Summary
An internal Social Security Administration memo from March 13 reveals plans to require internet identity verification for phone benefit claims, forcing those unable to use online systems to visit physical offices.
The memo, authored by acting Deputy Commissioner Doris Diaz, estimates 75,000-85,000 people would need in-person visits despite month-long wait times and office closures.
This change would severely impact the 40% of beneficiaries who rely on phone service.
Meanwhile, the agency is cutting 7,000 employees (12% of staff) and closing offices. The memo acknowledges these changes will cause “service disruption,” “operational strain,” and “budget shortfalls.”
First things first - the irony that boomers and the poor in red states are the ones to be most impacted by this. So, good for them for getting exactly what they voted for. Congrats! The system worked for them! I hope the coming cratering of their financial worlds.
Now, some perspective. My first client as a young federal consultant was SSA. My project was to transition all of SSA’s call centers from old analog phones to VoIP phones. At that time there were something like 36 call centers from Guam to the east coast providing almost continuous phone support to every American citizen calling in.
And you know what? It’s not just SSA they serve. They also answer and serve Medicare and Medicaid callers needing help. Think it’s just a phone agent in India? You had to be an American citizen, get the job, and then go to 13 weeks of training to handle multiple systems and agency policies. Then, if you got through that, they would sit you as a probie with an experienced agent and then if you passed that, then you were a full time agent.
At the time that we delivered our project, SSA handled upwards of 1 billion calls a year from the American public. There is no system in the world that can replace the people it takes to run that. No amount of AI can work a JAWS terminal. What does that matter? JAWS is assistive reading software for terminals. Ever see someone who is legally blind navigate a system tree and help someone file a death benefit completely by themselves with the caller being none the wiser? I have, and that’s because SSA had a strong mandate to hire employees with disabilities. They even had an entire office dedicated to it. We had agents that were legally blind, deaf, and in one case both. But with assistive technology, so much is possible. Now you eliminate the job that a disabled citizen could do and you cut their benefits and leave them out in the cold on their own? Yeah, that’s this regime for you.
The largest teleservice centers employed over 1000 agents. What will you tell the 1000+ agents who worked in the Birmingham, AL TSC besides “You’re fired”? I’m not sure if anyone has paid attention, but it’s not like the American South has been a hotbed of economic resilience - and now you’re going to spike it with 1000 newly unemployed folks, so have fun with that in this economy and job market.
It’s easy to call trump and elon idiots. They are. They are textbook examples of what syphillis and ketamine do to the brain. But to say they’re just creating a bunch of new unemployment cases is underselling it. They are destroying a service that literally every American calls at some point in their lives, either for themselves or for a loved one (like reporting or starting a death benefit).
They’re too stupid and arrogant to understand the live wire that social security is, for better or for worse. When people stop receiving checks they rely on for food, don’t have any assistance with extortionist healthcare, and can’t get any help with identity theft, maybe they’ll realize how bad this really is