MAGA is looking to slash the number of in-person visits at Social Security Administration field offices by more than half before the end of the current fiscal year.
Between October 2024 and September 2025, roughly 31 million benefits recipients attended the body’s field offices across the country, according to NextGov/FCW, a news site covering federal government technology issues.
Internal documents obtained by the outlet apparently suggest the SSA now wants to see that number reduced to a maximum of 15 million before the end of next September.
President Donald Trump, whose administration has otherwise embarked on a rabid campaign of deep cuts to the federal bureaucracy, repeatedly assured voters on last year’s campaign trail he would “not touch” Social Security save to root out fraud and abuse.
Since he assumed office in January, his administration has nevertheless overseen the largest cuts to the SSA’s budget in the agency’s history, slashing its workforce by more than 7,000 employees and leaving just one agency worker for every 1,500 beneficiaries of payment schemes.
The SSA, under the management of Commissioner Frank Bisignano, has framed the new closures as part of a wider push to encourage welfare and other benefit recipients to engage with the body online, rather than relying on in-person visits.
“They want fewer people in the front door and they want all work that doesn’t require direct customer interactions to be centralized,” one agency employee told NextGov/FCW. “They appear to be quietly killing field offices.”
“Everything they are doing is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and hoping that will make space in the lifeboats,” another employee said, adding there’s no chance the agency will meet any of its present service goals “without more staff.”
News of the upcoming closures hasn’t gone over well across the political aisle. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren described it as “another way to make it even harder for Americans to get the benefits they’ve earned,” with her colleague Senator Ron Wyden adding it’s hard to see how these measures “will lead to anything other than worse service and more challenges at Social Security.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the SSA for comment.
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