More than a year after a sweeping workforce reduction tied to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Social Security Administration is still grappling with the loss of nearly 8,000 employees, even as agency leadership points to gains in technology and customer service.

The agency, which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to approximately 75 million Americans each month, has seen its workforce shrink by about 14% since the DOGE-directed cost-cutting initiative began, according to a report published Wednesday by The Washington Post.

Current and former employees say the staffing losses continue to place significant pressure on daily operations, despite ongoing recruitment efforts and a broad modernization campaign.

Since taking over the agency, Commissioner Frank Bisignano has prioritized updating Social Security’s systems by increasing automation and encouraging greater use of online services.

Bisignano has said the technological improvements are expected to save the equivalent of 2,500 full-time work hours, while the agency has begun hiring for roughly 1,000 new positions.

Even so, employees and union representatives say the departure of approximately 7,800 workers has left offices across the country struggling to keep up with demand.

“The look on everybody’s face is they’re beat down, they are demoralized, they’re tired,” Chris Delaney, a claims specialist and local union president representing Social Security workers in Hudson, New York, said.

According to the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents employees in field offices, the vast majority of the agency’s roughly 1,200 local offices lost at least one-tenth of their staff during the workforce reductions.

To compensate for staffing shortages, the agency has reassigned thousands of employees to help answer calls on its national 800-number. Internal figures show that as of July 6, about 1,500 field office employees had been assigned to phone duty, while approximately 2,500 workers had been reassigned across the agency.

Officials say those staffing changes, along with upgrades to the telephone system, have significantly improved response times. Agency data show that the average wait to reach a representative dropped from 11 minutes a year ago to five minutes in May. However, callers who opt for a callback are recorded as having no wait time, and the agency no longer publicly reports the average length of time required for callbacks.

“I’d like to make this more complicated, but it’s not. It’s putting people where the work is,” Bisignano told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month. “It’s building technology in a modern-day fashion.”

Employees, however, say the improvements in phone service have come at the expense of other critical functions.

Agency data indicate that as of July 6, only 64.6% of appointments for initial benefit claims were scheduled within 30 days, down from 78.1% during the same period last year. In some parts of the country, that figure recently fell below 45%.

Union officials argue that shifting field office staff to phone duty reduces the time available to meet with beneficiaries in person and slows the processing of claims.

“It’s extremely disruptive to the workloads,” Jeremy Maske, a union president representing frontline employees in Iowa and Nebraska, said. “If you’re assigned to the 800 number once a week, that’s taking a fifth of your time to answer those phones.”

Bisignano has highlighted other areas where he says the agency has made progress, including shorter wait times for customers with appointments, smaller claims backlogs, and faster processing of disability benefit applications.

The Social Security Administration is also testing a nationwide appointment scheduling system that would replace the current local office scheduling process. At the same time, officials have expanded online services, including the ability to request replacement Social Security cards electronically, while pledging to keep field offices open and continue offering assistance in person, by phone, and online.

Advocates for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and low-income Americans warn that reducing staff while relying more heavily on automation could create additional obstacles for beneficiaries with complicated cases.

“You can’t lose that many people in that haphazard of a manner without an impact on services,” Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said. “The question is where or when the harm will be felt.”

{Matzav.com}