{"id":5012,"date":"2026-07-15T17:35:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5012"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:35:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:35:38","slug":"social-security-is-trying-to-stabilize-a-year-after-doge-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5012","title":{"rendered":"Social Security is trying to stabilize a year after DOGE cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<p><span>It has been more than a year since Elon Musk\u2019s cost-cutting squad focused on the Social Security Administration and its vast amounts of data, spread falsehoods about widespread fraud and tried to use the agency to enforce the Trump administration\u2019s immigration agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5010\">Lionel Messi, Argentina look to return to World Cup final, but will have to beat Jude Bellingham, England<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>But one change from the Department of Government Efficiency era left a more lasting mark: the loss of roughly 14% of Social Security\u2019s workforce, which oversees the retirement, survivor and disability benefits paid to 75 million people each month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Today, the agency is in transition. Its commissioner, Frank Bisignano, who took the helm after the DOGE-led reductions, is pursuing major changes to the way the agency interacts with Americans and processes their claims. He recently said technology improvements would ultimately save Social Security the work-hour equivalent of 2,500 full-time employees. The agency is also hiring and has open requests for 1,000 human positions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>But the hole left by the departure of about 7,800 staff members continues to test those who remain, current and former employees said. For the public, that has made it more challenging to secure appointment slots compared with a year ago, and has led to other service-related delays, front-line workers said.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><span>Get Starting Point<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><label>Enter Email<\/label><\/p>\n<div><button>Sign Up<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>\u201cThe look on everybody\u2019s face is they\u2019re beat down, they are demoralized, they\u2019re tired,\u201d said Chris Delaney, a local union president in Hudson, New York, who represents Social Security workers and works for the agency as a claims specialist.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>Reshuffling workers <\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>The job cuts touched the vast majority of Social Security\u2019s 1,200 field offices across the country, most of which lost at least 10% of their staff, according to an analysis from AFGE Council 220, which represents field office employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For the past year, the agency has tried to fill the gap, at least in part, by reshuffling workers to the front lines. This included pulling field office workers from their regular jobs and assigning them to answer calls at the 800 number, in an effort to improve the often hourslong wait times. On July 6, 1,500 field office workers were reassigned to work shifts on the 800 number, according to internal agency data, but 2,500 have been redeployed from across the agency overall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That move, coupled with an upgrade to the agency\u2019s phone system, has improved service. The \u201caverage speed of answer\u201d on the 800 number declined to five minutes in May, from 11 minutes a year ago, but beneficiaries who accept a callback later are counted as having a zero wait time, reducing the average. The average callback time also improved, but the agency stopped reporting that metric on its performance website last summer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019d like to make this more complicated, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s putting people where the work is,\u201d Bisignano, who also serves as CEO of the IRS, said during a congressional hearing last month. \u201cIt\u2019s building technology in a modern-day fashion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With more field officers working the 800 number, there is less time for in-person and phone appointments, staff members say, so fewer time slots are available. As of July 6, 64.6% of appointments for initial claims were scheduled within 30 days, according to internal agency data, down from 78.1% a year ago. Other regional averages were recently far lower, below 45%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5008\">Not hyperbole to say Red Sox\u2019 next 17 games affect not only this season but the franchise\u2019s future<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>But reshuffling field office workers has had ripple effects, union representatives and workers said, exacerbating shortfalls elsewhere. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely disruptive to the workloads,\u201d said Jeremy Maske, a local union president representing front-line employees in field offices in Iowa and Nebraska. \u201cIf you\u2019re assigned to the 800 number once a week, that\u2019s taking a fifth of your time to answer those phones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>During the hearing last month, Bisignano highlighted statistics illustrating where the agency was making progress, including shorter waits inside field offices for people who have appointments, declining backlogs in processing centers and improved processing time for disability claims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cSince Frank Bisignano became the commissioner in May 2025, the Social Security Administration has delivered on the promise of Social Security for the more than 330 million Americans we serve with better, faster, higher-quality service through technology and process improvements,\u201d said Barton Mackey, a press officer for the agency. \u201cOur hiring efforts this year are aligned with the commissioner\u2019s goal to transform service delivery across all channels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>Mounting workloads <\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>But agency employees working on the front lines say the numbers don\u2019t capture the entire picture. \u201cIf you don\u2019t come into the field office at 7 a.m. &#8212; so that from 7 to 9 you can work the back-end workloads &#8212; it is a rarity to get time during the day to be able to process back-end work,\u201d said Angela Digeronimo, a claims specialist and a union leader in New Jersey. Those workloads feel even heavier, she said, when the agency chips away at workers\u2019 contractual rights, especially rights to flexible work policies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The agency is trying to distribute the workloads across the country more evenly. In one of the most significant shifts, it plans to centralize customer service appointments at a national level, whereas now most beneficiaries generally contact their local field offices directly. This shift, being tested in Tennessee and Nevada, could make things more efficient. But there is some concern among advocates and staff, who worry beneficiaries will have trouble resolving problems specific to their state given the expertise of local offices\u2019 staff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The agency set a goal of reducing field office visits by half, by redirecting certain transactions &#8212; like getting a replacement card &#8212; online. But Bisignano has pledged that the agency would not close any offices, allowing beneficiaries to choose whether they want to interact with the agency online, by phone or in person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The agency is also moving swiftly in other areas, such as automating the processing of certain Medicare claims, and providing new ways for beneficiaries to learn the status of their cases, which some advocates praised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Advocates who work with disabled and low-income beneficiaries are tracking the changes, from a more automated phone system to increasing online transactions, carefully. Those recipients\u2019 needs are different and their situations are often more complicated, making it easier for them to fall through the cracks &#8212; especially at an agency that was chronically understaffed even before the DOGE reductions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cYou can\u2019t lose that many people in that haphazard of a manner without an impact on services,\u201d said Devin O\u2019Connor, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research group. \u201cThe question is where or when the harm will be felt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5006\">Trump attorney general nominee Todd Blanche grilled on ICE shootings during Senate confirmation hearing. Follow live updates.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span><i>This article originally appeared in <\/i><i>The New York Times<\/i><i>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The agency has been quietly hiring workers again, and its leadership is focused on improving technology to ease workloads left by the departure of about 7,800 staff members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Social Security is trying to stabilize a year after DOGE cuts - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5012\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Social Security is trying to stabilize a year after DOGE cuts - 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