Two Months Ago, Lawmakers Celebrated a Bipartisan Boost to Social Security. Now, DOGE is Cutting the Agency.

Exactly two months ago, President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act, a bill to increase Social Security benefits to millions of Americans. The bill received support from 76 members of the U.S. Senate and 327 members of the House of Representatives, meaning that it passed with massive bipartisan support.

The bill repealed two provisions—the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO)— that reduced Social Security benefits for certain public sector workers. With those provisions gone, millions of teachers, nurses and other public employees (and their spouses and survivors) will have more money—an average of $360 per month—in their pockets each month.

I’ve been encouraging my own mother, a retired public school teacher, to visit one of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) 1,200 field offices or use its toll-free number to find out whether she’s among the nearly 3 million Americans who will benefit from the change.

If she calls, she’s going to have to be patient.

Each year, the field offices handle 57 million calls and 30 million in-person visits, while the toll-free line takes in 80 million calls of its own. Staffing at the SSA peaked in 2009, when it had about 67,000 employees who served close to 55 million people. Last year, the program served approximately 69 million Americans, yet staffing had fallen to a 50-year low.

And now, at the behest of DOGE, acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has announced that the SSA is cutting 7,000 of its 57,000 workers and closing six of its 10 regional offices. That means even fewer employees to answer questions and process benefits, just as the Social Security Fairness Act brings more Americans into the program.

As Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has warned, “Gutting S.S.A.’s work force will make it significantly harder for Americans to get the benefits they have earned—and much harder to get the help they need.”

And we’re not just talking about longer lines at field offices and longer hold times, which will be bothersome but ultimately non-life-threatening. According to former Social Security Administrator Martin O'Malley, 72.5 million Americans might not receive their Social Security checks on time this year.

"Ultimately, you're going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits," he said. "I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days." People should start saving now in anticipation of this, he warned.

That would be an unprecedented event.

For more than 85 years, the SSA has never missed a payment. If that were to change, it would cause anger, hardship, and, for the roughly 1-in-4 Americans who rely entirely on Social Security for their income, maybe even loss of life.

I wonder who voters will call when they can’t reach anyone on the switchboard at the SSA.