agency — many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution — said Social Security has been damaged even further by the rapid cuts and chaos of Trump’s first two months in office. Many current and former officials fear that the push is part of a long-sought effort by conservatives to privatize all or part of the agency.
“They’re creating a fire to require them to come and put it out,” said one high-ranking official who took early retirement this month.
Depending on the time of day, a recorded message tells callers their wait on hold will last more than 120 minutes or 180 minutes. Some callers report being on hold for four or five hours. A callback function was available only three out of 12 times a Post reporter called the toll-free line last week, presumably because the queue that day was so long that the call would not be returned by close of business.
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