Alarm Raised Over Wall Street Titan at SSA
"Nothing in Mr. Bisignano's career suggests that he understands the unique needs of older and disabled Americans," said the Alliance for Retired Americans' leader.
Critics of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick to run the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, warned this week that the Wall Street veteran may not be the best choice to run an agency that provides one of America's most important social safety nets.
"President-elect Trump has nominated financial software CEO and GOP donor Frank Bisignano to head the agency that administers Social Security benefits for some 70 million Americans. If confirmed, Bisignano will be accountable—not to corporate boards or stockholders—but to the American people, who depend on their Social Security benefits and pay for them over a lifetime of work," said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, in a Thursday statement.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a statement that "nothing in Mr. Bisignano's career suggests that he understands the unique needs of older and disabled Americans."
"We are also concerned that his decades on Wall Street will leave SSA with a cheerleader for risky schemes like allowing investment firms and crypto corporations to gamble with the trust funds and benefits that Americans paid for and earned through a lifetime of work," Fiesta added.
Bisignano was previously an executive at Shearson Lehman Brothers and also held positions at JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. During his tenure at the firm First Data Corp., he was listed as the second-highest paid CEO in the U.S. in 2017, per The New York Times. Bisignano is currently the president and CEO of Fiserv (which merged with First Data Corp. in 2019), a payments and financial technology firm.
"Frank is a business leader, with a tremendous track record of transforming large corporations. He will be responsible to deliver on the Agency's commitment to the American People for generations to come!" Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week.
If confirmed, Bisignano would oversee an agency with more than 1,200 field offices and almost 60,000 employees, according to the Times, and his nomination comes at a time when money in Social Security's trust funds, a reserve that is used to make sure recipients get their full payment, could be entirely depleted by 2035.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers on Thursday signaled a willingness to target Social Security and other mandatory programs after meeting with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the duo that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead a new commission tasked with slashing federal spending and regulations.
In reaction to Bisignano's nomination, Wisconsin state Sen. Chris Larson (D-7) quipped on X: "Why leave a $28 million/yr gig to work in government? My prediction: to cut Social Security."
