Senators Gillibrand, Wyden Lead A Group Of 21 Senators In Demanding That The Trump Administration Stop Their Attacks On Social Security

Apr 10, 2025
Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Senator Ron Wyden, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, led a group of 21 senators in a letter calling on the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to stop their attacks on Social Security.
This letter comes in the wake of the administration’s repeated actions to weaken the Social Security Administration (SSA), which include staffing cuts, plans for indiscriminate closures of field offices around the nation, and limits to phone services. These cuts are upending the lives of older adults and people with disabilities who rely on the Social Security benefits that they have earned to pay their rent, purchase groceries, and afford medical bills.
“The changes undertaken by SSA leadership and the DOGE disregard the reality of daily life for those millions of Americans,”wrote the senators.“They are spearheaded by the out-of-touch, unelected leadership of the DOGE. They hurt our nation’s older adults and people with disabilities—our grandparents, our friends, and our neighbors. And they risk debilitating the Social Security System and denying Americans the money they are owed.”
In addition to Gillibrand and Wyden, the letter to Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek was signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Peter Welch (D-VT), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Jack Reed (D-RI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
The full text of the senators’ letter is availablehereor below:
Dear Acting Commissioner Dudek:
We write to denounce the incessant havoc sparked by the Trump Administration’s continual cuts to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Changes implemented by SSA leadership and the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) include heinous staffing cuts, plans for indiscriminate closures of field offices around the nation, and limits to phone services. It is difficult to see how DOGE’s attacks on the SSA, and the complicity shown by SSA leadership, will improve efficiency when we are already hearing stories upon stories of how SSA’s changes have damaged the system responsible for ensuring timely, accurate payments—upending the lives of older adults and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security benefits that they earned to pay their rent, groceries, and medical bills.
Social Security lifts 22 million Americans, including 16 million older adults, out of poverty. Many older adults rely on Social Security for life-saving sustenance—to ensure they have food to eat, a roof over their heads, and money to pay for medications. In fact, 40 percent of older Americans rely on Social Security as their only source of retirement income. Over seven million veterans received a Social Security benefit in 2024, while SSDI and Supplemental Security Income serve millions of workers with disabilities and their children. DOGE’s attacks on the SSA will break down access to services, affect timely and accurate payment of benefits,6 and have disastrous consequences for Americans everywhere.
It is precisely because older adults, people with disabilities, and other deserving Americans count on Social Security that we are deeply concerned with efforts by DOGE and SSA leadership to impede access to SSA services. SSA has announced plans to slash at least 12 percent of its workforce, and offered a buyout incentives to staff, at a time when SSA staffing is at a 50-year low. SSA has also announced plans to close six of its ten regional offices, which coordinate and support the efforts of SSA employees. DOGE, meanwhile, has placed dozens of SSA offices across the country on the chopping block. At the same time, SSA has decided to limit the services it makes available over-the-phone, after backing down from broader restrictions following an outcry by older adults and people with disabilities. SSA’s new limits on over-the[1]phone services are still unacceptable, and the process used by SSA—swift revisions after public outcry—suggest the agency is not talking to the Americans who rely on Social Security the most before it makes its decisions. Instead, it appears that SSA leadership is pushing out half-baked ideas that lead to public confusion and panic.
SSA leadership should strive to serve the public, not Elon Musk and his cronies with the DOGE. We are already witnessing the consequences of SSA’s complicity in DOGE’s irresponsible actions and cruel intentions. Scammers have taken advantage of the confusion surrounding SSA changes to defraud older adults. The SSA website crashed 4 times in 10 days because servers were overloaded; phone wait time and foot traffic to field offices have skyrocketed. This chaos does not create “efficiency.” It harms older adults and people with disabilities while undermining a program that is already efficient: Even as Social Security uplifts millions of older adults and people with disabilities, less than one percent of Social Security payments are improper—a percentage that includes underpayments as well as overpayments.
We are pleased that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is skilled with technology, lives his life with unfettered access to services, and has not experienced what it is like to live with a severe disability or financial hardship. We are also pleased that the Trump Administration’s supposed “leadership” is comfortable enough to believe older adults will not mind a missed Social Security payment. However, their experiences do not reflect the experiences of millions of Americans who rely on Social Security. The changes undertaken by SSA leadership and the DOGE disregard the reality of daily life for those millions of Americans. They are spearheaded by the out-of-touch, unelected leadership of the DOGE. They hurt our nation’s older adults and people with disabilities—our grandparents, our friends, and our neighbors. And they risk debilitating the Social Security System and denying Americans the money they are owed.
In light of our concerns, we ask that you answer the following questions:
Please answer the following questions about potential SSA field office closures:
If SSA does not plan to collect feedback from older adults and people with disabilities in this fashion, please explain why.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please respond by April 22, 2025.
Sincerely,
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