The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans, according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information. The changes would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 elderly and disabled adults per week would be diverted to field offices. This comes even as the Trump administration slashes jobs and closes offices at the agency. Officials in the Social Security Administration who spoke with reporter Judd Legum, founder of Popular Information, have told him that there is an “effort to break the organization.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new, what they call, anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans. This is according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information.
Authored last week by Acting Deputy Social Security Administration Commissioner Doris Diaz, the changes proposed in the memo would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. According to the memo, customers applying for retirement and disability benefits would be required for the first time to verify their identity through an online system. If their identity can’t be verified online, they would have to visit a field office in person. The memo estimates that 75,000 to 85,000 people per week would be diverted to field offices, because a large number of elderly and disabled adults do not have access to a computer or a smartphone and would be unable to complete the online identify verification requirement. The memo acknowledges the strain this would place on vulnerable populations, and lists service disruption, as well as legal challenges and congressional scrutiny, among the risks of the proposed changes.
A day before the memo was sent, The Washington Postreported Social Security Administration was considering ending telephone service for all claims, under pressure from DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Hours after the Washington Post report came out, the agency issued a press release claiming telephone services would not be eliminated. The proposed changes to Social Security come as DOGE is targeting the agency for staff cuts of more than 12%. We’re talking about a lot of these offices being closed or severely limited in staffing, and yet a deluge of people would be forced to go to these satellite offices, some of them already closed.
For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Judd Legum. He is founder of the political newsletter Popular Information, which first reported the memo.
Judd, lay it out for us. What are the threats to Social Security right now?
JUDD LEGUM: Well, one thing, Amy, that we know is that this is no longer a proposal. This is now happening. The Social Security office came out late yesterday with a press release at a news conference announcing that these changes were taking place.
And there’s a number of things that are happening, but the primary one that’s of concern is that as Social Security closes down field offices, as they reduce the number of staff who is available to speak with people making claims, they’re going to require tens of thousands of people weekly to come into these offices. And the people that I’m speaking to at the Social Security Administration believe that this is an effort to break the organization, that there is no way, even at current staffing levels, for them to deal with this number of influx of people into their offices, and that it will create chaos. And, indeed, those implications are laid out in this memo itself, which I obtained and published earlier this week.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Judd, what about this claim that Elon Musk has made that as much as 10% of Social Security payments are fraudulent? What do you know about what the actual numbers are?
JUDD LEGUM: Yeah, there’s no basis for that claim. The best estimates from the government is that 1% of payments are inappropriate, but those aren’t necessarily payments that are related to fraud. It’s generally payments that are related to either the government or individuals not updating their records.
So, what’s happening here, as well, and I think it’s important to understand, is that this ID verification is — they’re imposing this at the time of people applying for a claim. And there are no benefits at the time of application. After you make that application for a claim, depending on the kind of claim, there are many steps that are already taken by Social Security to verify your identity. They’ll look at pay stubs. They’ll look at employment records. If it’s a disability claim, they’ll look at medical records. There’s all these steps that are taken to verify that you are who you say you are, and you are, or not, entitled to the benefits that you’re seeking. So, the idea that this point, the point in which you’re initiating a claim, is the point in which you need to impose this ID verification that requires people, many people, to come into the offices, to fight fraud, just doesn’t make any sense, because no benefits are being distributed at that point in the process anyway.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to go back to this issue of the staffing levels, with DOGE planning about a 12% staff cut, about 7,000 employees. Yet Social Security staffing is at a 50-year low, exactly at the time when more people are on Social Security than ever before, and those numbers are bound to grow over the next couple of decades.
JUDD LEGUM: Yes. This was a problem — this predated the second Trump administration. I mean, this has been a problem, as you note, for many years. And actually, just beginning — at the beginning of January, before the Trump administration was put into place, there was a new rule for Social Security that you can no longer drop in. You can no longer simply show up at a Social Security office. You have to make an appointment. And depending on where you live, there was a wait time, on average, of 30 days. That’s the average. Of course, some people are waiting even longer than that.
And so, now we have a situation, then you’re layering on top of this a significant staff cut. There’s already been thousands of people who have left through the Fork memo that was sent out, through other voluntary retirements. They’re trying to cut about 7,000 in total.
They’re also closing dozens of these field offices. And that’s very significant, too, because already, even before these closures, some people would have to travel a hundred miles or more to get to their field office. It’s not necessarily the case where it’s around the corner. Of course, some people are lucky: They might be near an office they have to visit. But others are many, many miles away, and those commutes are going to be even longer.
And what the memo mentions, somewhat elliptically, but I think is important, is that especially when you’re talking with very elderly or disabled populations, there are people who simply cannot make it to the office, to these offices. They are not able to travel. And there’s really no provisions laid out in this plan to accommodate those people.
AMY GOODMAN: Judd, before we go, I wanted to ask you about the newsletter Musk Watch that you run, which focuses on reporting on billionaire Elon Musk’s wealth, power and influence. And last week, you launched the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker to see what’s being cut and who’s being impacted. And Musk has gone after it, as well. Talk about what you found.
JUDD LEGUM: Well, we really looked very closely at this website that Musk has put up, and tried to see — he’s claiming over $110 billion in savings. How much are actually itemized? Only about $30 billion. But then, how much are verifiable? When you actually look at the actual primary sources, how much can you actually determine has been cut? And it’s more around the range of $8 billion. So, what we found is he is vastly overstating the number of cuts. That doesn’t mean the cuts aren’t devastating. If you’re cutting a grant that’s helping people avoid deadly diseases in other — abroad, that could have a big impact. But the size of these cuts is not something that’s going to make any kind of impact on the deficit, at least at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: And Musk has attacked it?
JUDD LEGUM: Musk has attacked it, essentially saying that we were claiming he’s not cutting enough. That’s not what we’re saying. But, yes, I don’t think he appreciates people taking a close look at his claims. But I think that’s important.
The website he set up really doesn’t provide enough transparency, and so we’ve set up this Musk Watch DOGE Tracker to try to really drill down. You can look at each individual cut. You can look at it by state. You can look at it by congressional district. You can see exactly how much in each — for each grant that he is overstating the savings. So, it’s all right there for people to learn for themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: And we just have five seconds, but do you think they’re attacking Social Security to privatize it?
JUDD LEGUM: I don’t know exactly what the end goal here is, but I think they’re — when you’re looking at trying to get a trillion dollars in savings, you’ve got to look at programs like Social Security, and so that’s why there is an attack on it, which is what this new system is.
AMY GOODMAN: Judd Legum, founder of Popular Information and Musk Watch. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.