SSA Workers Union at US Capitol

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO, which represents most Social Security Administration (SSA) workers, held its annual legislative conference during the second week of February. Union leaders from SSA described to their elected representatives how staffing and funding cuts, disrespect shown to SSA workers, and harmful service delivery changes threaten SSA programs and the public.

AFGE pointed out that 9% of total field staffing was lost between March 2024 and August 2025, shrinking the total SSA workforce to its lowest level in 59 years. About 6,500 jobs were cut overall during the first 9 months of 2025 alone. At least 2,000 more will be lost by October this year.

In Washington State, 11% of field staff were lost, but three Congressional Districts (CDs 3, 5, 8) each suffered losses of 30% or more. Representatives Gluesencamp-Perez, Baumgartner, and Schrier should be complaining especially loudly to the SSA Commissioner and to the White House.

Phone centers lost at least 300 employees (7%), while attempting to handle 15 million more calls (up 20%) than in the prior year. The Commissioner disguised the 800# crisis, in part by excluding busy rates from performance measures, and the time spent waiting for a call-back when there is no available agent. He also reassigned field office staff to answer calls, causing their assigned caseloads (benefit applications, appeals, etc.) to become even more backlogged.

The SSA administrative budget needs to be returned to the 2017 level of 1.2% of benefit outlays in order to restore service, but has shrunk to just 0.85% of benefit outlays. As a result of the cuts, initial disability benefit claim average processing time has risen by 198% to 220 days, and the reconsideration time has increased by 245% to 248 days.

Applicants who proceed to a hearing before an administrative law judge may have to wait an additional year for a final decision. Who can wait two years or more, after becoming disabled and unable to work, to finally receive their earned cash and medical benefits?

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano has shown little or no respect for the personalized service that the public wants and needs from trained employees in their communities. His “digital first” agenda is intended to drive the public to automated self-service, with artificial intelligence (AI) replacing trained employees, even those who make entitlement decisions on disability benefit applications and appeals. The AI chatbot on the toll-free 800# has been found to provide answers to questions other than those being asked, and to hang up on callers. Rushed technology has resulted in systems crashes and double-booked appointments, and does not allow for caller transfers to their assigned case workers.

Each SSA field office employee was required to sign an Alignment Statement this year as part of their most recent performance expectation discussion. To add insult to injury, the statement requires them to support SSA’s goal to reduce the number of public visitors to field offices by 50% this year. Of course, that would mean aggressively steering clients to automated self-service options at every contact.

The public is best served by trained SSA workers in their own communities. Referrals to local service providers for cash and medical assistance are best made by SSA workers from those same communities. State laws vary regarding relationship and dependency, which can determine entitlement to spouse and child benefits. After a lifetime of work, benefit applicants deserve, and have already paid for, the assistance of a trained, knowledgeable SSA employee.

SSA is non-competitive for hiring and retention due to crushing work-loads, inflexible work schedules, loss of work-at-home opportunities, and low pay. Twenty percent of workers have a second job. A recent analysis shows that 54% of frontline workers and 97% of phone center employees make less than a living wage. During last fall’s government shutdown, 82% of employees reported that they struggled to meet basic expenses. Job reclassification and increased pay are long overdue.

Just a few weeks before the Legislative Conference, AFGE learned that the Department of Justice made two Hatch Act violation referrals in December 2025 to the Office of Special Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, concerning activities of two Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees at SSA. The Hatch Act strictly limits political activities of Federal workers.

In March 2025, an unnamed political advocacy group whose stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain states, contacted two DOGE associates (special government employees) at the SSA. The group had obtained state voter rolls, and sought SSA records in order to analyze them. One of the DOGE associates at SSA signed a voter data agreement with the group, potentially to allow use of SSA data to match against voter rolls.

It’s unclear whether the data was shared, and there are concerns that other serious violations occurred early last year involving DOGE operational head Steve Davis. He reportedly was emailed a copy of an encrypted, password-protected file of SSA data, also in March of last year, sent to the Department of Homeland Security.

DOGE employees also used an insecure third-party server, Cloudflare, to share SSA data early last year. The Agency claims not to know what data was shared, or whether it remains on the server. It will be incumbent upon our elected representatives to keep pressing for answers and to insist that the SSA is properly administered on behalf of current and future applicants and beneficiaries. We don’t need the SSA involved in election tampering or immigration enforcement. We do need to show proper respect for SSA workers so that services are fully restored.