Seniors, rural Americans would bear brunt of DOGE’s SSA cuts

A view of the Winnemucca Mountains are shown from Winnemucca, Nevada, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. WADE VANDERVORT Photo by Wade Vandervort

Imagine you’re an 80-year-old retiree living in Winnemucca, the 8,000-person community and seat of government and commerce in Humboldt County. You rely on Social Security for your monthly income, and you need to update your banking information, home address or other personal information on file at the Social Security Administration (SSA).

For years, this was a simple task: Just call the SSA on the phone, answer a series of questions to verify your identity and speak to a real person who can help update your file or answer your questions. But now, under new rules pushed by President Donald Trump, first bro Elon Musk and SSA Deputy Commissioner Doris Diaz, SSA phone service will be effectively eliminated as of March 31. Instead, you’ll be required to prove your identity by either scanning and sending your most private identity documents over the internet or traveling more than 100 miles to the nearest SSA office in Elko.

The administration claims that these measures are necessary to reduce fraud, but SSA’s own data show that fraud occurred in less than 1% of payments between 2015 and 2022. In reality, the changes to SSA’s phone systems are a sign of the contempt and ignorance that the Trump administration has continuously shown for a wide swath of the American public, including seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and families with children.

While these changes will inconvenience all Americans, they will be particularly hard for those in the West, where internet connectivity is less robust, towns are spread across vast distances and public transit between towns is virtually nonexistent.

Despite significant investment and progress in rural connectivity, in 2024, the FCC estimated that 1 in 5 rural households and 1 in 4 tribal households still lacked access to reliable broadband internet. This statistic is alarming enough, but it becomes even more concerning when combined with the U.S. Census Bureau’s finding that 10% of Americans age 65 years or older — one of the primary demographics Social Security was designed to serve – reside in homes without high-speed internet service, and 20% of Americans 65 years and older do not have a smartphone.

For those who rely on Social Security benefits, many of whom live on fixed incomes, hiring a driver, arranging for a caregiver to take time off work or paying for long-distance transportation to visit an SSA office in person is simply not an option. Yet, by SSA’s own admission, the new rules could force an additional 75,000 to 85,000 people per week to visit already-overwhelmed field offices. Instead of expanding its workforce to handle this surge, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is slashing SSA’s workforce by 12%, closing field offices and extending wait times for in-person appointments that can already take more than a month to secure.

Much of this capricious harassment of retirees can be traced back to DOGE, which has been handed sweeping authority to cut costs, regardless of the consequences. Musk has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and falsely claimed that 10% of federal expenditures are caused by Social Security fraud. The problem, of course, is that Musk and his DOGE staff know nothing about how a functioning government works.

By pushing for such sweeping changes to go into effect so quickly, Trump is demonstrating a base contempt for retirees and other people who rely on Social Security. The SSA’s own internal memo announcing the changes acknowledges the likelihood of “service disruptions” and “operational strain” as a result. It even foresees potential lawsuits.

Many Americans will find ways to adjust to the policy changes with only moderate inconvenience. But for those with physical or mental disabilities — a population that already faces significant accessibility barriers to things to like online portals or reliable transportation — the results could go beyond mere inconvenience and create significant barriers to accessing benefits.

Such casual contempt for seniors, people with disabilities and others who rely on Social Security or other forms of public assistance begs the question of whether today’s inconveniences could be merely precursors for future actions with far more dire consequences.

Trump, Musk and Diaz must immediately reverse these obstructive changes before they take effect March 31. Americans deserve a Social Security system that works for them, not against them.

SSA should preserve phone-based SSA services so seniors and disabled individuals don’t have to navigate complex online systems or travel hundreds of miles for basic assistance. Moreover, SSA should invest in additional staffing and field offices, rather than slashing resources and creating even longer wait times.