By Michael Woyton
Let’s be very clear: taking away the ability for people who qualify for Social Security — by definition “older Americans” — to speak with someone by phone will make it impossible for many to actually get benefits.
Taking away the option of phone support is exactly what a internal memo from the Social Security Administration proposes to do.
As first reported by Popular Info’s Judd Legum and then by Emily Peck of Axios, anyone seeking help with Social Security and who are unable to verify their identity via the internet would have to do so in person at local field offices.
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Oh, by the way, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency want to make it more difficult to get to a local field office by shuttering many of them.
As of now, if you cannot verify who you are using a computer, then you can complete the process by phone, Axios reported.
The March 13 memo, which was requested by DOGE and signed by acting deputy SSA commissioner for operations Doris Diaz, said the call-in option should be ended.
DOGE’s rationale is that having people come in for verification would address “fraud risk.”
It’s safe to wonder if the rationale also includes reducing the number of people who get Social Security because they are not physically able to travel to a still-open field office.
An anonymous former SSA official told Axios that the changes would “cripple field office operations, and they’re already badly paralyzed.”
If it makes you feel any better — and it doesn’t make me feel any better — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement Monday that “Any American receiving Social Security benefits will continue to receive them. The sole mission of DOGE is to identify waste, fraud and abuse only.”
Yeah right.
Josh Marshall, founder of Talking Points Memo, posted on Bluesky that SSA recipients “tend to be old and/or disabled” so the changes aren’t really going to help “if the recipient is a half blind woman in her 80s who may only have a limited education and understanding of complex financial matters.”
For what it’s worth, there are many people younger than 80 who qualify for SSA benefits and still haven’t mastered Facebook and/or a smartphone.
Marshall stressed there was no other way to describe what Musk and his ilk are doing: “DOGE is raping the SSA” and there is a real chance that an institution that works and actually helps millions of people will “simply collapse” due to being even more underfunded and understaffed.
“And all to suit Elon’s whims,” he said.
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