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Trump's Latest Corruption: Hijacking Social Security
Like the reflecting pool, the Kennedy Center, and the White House, Social Security is a sacred American institution that Trump is abusing for his own financial and political gain.
Jul 09, 2026
The Trump administration is illegally using the Social Security email list to spew political propaganda. That email list likely includes everyone with an online Social Security account—over 100 million people, both current and future Social Security beneficiaries. The purpose of the list is for the government to share important information about Social Security benefits.
On July 2, the Trump administration sent an email from Commissioner Frank Bisignano, ostensibly to mark America’s 250th birthday. The email, like a similar one sent a year ago, is a fully political document.
Bisignano begins by bragging about President Donald Trump’s tax bill without mentioning:
- Trump’s bill cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which is causing hospitals around the country to close—a disaster for seniors, especially those living in rural areas.
- Trump’s bill gives massive tax cuts to the ultra wealthy, including trillionaire Elon Musk.
- Trump’s bill does not end taxes on Social Security benefits, but does weaken Social Security’s long-term finances.
Bisignano then goes on to tout allegedly improved customer service. Widespread media reports show that customer service has massively deteriorated since Musk’s DOGE pushed out more than 8,000 of Social Security’s most experienced, knowledgeable workers. These reports include first-person stories where even highly educated people with Social Security expertise have faced months-long nightmares to resolve simple errors that cut themselves or their family members off from benefits.
Shortly after Bisignano was confirmed last year, Social Security removed longstanding customer service metrics from its website. Since then, Bisignano has cherry-picked his own metrics and used them to mislead.
Bisignano moved many of the remaining Social Security office workers to answering phones, while other essential work piles up. Then, he brags about shorter waits on the phone. What he doesn’t mention is that if you hang up in frustration, or talk to someone who can’t help you because they aren’t adequately trained, it still counts toward a short wait on the phone. The only metric that really matters is if people are getting the help they need. On that count, Bisignano is failing miserably.
The situation is particularly dire for people who need help in person. The country is dotted with Social Security “ghost offices” that aren’t officially closed (because that’s bad publicity for Trump and Bisignano) but have only a skeleton crew of workers remaining. These offices can’t meaningfully serve the community, and people are losing their hard-earned benefits as a result.
The same week that Bisignano sent out his political propaganda email, the Social Security Administration announced that the Freedom 250 logo will appear on the Social Security Cards of all babies born for the rest of 2026.
Freedom 250 is a semi-private, partisan entity. Trump and his allies are using it to turn the celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary into profit for themselves. Freedom 250 has a history of harvesting data, and employs former DOGE operatives. Bisignano claims that the Social Security Administration isn’t paying Freedom 250 a licensing fee, or sharing data with it. But we already know that Bisignano lies as easily as he breathes.
Trump’s hijacking of Social Security is just the latest example of his corruption. Like the reflecting pool, the Kennedy Center, and the White House, Social Security is a sacred American institution that Trump is abusing for his own financial and political gain.
Social Security is a nonpartisan program, with overwhelming support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. By using it for political purposes, Trump and Bisignano are betraying the American people.
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Who’s Leading Trump’s IRS as Tax Dodgers Run Wild? Apparently No One
Investigations and enforcement actions against rich tax cheats have plummeted amid a leadership vacuum at the Internal Revenue Service.
Mar 10, 2026
A group of Senate Democrats on Monday accused the Trump administration of "evading or ignoring" federal law by leaving the decimated Internal Revenue Service without a permanent leader during tax season, further enabling rich tax dodgers to run wild with no accountability.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has been serving as acting IRS commissioner since President Donald Trump's removal of Billy Long last August, a trio of Democratic senators stressed that "commissioner of Internal Revenue is not an optional role." The lawmakers—Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—also ripped the Trump administration's establishment of the IRS chief executive officer position, calling it a "fake job that Congress never authorized."
Frank Bisignano is currently the CEO of the IRS, splitting his time there and at the Social Security Administration, his Senate-confirmed role.
The Democratic senators note in their letter that, under federal law, Bessent's authority to serve as acting commissioner expired on March 6, "absent a pending nomination."
"No nominee has been submitted," the lawmakers wrote. "Treasury previously assured [Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley] that a nomination would be forthcoming. That assurance has not yet been honored. The clock has now run out."
"Although the IRS is supposed to be nonpartisan, the only two Senate-confirmed positions at the IRS continue to be held 'temporarily' by Treasury officials who have political jobs," the senators added, referring to Bessent and Kenneth Kies, the assistant secretary for tax policy who is also serving as acting chief counsel of the IRS. (Kies was previously a lobbyist who helped corporations and rich Americans avoid taxes.)
During Trump's first year back in the White House, his administration terminated tens of thousands of IRS employees, leaving the long-underresourced agency with even fewer employees to enforce tax law.
Wyden, Schumer, and Warren wrote Monday that "leadership churn" at the IRS has also been "extreme," pointing out that seven commissioner or acting commissioner transitions occurred in 2025 and most of the agency's dozens of "top official positions" were "either vacant or filled by acting officials as of late last year."
The gutting of IRS staff—including a unit tasked with auditing billionaires—and the leadership vacuum at the top of the agency appear to have been boons for rich tax cheats.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported last week that "during the new administration’s first year, the US Internal Revenue Service has referred at most two cases of possible tax evasion by ultrawealthy people or large businesses to its criminal investigators, a sharp drop from previous years."
"Not all criminal referrals trigger further investigation or lead to a prosecution," the ICIJ observed. "But they are a key metric of how vigorously the IRS civil divisions are investigating sophisticated tax dodging among high-net worth individuals. The wealthiest Americans account for a disproportionately large share of tax cheating, according to the US Treasury Department, and experts see sophisticated tax evasion schemes as a big contributor to runaway economic inequality."
Corporate tax avoidance is also rampant, thanks in large part to the latest round of Trump-GOP tax cuts enacted last summer. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted last month that "annual financial reports recently released by Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla disclose that these corporations collectively reported $315 billion in US profits for 2025, and collectively paid just 4.9% of that amount in federal corporate income taxes—with Tesla paying exactly zero."
"The tax avoidance of these four companies alone blew a $51 billion hole in the federal budget last year," wrote ITEP's Matthew Gardner, "and this is likely just the tip of the iceberg."
Citing new disclosures, the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition said Monday that major US corporations "collectively reduced their tax bills by more than $11 billion through tax havens in 2025."
"Meanwhile, American companies are getting out of paying a... US minimum tax, which has been effectively dismantled [by the Trump administration]," the coalition said. "The Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, or CAMT, was intended to act as a backstop to ensure that large, profitable companies pay at least some tax, but has been eviscerated via recent regulatory changes that could be unlawful and unconstitutional."
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Trump Is Out to Destroy the 'Meaning of Social Security'—in More Ways Than One
Trump spent 2025 doing everything in his power to demolish our invaluable Social Security system itself.
Jan 02, 2026
The walls of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which lies blocks from the US Capitol, are decorated with stunning New Deal-era murals. The most famous of these murals, "The Meaning of Social Security," depicts life before and after Social Security. The mural shows the best of America, what we can do when we all come together to build our Social Security system. Thanks to Donald Trump, "The Meaning of Social Security"—along with everything it represents—is now in grave danger.
The Trump administration is making moves to demolish the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, inevitably destroying "The Meaning of Social Security" in the process. Trump plans to take a wrecking ball to this key piece of Social Security’s history, just as he did to the east wing of the White House. But this is about more than just a mural. Trump spent 2025 doing everything in his power to demolish our invaluable Social Security system itself.
Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security. Not surprisingly given his past history, he betrayed that promise over and over again in 2025.
Notably, Trump chose Russell Vought to be his powerful head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought, the lead architect of Project 2025, made the Trump administration’s agenda plain, infamously declaring: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work…”
The very sense of security that lifted us out of the Great Depression is what Trump is destroying—and he wants to erase the memory that another way is possible.
True to that goal, Trump and Vought gave Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unprecedented power over the federal government, including Social Security. Musk and his underlings used that power to:
- Force out thousands of the dedicated civil servants who run Social Security, disproportionately those with the most experience and institutional knowledge. That despite the fact that the Social Security Administration was already extremely understaffed and overburdened, with 12,000 Americans turning age 65 every day.
- Copy the American people’s most personal data to an insecure server for an undisclosed purpose. The data is now vulnerable to hackers—including foreign governments.
- Promote lies about Social Security. Musk and his acolytes falsely claimed that Social Security is full of fraud and improper payments, a lie Trump repeated to a huge national audience during his televised March 4 address to Congress. In fact, Social Security has a payment accuracy rate of over 99%—far better than private sector retirement programs.
In short, Trump, Vought, and Musk spent 2025 creating chaos, havoc, and trauma for the hardworking employees of the Social Security Administration, which translates to vastly diminished service to the public.
Elon Musk is no longer officially in government, but Vought still is, and Musk’s DOGE minions can still be found at SSA. Moreover, Trump’s choice to lead Social Security is Frank Bisignano, a self-described “DOGE person.” Though Bisignano has no background in Social Security, he does have expertise in hollowing out companies.
Before running Social Security, Bisignano was the head of Fiserv, a financial services company, where he laid off thousands of workers. Fiserv’s stock recently dropped by 40%. The company’s current CEO blamed Bisignano, saying that “many of the assumptions and projections set by prior leaders were too rosy.” Bisignano is now a defendant in several lawsuits brought by Fiserv investors.
Bisignano appears to have brought his Fiserv tricks to Social Security. Under his leadership, the Social Security Administration has removed longstanding metrics from its website. Bisignano is touting rosy new metrics, but the truth is that he is cherry picking data. For example, Bisignano says that wait times on Social Security’s 1-800 number are down. What he doesn’t mention is that calls may be picked up by an AI chatbot or by workers who have been diverted from elsewhere and are undertrained in responding to caller concerns. It doesn’t matter how quickly a call is answered if the caller does not get the help that they need.
Moreover, between pushing people out and reassigning others to the 1-800 number, field offices are increasingly understaffed. That means longer waits to get in-person help. Essential work is not getting done. That means millions of Americans may get hit, in six months or a year, with official notices informing them that they have been overpaid, and demanding that within the next month, they pay the government thousands of dollars. Millions more will likely be underpaid but never know it.
Importantly, Social Security is facing a financial shortfall in less than a decade. Rather than addressing it by requiring billionaires like himself to pay their fair share, however, Trump is doing everything he can to make the shortfall worse. His tariffs, record deficits, and other policies are leading to high inflation, which means Social Security is paying out larger amounts. Those policies, together with his deportation of hard-working immigrants, are also leading to unemployment and stagnant wages, so less is being contributed to Social Security.
Though the shortfall is manageable, Trump’s actions give Congress less time to act and increase the chances politicians will go behind closed doors to cut working families’ benefits.
What is happening is unprecedented in Social Security’s 90-year history. No president has come close to undermining it the way Donald Trump has done—and it’s been less than a year. President George W. Bush sought to privatize Social Security, but to his credit, he was totally transparent about his proposal. In stark contrast, Trump is seeking to destroy Social Security in the dark.
The very sense of security that lifted us out of the Great Depression is what Trump is destroying—and he wants to erase the memory that another way is possible. He wants a second American gilded age, with gold-plated everything for elites and suffering for the rest of us.
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Senators Demand Trump Admin Come Clean on Plan to 'Quietly Kill' Social Security Offices
The lawmakers accused the Social Security Administration of "a slash-first, think-later approach," for which "beneficiaries will pay the price."
Dec 11, 2025
Leading Senate Democrats and Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders this week pressed the Trump administration for answers following reports that the Social Security Administration is planning to dramatically reduce visits to its field offices.
"We write with concerns regarding recent reports that the Social Security Administration is reorganizing its field office operations, and has established a goal of cutting the number of field office visits in half—amounting to 15 million fewer visits annually," Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a letter to SSA Administrator Frank Bisignano.
"Given that beneficiaries are already waiting months for field office appointments, and the agency has not shared with Congress or the public on how it plans to achieve this goal, we are concerned that these efforts are in fact part of a plan to 'quietly kill field offices,' implementing a backdoor cut in benefits by making it harder for Americans to access the Social Security customer services they need," the senators said.
"The Trump administration has relentlessly attacked Social Security."
Earlier this month, Nextgov/FCW revealed that the Social Security Administration said in internal documents that it wants “no more than 15 million total” in-person visits to its field offices in fiscal year 2026—or about half the current number of such visits. An anonymous SSA staffer told the outlet that senior agency officials are aiming for “fewer people in the front door" and for "all work that doesn’t require direct customer interactions to be centralized.”
As Warren's office noted Thursday:
The Trump administration has relentlessly attacked Social Security. Under Commissioner Bisignano, the administration has implemented policy changes that make it harder for Americans to get their benefits, including by implementing burdensome in-person and bug-prone identification processes that force millions more beneficiaries to visit field offices each year—at the same time they are slashing SSA’s workforce by around 7,000 and closing regional offices.
Instead of staffing up to meet these needs, SSA’s field office capacity has significantly declined. Beneficiaries are being forced to wait hours to get help—only to be told they will need to call to schedule an appointment.
"We are concerned that your plan is to force beneficiaries onto SSA’s bug-prone website or push them into customer service phone tree 'doom-loops'—which will almost certainly result in delayed or missed benefits for some individuals," the letter adds. "Once again, you seem to have adopted a slash-first, think-later approach to 'modernizing' SSA, and beneficiaries will pay the price."
The senators are asking Bisignano if the reports of proposed SSA office visit reductions are accurate, and if so, how and when the plan will be implemented, how the agency will "provide services to beneficiaries that would otherwise go to field offices," and how the reductions will affect already lengthy wait times and service online users and callers to the agency's 1-800 number.
The lawmakers' letter comes as Republican senators on Thursday voted down a proposed three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, a move that is expected to result, on average, in a doubling of health insurance premiums for around 22 million people. Critics said the vote underscores the need for single-payer healthcare legislation like the Medicare for All Act reintroduced by Sanders and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) earlier this year.
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Demand for Trump's Social Security Chief Bisignano to Resign After $30 Billion Implosion of Former Company
"Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes," said one advocate. "If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know."
Oct 30, 2025
The new CEO of the financial services technology company Fiserv said Wednesday that the firm's financial outlook was grim, sending its stock collapsing by more than 40% and erasing $30 billion in market value—and laid the blame squarely with a Trump administration appointee whom the president has praised as "amazing."
When nominating former Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano as Social Security administrator earlier this year, President Donald Trump said the executive frequently "takes troubled entities and turns them around."
With current Fiserv chief Mike Lyons warning on Wednesday that Bisignano had made major missteps as CEO, overinflating its sales projections and relying on short-term cost-cutting before selling his stock for $500 million, the advocacy group Social Security Works said beneficiaries of the government's anti-poverty program for senior citizens should be alarmed that the former executive is now in charge of their crucial benefits.
"Fiserv lost 40% of its value because the former CEO, Frank Bisignano, is a liar," said SSW. "But Bisignano is Trump's buddy, so he can only fail up. He's now in charge of your Social Security."
Lyons told analysts and investors that when Bisignano was leading Fiserv from 2020 until earlier this year, the company made sales projections that "would have been objectively difficult to achieve even with the right investment and strong execution."
He added that Bisignano made "decisions to defer certain investments and cut certain costs [which] improved margins in the short term but are now limiting our ability to serve clients in a world-class way, execute product launches to our standards and grow revenue to our full potential.”
Translating Lyons' comment, Brett Arends wrote at MarketWatch that "under Bisignano, the company made forecasts it could not plausibly have achieved" and that the former CEO "was chasing short-term quarterly results, not building the business."
"Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?"
Lyons broke the news to investors weeks after a police pension fund sued Fiserv and Bisignano, as well as the new CEO, for "artificially inflating [Fiserv’s] growth numbers."
But along with causing his former company's value to plummet, emphasized SSW president Nancy Altman on Thursday, Bisignano personally benefited from overestimating his firm's performance—selling more than three million shares after he was appointed Social Security administrator for at least $500 million.
"That sale saved him $300 million (and counting) in stock value," said Altman. "Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?"
Altman demanded that Bisignano "resign immediately" from his roles at the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, where he was also named the first-ever CEO earlier this month.
"Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes—despite his total lack of expertise, or even basic knowledge, of either," said Altman. "He infamously admitted that he had to Google ‘Social Security’ when Trump offered him the job. If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know."
Altman called on the US Department of Justice and Congress to launch "immediate" investigations into Bisignano's conduct as CEO of Fiserv, but noted that with Republican allies of Trump running the government, the former executive is unlikely to be held accountable."
"The only recourse," said Altman, "is for Democrats to win control of Congress and make investigating Bisignano a top priority.”
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Defenders of Social Security Furious Over Trump Plan for Part-Time Commissioner
"Every American who has paid into Social Security should be outraged," said one Social Security advocate.
Oct 06, 2025
The Trump administration on Monday announced that Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano would also serve as a the chief executive officer at the Internal Revenue Service, in a move that was panned by defenders of the crucial anti-poverty Social Security program.
As The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Bisignano would be filling the newly created position of CEO at the IRS, even as he retains his duties as Social Security commissioner.
According to the Journal, Bisignano "will report directly to Bessent, who will remain the formal head of the IRS as acting commissioner," and that he "will help implement the administration's vision for the IRS, which emphasizes upgraded technology and retreats from the heavier enforcement initiatives started under President Joe Biden."
Bisignano's appointment comes weeks after Billy Long, the previous IRS commissioner, got ousted from his job after working there for under two months.
Social Security advocates reacted to the move by condemning the administration for creating even more turmoil at the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, slammed the administration for giving Bisignano added duties when he was already "unqualified" to serve as Social Security commissioner.
"Never in Social Security’s 90-year history has a commissioner held a second job," she said. "Bisignano’s new role will leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, especially since Trump hasn’t even nominated a deputy commissioner."
Altman further accused the administration of "allowing Social Security to rot through sabotage and neglect" by downgrading the program's top role to part-time.
Richard Fiesta, executive director for the Alliance for Retired Americans, similarly emphasized that running the SSA was "a full-time job," and said that the Trump administration had already caused "chaos" at the agency by slashing longtime staff members.
"Every American who has paid into Social Security should be outraged," he said. "Americans pay for the workers and administration of the agency through their Social Security withholdings in every paycheck. We expect a full-time commissioner for our money. Instead, we’re now getting a part-time commissioner drawing a full salary from our Social Security taxes."
Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described Bisignano’s appointment as "alarming news" and said it raises "major concerns."
Specifically, Romig warned about potential security breaches of Americans' data at both the IRS and SSA.
"We know that from the beginning they’ve been trying to bulldoze protections of the sensitive data that each agency holds," she wrote in a post on Bluesky. "Early this year, acting heads of both SSA and Treasury were both pushed out over data access"
She then pointed to reports that the Department of Government Efficiency has been working on a "data lake" that uses sensitive information from both agencies "to track and surveil undocumented immigrants" residing in the US.
"This unprecedented arrangement cries out for meaningful oversight to ensure that each agency adequately serves the public, conflicts of interest are resolved, and our most sensitive data are protected," she said.
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'Betrayal': Progressives Pounce as Trump Official Says Raising Retirement Age 'Being Considered'
"Republicans gave away trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy," said US Sen. Ed Markey. "Now they are asking Americans to work longer. We won’t stand for it."
Sep 19, 2025
Trump-appointed Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano on Friday drew immediate fire from many progressives after he said raising the retirement age for American workers was on the table.
During an interview on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo asked Bisignano if he would "consider raising the retirement age" to shore up Social Security's finances.
"I think everything's being considered," he replied.
He said that he would need Congress' help to officially raise the retirement age and acknowledged, "That will take a while," before adding, "But we have plenty of time."
Bartiromo: Would you consider raising the retirement age?
Social Security Administration Commissioner Bisignano: I think everything will be considered pic.twitter.com/kqfMm5Prif
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 19, 2025
Advocacy organization Social Security Works immediately pounced on Bisignano's statement, which it noted contradicted statements made by President Donald Trump during the 2024 election campaign.
"That's a betrayal of Trump's campaign promise to protect Social Security," the organization said in a social media post. "Raising the retirement age by a year translates to a 7% Social Security benefit cut. Forcing us to work longer, for smaller checks, and a shorter retirement is unconscionable!"
In fact, as flagged by former Biden White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates, Trump said in 2024 that "I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicaid and I will not raise the retirement age by one day."
Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich also rebuked Bisignano for floating a retirement age increase, and he proposed an alternative way to improve Social Security's fiscal health.
"A worker making $50,000 a year contributes to Social Security on 100% of their income," he wrote. "A CEO making $20 million a year contributes to Social Security on less than 1% of their income. Instead of raising the retirement age, we should scrap the Social Security tax cap."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) noted that Bisignano's call to potentially raise the retirement age came just months after Republicans passed massive tax cuts through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans.
"Republicans gave away trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy," he said. "Now they are asking Americans to work longer. We won’t stand for it."
The social media account for United Auto Workers delivered a pithy two-word response to Bisignano: "Hell no!"
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The Next Phase in Trump’s War on Social Security: Chatbots
The Trump administration keeps making it harder to access earned benefits.
Sep 05, 2025
Reporting from Kaiser Health News out this week demonstrates that the Trump administration continues to make it more difficult for people to access the Social Security benefits they have earned.
This time, the villain is a phone chatbot, which is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. Obviously, it only makes sense for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to use new tools to become more efficient and help beneficiaries access the system. The question is: Does this or any other technology work for beneficiaries? Last month, SSA reported that fully 41% of all calls had been handled by the AI chatbot. There was no data indicating whether beneficiaries were satisfied with the AI chatbot.
This push toward the increased use of AI at SSA should come as no surprise as the agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, is a former Wall Street executive with a background in technology—in particular around payment processing. Bisignano fully admits that he has little background in Social Security. As ABC News reported in May:
Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, said during a town hall with Social Security managers from around the country on Wednesday that he wasn’t seeking a position in the Trump administration when he received a call about leading the SSA. “So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I'm really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job,” Bisignano said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. “And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”
In theory, the SSA AI chatbot should give beneficiaries prompt and efficient service. Instead, the reporting from Kaiser Health News shows that too many people are getting non-helpful and unrelated responses. The evidence here is certainly anecdotal, but it is nonetheless very significant. Interestingly, the Biden administration was trying to develop an AI chatbot but concluded it was not ready for public usage.
Bisignano’s previous work experience in the financial tech world of payments processing is in some ways like the SSA mission. Obviously, SSA processes millions of payments a month. However, there is a real fundamental difference that must be at the forefront of the discussion: Beneficiaries are far different from customers.
We got a real clear signal as to Bisignano’s state of mind in late June when during a congressional hearing he replied to a Democrat questioning him about staffing levels by saying: “You referred to SSA being on an all-time staffing low; it’s also at an all-time technological high...” Once again, I would argue that technology is a great tool, but it must be used to increase access and build confidence that people will receive the benefits they earned in a timely manner.
SSA has not released any clear statistics about how the AI chatbot is performing. It may not be the best information, but it is worth noting the SSA Facebook page paints a decidedly mixed picture of the AI chatbot.
Concern about SSA’s ability to provide efficient customer service is not limited to congressional Democrats. Back in May, a number of House Republicans sent Commissioner Bisignano a letter saying that:
We commend and support the continued efforts to make our bloated bureaucracy more efficient for the American people. However, we must use caution and consider the impact any changes would have so there are no disruptions in services for our seniors and disabled who depend on the Social Security Administration to receive retirement benefits and supplemental security income.
SSA’s use of an AI chatbot needs to be seen as part of a larger pattern of obfuscation. Consistently, the Trump administration has acted to make it harder for beneficiaries to access their own earned benefits, whether it is through cutting staff or using artificial intelligence. These intentional behaviours drive down satisfaction and confidence in the program.
None of this needs to be that complicated. SSA just needs to focus on meeting the needs of beneficiaries or, as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts put it, “We should be making it as easy as possible for people to get the Social Security they’ve earned.”
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On Social Security's 90th Anniversary, Trump's Attacks on Program Top List of Policies Americans Oppose
Nearly two-thirds of Americans said they disapprove of the Trump administration slashing the Social Security Administration workforce.
Aug 14, 2025
As the US marked the 90th anniversary of one of its most broadly popular public programs, Social Security, on Thursday, President Donald Trump marked the occasion by claiming at an Oval Office event that his administration has saved the retirees' safety net from "fraud" perpetrated by undocumented immigrants—but new polling showed that Trump's approach to the Social Security Administration is among his most unpopular agenda items.
The progressive think tank Data for Progress asked 1,176 likely voters about eight key Trump administration agenda items, including pushing for staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration; signing the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to raise the cost of living for millions as people will be shut out of food assistance and Medicaid; and firing tens of thousands of federal workers—and found that some of Americans' biggest concerns are about the fate of the agency that SSA chief Frank Bisignano has pledged to make "digital-first."
Sixty-three percent of respondents said they oppose the proposed layoffs of about 7,000 SSA staffers, or about 12% of its workforce—which, as progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have warned, have led to longer wait times for beneficiaries who rely on their monthly earned Social Security checks to pay for groceries, housing, medications, and other essentials.
Forty-five percent of people surveyed said they were "very concerned" about the cuts.
Only the Trump administration's decision not to release files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case was more opposed by respondents, with 65% saying they disapproved of the failure to disclose the documents, which involve the financier and convicted sex offender who was a known friend of the president. But fewer voters—about 39%—said they were "very concerned" about the files.
Among "persuadable voters"—those who said they were as likely to vote for candidates from either major political party in upcoming elections—70% said they opposed the cuts to Social Security.
The staffing cuts have forced Social Security field offices across the country to close, and as Sanders said Wednesday as he introduced the Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act, the 1-800 number beneficiaries have to call to receive their benefits "is a mess," with staffers overwhelmed due to the loss of more than 4,000 employees so far.
As Common Dreams reported in July, another policy change this month is expected to leave senior citizens and beneficiaries with disabilities unable to perform routine tasks related to their benefits over the phone, as they have for decades—forcing them to rely on a complicated online verification process.
Late last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted that despite repeated claims from Trump that he won't attempt to privatize Social Security, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act offers a "backdoor way" for Republicans to do just that.
The law's inclusion of tax-deferred investment accounts called "Trump accounts" that will be available to US citizen children starting next July could allow the GOP to privatize the program as it has hoped to for decades.
"Right now, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are quietly creating problems for Social Security so they can later hand it off to their private equity buddies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Thursday.
Marking the program's 90th anniversary, Sanders touted his Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act.
"This legislation would reverse all of the cuts that the Trump administration has made to the Social Security Administration," said Sanders. "It would make it easier, not harder, for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the benefits they have earned over the phone."
"Each and every year, some 30,000 people die—they die while waiting for their Social Security benefits to be approved," said Sanders. "And Trump's cuts will make this terrible situation even worse. We cannot and must not allow that to happen."
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Looming Trump Policy May Mean Longer Wait Times for Millions of Social Security Recipients
Beginning in mid-August, Trump's Social Security Administration will no longer allow seniors to perform many routine tasks related to their benefits over the phone, as they have been able to do for decades.
Jul 30, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's Social Security Administration is rolling out a new policy next month that is expected to further increase wait times for basic services.
Beginning in mid-August, the SSA will no longer allow seniors to perform many routine tasks related to their benefits over the phone, as they have been able to do for decades.
In order to do things like change their addresses, check the status of claims, request benefit verification letters, or ask for tax forms, they will soon need to perform a complicated multifactor online verification process.
As a report published Tuesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) points out:
The new PIN code process will be impossible for many beneficiaries to complete. And if they can't, they'll need to travel to a field office. That will require 3.4 million more people to travel to SSA offices annually, by the agency's own estimates. This will create a significant new burden, particularly for those who live in rural areas or have transportation or mobility difficulties.
CBPP estimated that the restrictions on phone service will result in seniors spending an additional 3 million combined hours traveling to Social Security offices each year.
A previous policy change rolled out in April has already forbidden recipients from using the phone to change their bank account information, which the SSA revealed would require 2 million more people to make in-person visits each year.
The new restrictions to be rolled out next month, the administration's numbers say, will force another 3.4 million people to travel to the offices.
(Graphic: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
Once they reach the office, their waits are also likely to increase. Social Security offices around the country are already increasingly overburdened due to massive cuts to staff by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year.
Nearly 2,000 field office staff took buyouts offered by Elon Musk—who stated his goal to "eliminate" Social Security altogether—and an undisclosed additional number either took early retirements or left.
According to an investigation by the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), these cuts have also increased wait times for phone calls by a hour and 45 minutes on average.
The administration is also now relying on an artificial intelligence program to answer phone calls, which callers have described as "maddening" to use. A Washington Post reporter who tested the system in May found that it struggled repeatedly to answer her basic query about not receiving her check and needing to speak to an agent.
(Video: MSNBC)
Another 1,000 field office staff were reassigned to answer phones in early July after phone lines became overwhelmed following earlier workforce cuts.
While it remains to be seen what effect this will have on call response times, it is expected that this will only exacerbate the increased wait times for in-person services, which will become more heavily burdened due to the new requirements.
Last week, Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official who's now the director of Social Security and disability policy at CBPP, described it as "a deep hole of their own creation," as SSA's cuts meant "you just don't have enough people to go around to serve the public." She said increasing call staff by poaching from already understaffed field offices was like trying to "rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Warren, meanwhile, has accused the SSA of fudging numbers to downplay long wait times. The administration has claimed its wait times are as low as 12 minutes. But when Warren's office tested the call lines in June, it took an average of 102 minutes for calls to be answered—over 8.5 times longer than what the agency claimed—while more than half were not answered by a human at all.
"The SSA is failing to provide policymakers and the public with accurate information about the extent of the problem, using convoluted calculations to obfuscate the real data, or withholding information entirely," Warren said Tuesday.
In a letter sent Friday to SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano, Warren pressed for him to provide "a thorough and expeditious evaluation of wait times for key Social Security services" in compliance with an audit requested by the agency's inspector general.
According to Warren, Bisignano committed to the audit in a meeting between the two, but it was not specified when it would take place.
In the meantime, the issue of long wait times is likely to only grow worse, as the Trump administration plans to eliminate a total of 7,000 employees from the administration by the end of the fiscal year.
Romig and CBPP senior fellow Devin O'Connor wrote Tuesday that "millions of beneficiaries will start to be affected" by the new restrictions on phone calls "within a matter of weeks."
"SSA did not consult with stakeholders before rushing to make this switch," they continued, "and it has yet to announce or explain the change to Social Security beneficiaries, instead burying notice of the change in a technical notice on a regulatory website."
"The agency," they said, "has provided no clear justification for the change other than vaguely citing 'fraud risk,' despite there being no publicly documented problems with completing any of these tasks by phone."
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