73 million retirees, their survivors, the poor and disabled are at grave risk. It is a mistake to mess around with us.
Even AARP is concerned.
And that is saying something since they are barely more than a shill for insurance companies.
The Trump administration (an oxymoron since they seem unable to administer anything) is rapidly destroying one of our few remaining safety nets left, the Social Security Administration.
The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
Mark Miller of Retirement Revisited writes:
What’s the end game here? I worry that it is the partial privatization of Social Security - outsourcing functions to the private sector or using artificial intelligence to interact with the public. We don’t know at this point where this would start, or where it would end. Could privatization extend to actual benefits? At this point, it’s impossible to rule out.
Here’s what we do know: shrinking the public-facing staff in field offices and on the toll-free phone line will have the largest negative impact on the most vulnerable people. These are the folks who are trying to apply for disability benefits or Supplemental Security income, or navigating complex questions around survivor benefits.
My own story is that as a retired teacher on a state pension who worked in the private sector for a couple of decades before changing careers, I lost most of what I paid into Social Security due to the federal laws, the WEP and the GPO.
For a dozen years since retiring I was penalized for becoming a teacher.
In 2024 Congress passed the Social Security Fairness Act and repealed the WEP and GPO going forward.
I now get my full benefit.
So now they start to dismantle Social Security?
Then there is this.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick:
At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”
“She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said.
“Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the processes, who knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he said. “Because my mother-in-law’s not calling, come on, your mother, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds, they trust the government.”
“So, the people who are getting that free money, stealing the money, inappropriately, getting the money, have an inside person who’s routing the money,” he said. “They are going to yell and scream.”
Lutnick (or is it nudnik) is wrong about this.
The 73 million Americans who rely on Social Security live in every congressional district across the country.
Districts with Republican and Democratic representatives.
Watch us yell and scream.
And organize.