There’s been an uncanny amount of re-shuffling of workers and resources at the Social Security Administration lately – in a feeble attempt to paper over Trump’s reckless cuts in staffing. The latest example of this game of whack-a-mole unfolded last week.
Commissioner Frank Bisignano announced a shiny, new plan to “centralize” medical reviews for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits — which could impact nearly 9 million Americans. (Disabled workers can lose their benefits if they do not pass these periodic reviews.)
This shift yanks the review process away from experienced state Disability Determination Services (DDS) offices, supposedly to boost “accountability.” These medical reviews will now fall under the purview of SSA’s federal Disability Case Review (DCR) team.
We suspect that this move has nothing to do with “accountability,” and really is about “re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” as our senior Social Security expert, Maria Freese, puts it. She points out that Trump’s SSA, after recklessly cutting more than 7,000 jobs when the agency already was understaffed, now finds itself falling short in key areas — and is furiously trying to plug holes.
“The agency has way too much work, with too few people. So they shift around the workload (in this case, SSDI reviews), so that overburdened staff in other areas have to do that work. That ultimately leaves SSA with a deficit somewhere else.” Freese explains. “Eventually, everyone who is reliant on the agency suffers.”
Social Security Commissioner Bisignano has been playing ‘whack-a-mole’ to cover for staffing cuts
Case-in-point: When staffing cuts began to hobble customer service on SSA’s 1-800 phone line, leadership hastily re-assigned other workers (who had little-to-no experience in that area) to fill the gap – rushing them through an insufficient training process.
In a letter to Commissioner Bisignano, twelve Senate Democrats have demanded more information about the rationale for these hasty re-assignments. The letter quotes demoralized and concerned SSA employees:
“We [are] being forced onto the phones to take calls from people wondering what the status of their claim is and where their back benefits are… [when] WE are the workers who process the claims they are waiting for.”
As the Senators point out, “This action is akin to a restaurant manager firing its entire wait staff and forcing its cooks to wait tables as well.”
The Senators worry that Bisignano’s forced re-assignments are “harming Social Security beneficiaries, endangering the accuracy of claims, and wasting taxpayer dollars.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren is one of 12 Democrats demanding answers from SSA (Getty)
Advocates and experts warn SSDI beneficiaries to expect delays, errors, and potential chaos in the claims appeals process. Retirement planner Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group, told Newsweek: “For beneficiaries, this likely means more initial denials and a longer fight to receive benefits, even as the agency (claims to have) improved efficiency.”
Meanwhile, Freese says that these problems were fully preventable – and could be remediated by hiring more staff. “But they don’t want to hire new people, because that would be admitting that they shouldn’t have fired all those workers in the first place.”
As SSA whistleblower Laura Haltzel said of Trump, DOGE, and SSA leadership: “Mayhem is their M.O.” She added, “This is too big. It’s too important. I didn’t dedicate 27 years of my career to the Social Security Administration to watch it dismantled.”
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Listen to our full podcast interview with SSA whistleblower Laura Haltzel here.
Read the letter to Commissioner Bisignano from Senate Democrats here.