This month the Social Security Administration’s former acting commissioner stepped down from her position at the agency after DOGE requested access to Social Security recipient information. The new acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, promptly informed management they had to produce a plan to eliminate half the workforce at headquarters as well as offices across the country. Now I don’t know if it seems like this to you, but it seems to me Dudek is in Muskrat’s and DonOld’s hip pockets. That’s a pretty steep demand for someone brand new to the position.
This is going to hit hard across the country. The SSA was already understaffed and now to add this in could damn near be catastrophic. Hold times on the 800 number will skyrocket. Many people won’t have an office to go to anymore. It will hit hardest for seniors in rural areas. And how much do you want to bet that the rural offices will be the first ones closed? It seems that would be their first choices – the places where it’s needed the most. It certainly fits in with Leon sKum’s modus operandi right now.
We seem to be okay with the actual benefits right now. And since that affects me personally, I have a tiny sigh of relief. I don’t want it to be too loud and get noticed. Except there’s a caveat to that. The fund faces a looming bankruptcy level in 2034, with only being able to support 83% of the amount people deserve after that point. I’m just hoping the Confused Carrot won’t figure out a way to drive it into the ground before then. And I have to hope he’ll be gone in 4 years and that whoever follows him is less of a dick. If it’s another Republican, all bets are off.
And, of course, by this point, DOGE has embedded itself into SS systems. So now they have twice as much personal, private information – since they already started in Treasury systems. These people haven’t been vetted. They haven’t cleared a background check. They don’t have the necessary clearance. Nothing. But they’re getting their sticky fingers into every aspect of our lives and I consider that to be a BIG concern. If they’re messing around with the computer systems, which I think they are, what are the protections for that being made public by “accident”? And there’s really nothing we can do to stop them anymore.
So for now, Social Security is okay. You just won’t be able to get the support you had before very easily. You may have to make an appointment for days or weeks in the future. You’ll have to wait on hold for who knows how long. All in the name of shrinking the federal workforce to save money. But we won’t see any of the savings. Please let them NOT cut Social Security.
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desperate politeness
Yup, Susan, I too have a dependence on that Social Security check. I feel very lucky that the check is only half my income. I am a retiree from two jobs that also provide me monthly checks. I can only imagine the fear if I didn’t have those.
The only small faith I hold onto about Social Security is that even rich idiots realize that, for most of us oldsters, every cent of that check gets spent at Walmart and Amazon and whatever grocery store and utility and gas station and pharmacy and elsewhere. Rich men salivate over our monthly checks and don’t want to dry up a large portion of the revenue they get their grubby little mitts on every time we get our automatic deposits in our accounts!
Of course they would love to just take that money directly from the Treasury without us as the middleman! But even they are not ready to share it with each other…those fights among rich boys would get very bloody!! 🥵🤕
We had to.go to the local.office, which required making an appt online..If you call, you’re online for 15 minutes. I expect that to double now.
And anyone with access to personal.info like SS and Treasury should be required by law to.pass a background check. These little gobshites shouldn’t have access to anything. Since Elmo is the Muskrat,,I.am.hereby christening his interns Sewer Rats.
People want to believe that their government would never purposely harm them, and for all of my life, that has been largely true. But now we have the richest man in the world along with his unvetted boy band rooting in all our most private information looking to rut us all. I can hear people now thinking things like, they would never do that! If you still think they wouldn’t, you haven’t been paying attention.