Senate Democrats Highlight How DOGE Social Security Takeover Hurts Americans
Democrats mark “Save Social Security Day of Action”
Trump, Musk, DOGE continue to fire staff, close offices, cut vital services
Washington, D.C. – On the “Save Social Security Day of Action,” Senate Democrats are highlighting how Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) takeover of the Social Security Administration is hurting Americans.
Read these stories from communities across the country:
New York Times: ‘Just a Mess’: Staff Cuts, Rushed Changes and Anxiety at Social Security: “‘I didn’t know he was going to pull this,’ said Teresa Boswell, whose vote for Mr. Trump in November helped flip Arizona, but who found herself fuming outside the Social Security office in Glendale last week, unable to sign up for $1,200 in monthly benefits after she retired from her job processing legal papers. ‘This is a joke.’
Virender Kanwal, a biology professor in New Jersey, applied for retirement benefits online at the end of February, a few months before her 70th birthday. She said she knew she would have to provide proof of her citizenship to complete the process but did not want to risk mailing in her passport, so she planned to visit a field office. To do so, she needed an appointment, and those need to be secured over the phone. Ms. Kanwal said she called daily for weeks but never got through…She began calling every few minutes, and said she was eventually placed on hold for six and a half hours before an agent finally answered just before midnight and gave her an appointment. “This is not what we expect from our country,” Ms. Kanwal said.
In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a 90-year-old man using a walker came to a field office because he thought he had to prove he was still alive. In Clinton, S.C., a woman with one leg fell down in the parking lot after coming into the office to show her identification.
In Southern California, older people with disabilities are spending hours taking public buses to get to Social Security offices only to be turned away, nonprofit groups said.
‘People just don’t know what’s going to happen,’ said Bob Kelley, founder of the San Diego Seniors Foundation. ‘Everything is up in the air, so it’s just confusion right now.’
Bonnie Baum, 68, a resident of the sprawling 55-and-older community Sun City West, decided to stick it out in the hopes of talking to someone. She said her application for $1,800 in monthly retirement benefits had been rejected because she did not file the paperwork on time. She had been unable to reach anyone on the phone, and said she had enough difficulty navigating her smartphone, much less Social Security’s online system. ‘It’s just a mess,” she said.”
Washington Post: Social Security website keeps crashing, as DOGE demands cuts to IT staff: “The [Social Security] website has crashed repeatedly in recent weeks, with outages lasting anywhere from 20 minutes to almost a day, according to six current and former officials with knowledge of the issues. Even when the site is back online, many customers have not been able to sign in to their accounts — or have logged in only to find information missing. For others, access to the system has been slow, requiring repeated tries to get in.
In Upland, California, 72-year-old Kathy Stecher began trying to apply for retirement benefits more than a week ago. One of her first steps was to visit the Social Security website to book a required appointment at her local field office, because she believed she had to authenticate her identity in person first. But over several days stretching from last month through Wednesday, the website wouldn’t let Stecher schedule a visit…When she finally reached someone on the phone, the website’s booking tool wasn’t working, she said. The employee sighed and told her that similar problems have become routine, forcing customers to wait on hold for hours.
In recent weeks, Robert Raniolo, 67, a retired financial analyst in New York, found himself stuck when he tried to update his emergency contact by designating his niece instead of his wife, who has dementia. Since he began receiving retirement benefits five years ago, Raniolo has never missed a payment or had trouble getting online, he said. But this time he got an error message — and kept getting them. ‘Bad Request,’ read one notification, according to a screenshot he provided to The Washington Post. ‘There has been an unexpected system error,’ read another. He was directed to try again during ‘regular service hours’ on the East Coast. So Raniolo kept trying…Nothing worked.’
CBS: Social Security wrongly told disabled people and some seniors their benefits ended, causing alarm: “Chris Hubbard, whose 37-year-old disabled adult son relies on the program to pay for his group home, told CBS MoneyWatch she became aware of the problem on March 31, when people in a Facebook group for mothers of autistic children flagged the problem.
Hubbard, who lives with her husband in Westborough, Massachusetts, said she checked her son's account and was alarmed to find a similar message, leading her to stay up through the night to keep refreshing the page. She fell asleep at 5 a.m. without seeing a change, she said.
‘I was continuing to be worried because the message was still on the site, saying this beneficiary doesn't receive payments,’ Hubbard said.
The next morning, however, the correct information was on her son's page, and the money was deposited on April 1, as scheduled. But she and her husband say they received no outreach from Social Security about the problem, or an explanation of the error. They opted against calling the agency because of the long waits now often required to get someone on the phone.
The Hubbards said they're worried the glitch could signal more problems with the service, pointing to the potential impact of cuts to SSA's workforce.”
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. And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
The recording that 66-year-old Kathy Martinez heard when she called the toll-free number two weeks ago from the San Francisco Bay Area said her hold time would be more than three hours — she was calling to ask what her retirement benefits would come to if she filed for them now or waited until she turned 70. She hung up and tried again last week at 7 a.m. Pacific time. The wait was more than 120 minutes, but she was offered a callback option, and in two hours she spoke with a ‘phenomenally kind person who called me,’ she said. Martinez said she wants to wait to file for benefits to maximize her check. But ‘I’m kind of thinking, I wonder if I should take it now. When I apply, I will do it over the phone. But will there still be a phone system?’
In one office in central Indiana, the phone lines are jammed by 9 a.m. with hundreds of retirees, further taxing a staff of less than a dozen that is responsible for nearly 70,000 claimants across the state, according to one employee. That worker, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the questions have become predictable: What is the U.S. DOGE Service doing to Social Security? Will the office close? Will my benefits continue?
In one Philadelphia office, the federal government’s return-to-office edict has left 1,200 staffers competing for about 300 parking spots, according to an employee. Staffers wake up as early as 4:30 a.m. to try to snag a space, and some are buying backup spots for $200 a month nearby. As morale has cratered, some employees have stopped wearing business clothes and now come to work in jeans and a T-shirt because, as they tell colleagues, they no longer take pride in their work, the employee said.
In Baltimore, an employee who works on critical payment systems said nearly a quarter of his team is already gone or will soon be out the door as a result of resignations and retirements. Talented software developers and analysts were quick to secure high-paying jobs in the private sector, he said — and the reduction in highly skilled staff is already having consequences. His office is supposed to complete several software updates and modernization processes required by law within the next few weeks and months, he said. But with the departures, it seems increasingly likely that it will miss those deadlines.”
Today, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) published an op-ed in Fox News arguing that Trump and Musk gutting Social Security isn’t “efficiency” — it’s a broken promise to the American people.
Senate Democrats’ Social Security War Room is a coordinated effort to fight back against the Trump administration’s attack on Americans’ Social Security. The War Room coordinates messaging across the Senate Democratic Caucus and external stakeholders; encourages grassroots engagement by providing opportunities for Americans to share what Social Security means to them; and educates Senate staff, the American public, and stakeholders about Republicans’ agenda and their continued cuts to Americans’ Social Security services and benefits.
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