American Social Security Administration is in Shambles.
Frankly, this thread may go in a number of places. I will let the crew make the final decision.
There are reports (link below) that Trump/Musk and the DOGE team has reduces the SSA work force by up to 87%. They are closing regional offices throughout the US. Then they said they were going to terminate the call in phone lines--then they said they would not--but seniors are reporting staying on hold for a long time only to be disconnected. They also said the online application process would be terminated, then they said no it will not, but it is a bear to navigate for many seniors.
Two state--Arizona and Michigan--attorney generals have set up a complaint system on their websites for local residents to file complaints if they are having trouble with SSA. More states are expected to follow.
The Trump Administration has now forced Social Security to declare legal immigrants who have a social security number dead in order to force them to self deport. You cannot legally work without a SSN. Then there is the IRS sharing with immigrant taxpayer information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE so they can be tracked down and deported.
For over 90 years the SSA has delivered its beneficiary checks without fail beginning with the great depression, through wars, and economic crisis and even pandemics. Now seniors are reporing they are not receiving the checks they are entitled to have.
This next week Mrs Gramps and I will be receiving our monthly checks. We hope they will arrive on time. While we can get by for a few months without the checks, it would be impossible to go for the full year. I know of many people, though, who would find it extremely difficult to not receive their monthly checks.
It has long been said Social Security is the third rail in American politics, the third rail being the rail that is electrified so trains can move. Touch it and you are dead. Will this be the straw that finally breaks the back of this administration? Will this be the obstacle that will give the Republican lead Congress its backbone or stand up to the fascist administration? Or will it be the one card that will lead to the complete collapse of the house of cards?
I am wondering how other American beneficiaries are coping with all this stuff, for the lack of a better word.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/seniors-struggle-with-social-security-shambles-as-admin-admits-it-can-suck/ar-AA1CGHkw?ocid=BingNewsVerp.
There are reports (link below) that Trump/Musk and the DOGE team has reduces the SSA work force by up to 87%. They are closing regional offices throughout the US. Then they said they were going to terminate the call in phone lines--then they said they would not--but seniors are reporting staying on hold for a long time only to be disconnected. They also said the online application process would be terminated, then they said no it will not, but it is a bear to navigate for many seniors.
Two state--Arizona and Michigan--attorney generals have set up a complaint system on their websites for local residents to file complaints if they are having trouble with SSA. More states are expected to follow.
The Trump Administration has now forced Social Security to declare legal immigrants who have a social security number dead in order to force them to self deport. You cannot legally work without a SSN. Then there is the IRS sharing with immigrant taxpayer information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE so they can be tracked down and deported.
For over 90 years the SSA has delivered its beneficiary checks without fail beginning with the great depression, through wars, and economic crisis and even pandemics. Now seniors are reporing they are not receiving the checks they are entitled to have.
This next week Mrs Gramps and I will be receiving our monthly checks. We hope they will arrive on time. While we can get by for a few months without the checks, it would be impossible to go for the full year. I know of many people, though, who would find it extremely difficult to not receive their monthly checks.
It has long been said Social Security is the third rail in American politics, the third rail being the rail that is electrified so trains can move. Touch it and you are dead. Will this be the straw that finally breaks the back of this administration? Will this be the obstacle that will give the Republican lead Congress its backbone or stand up to the fascist administration? Or will it be the one card that will lead to the complete collapse of the house of cards?
I am wondering how other American beneficiaries are coping with all this stuff, for the lack of a better word.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/seniors-struggle-with-social-security-shambles-as-admin-admits-it-can-suck/ar-AA1CGHkw?ocid=BingNewsVerp.
Comments
This is, ironically, being done in the name of "efficiency". For those who are unaware, the Social Security Administration is one of the most efficient organizations inside or outside the federal government. Total administrative costs are about 0.5% of total program funds. That is, quite frankly, amazing for any large organization. In other words, firing employees or eliminating assistance services won't save much money at all. The only efficiency savings to be had at the organization is if you had already decided that paying out benefits at all is wrong. If that's the case then getting rid of the ways by which recipients make sure their payments are made on time and in the correct amount would make perfect sense.
There is, of course, the unsubstantiated claim by Musk that huge numbers of Social Security checks are sent out fraudulently. If that were true, firing Social Security employees would be the last thing you would do since you would need people to hunt down fraud. The actions being taken only make sense if you start with the premise that Social Security is, in and of itself, a fraud that should not exist.
Of course, the modern GQP has always hated the notion of public money going to anyone but their cronies, so they've been itching for something like this. And of course, the latest administration has learned to be quite proud of "we don't give a damn," so this is all kind of predictable from them.
Chaos and disarray are the goal. Destruction is the point. This is simply organized looting and pillaging. And if the system breaks, then they can just tell their amnesiac base that "well, government can't do anything right so don't expect anything better!" while they line their pockets.
Assuming, though, that "the system break[ing]" means that Social Security cheques go undelivered en masse, I think only the hardcore MAGA types would accept that outcome with anything approaching sanguinity.
I fear a large number of people won't give a shit because they don't and never expect (courtesy of 40+ years of "the trust fund is going to go broke" rhetoric) to collect SS, and another large chunk will convince themselves that everyone complaining is a fraudster and/or lying for political reasons. Too many people will only believe something is wrong if it affects them directly i.e. when the leopard eats their face. People who voted for Trump must necessarily already be engaged in this sort of thinking, the only question is whether there is a tipping point where people wake up to what is happening. And then of course you have all sorts of sunk cost fallacy stuff coming into play because people don't like admitting they were wrong, particularly if they've been conned.
I'm not talking about the government announcing Social Security will be broke in X number of years.
If the next round of cheques are due by a certain date, and are expected to arrive on that date, but don't come on that date, and the government can't give a date when they will arrive, that's gonna be millions of people "affected directly", and it will probably crash the economy.
And no one is going to be assuming that their grandmother complaining about it is a lying fraudster. You'll notice that talking-point didn't survive after Luttnick floated it on TV.
So, just for starters, that's millions of people not being able to pay for basic needs, including retirement-home fees etc. Yeah, that would be a LOT of economic dominoes tumbling pretty hard.
I wasn't thinking of a total stop, more some arriving and others not. with lots of spin about stopping fraud and abuse of the system. They might well target disabled people first, there's usually a ready audience to be told that people are faking illness and injury.
Yes, I was thinking in terms of unintentional but major snafus, rather than intentional but limited ones, the latter of which seems to be what @Arethosemyfeet was envisioning.
As for that latter possibility, I'm personally skeptical that Trump's individual plans have any wider teleological arrangement. For the scenario presented earlier, AreThoseMyFeet seems to think that the GOP would start withholding payments from persons with disabilities, and then expand the attack from there. But they wouldn't get very far, because as soon as it hit the point where large numbers of the general elderly were being denied crucial financial payments(*), public opinion would swing pretty hard against Donald J. and the boys.
(*) What was just so bizarre about Luttnick's mother-in-law anecdote was just how much in contradicted the basic business-sensibilities that Republicans claim as their birthright. A financial consultant, whatever she may think about the welfare state, is going to advise an inquiring client that it would be in his interest to pursue an overdue debt in his favour.