President Trump's escalating initiative to drastically reduce the federal workforce has reached the social security administration, a crucial program that keeps millions of older Americans out of poverty, which would reduce his main count by more than 12 percent on Friday.
The Social Security Administration, which sends around 73 million retired and disabled beneficiaries more than $ 126 billion per month, said that there had plans to get around 7,000 employees from the workforce of 57,000 members.
The agency will also close six regional offices that employees in the front lines that serve and support beneficiaries and support and bring the total count to four: in the northeast, southeast, Midwest/West region and southwest. The agency said that the reductions would concentrate on functions and employees “who do not immediately offer mission -critical services.”
Those who do work with beneficiaries hold functions in field offices, hearing hearing offices and payment centers and support the free customer service of customer service.
In the midst of the cutbacks, two dozen senior employees have announced their departure, published on Friday from Leland C. Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. He took the lead after Michelle King, the previous acting commissioner, had left abruptly after he refused to give people who are working on the cost -saving initiative access of the government to keep data closely.
“I have never seen so many senior executives leave the Social Security Administration in one go,” says Jason Fichtner, who has served in various positions at the Agency, including deputy commissioner and chief economist. “So soon after the resignation of acting commissioner Michelle King, this is proof that the agency is in turmoil and needs an experienced leader to take control.”
Democrats in the congress were quickly criticized that the staff reductions of the agency were criticized and said it was inevitable that customer service would be harmed.
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from the State of Washington and vice-chairman of the Senate Credit Committee, said that customer service activities had had historically low staff and insufficient discretionary financing, pointing to 30 minutes of waiting times when beneficiaries receive the toll-free number of calls annually. That is on top of 57 million calls and 30 million visits to the 1200 field offices, according to her office.
“The workforce of SSA will make it considerably more difficult for Americans to get the benefits they have earned – and much more difficult to get the help they need,” she said in a statement.
The cost -saving initiative of the government, known as the Department of Government Efficiency and run by Elon Musk, maintains an online 'Wall of Vouchers', which states how much it claims to have saved by saving federal contracts. (It is littered with errors and is greatly inflated its savings.) The list includes office lease agreements that intend to cancel, including various with regard to the social security administration.
The Social Security Aged General Committee, a trade union that represents 42,000 social security employees, said that the staff was already at a lowest layer, while the number of beneficiaries increases by 10,000 people every day.
Rich Couture, spokesperson for Age, said that the office had operational costs of less than 1 percent of the annual payments and was very efficient.
Social security has been a crucial part of the social safety net since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law that created it in 1935, and it was designed to be self -sufficient. It has a special source of income from payroll taxes that split employees with their employers.
The program has been confronted with a financing deficit for years, partly due to demographic shifts. Falling birth crates mean that fewer people pay in the program, thousands of baby boomers go for a daily retirement and pensioners live longer and collect benefits for longer periods. Moreover, due to the income inequality, a larger share of the country's income basis is not subject to the tax compared to the recent years. This is because an ever -increasing share of the income of high earners is not subject to payroll taxes.
The Trustfonds that pays the retired benefits of social security is expected to be dry in 2033 if the tax revenues will be sufficient to pay 79 percent of the planned benefits. This means that the checks of the beneficiaries would be reduced by 21 percent if the congress did not intervene.
It is expected that different policy initiatives from President Trump will deteriorate that shortage.
Kate Conger And Mark Miller contributed reporting.
