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"Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down"
A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk has sent the agency into chaos as a new commissioner prepares to take charge.The Washington Post, March 25, 2025
By Lisa Rein and Hannah Natanson
The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones in place of receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. Amid all this, the agency no longer has a system to monitor customer experience because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
/snip
Financial services executive Frank Bisignano is scheduled to face lawmakers Tuesday at a Senate confirmation hearing as President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the permanent commissioner. For now, the agency is run by a caretaker leader in his sixth week on the job who has raced to push out more than 12 percent of the staff of 57,000. He has conceded that the agency’s phone service “sucks” and acknowledged that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is really in charge, pushing a single-minded mission to find benefits fraud despite vast evidence that the problem is overstated.
/snip
Leland Dudek, who became acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk’s team behind his bosses’ backs, has issued a series of rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems. Others have left in disgust.
/snip
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
/snip
Financial services executive Frank Bisignano is scheduled to face lawmakers Tuesday at a Senate confirmation hearing as President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the permanent commissioner. For now, the agency is run by a caretaker leader in his sixth week on the job who has raced to push out more than 12 percent of the staff of 57,000. He has conceded that the agency’s phone service “sucks” and acknowledged that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is really in charge, pushing a single-minded mission to find benefits fraud despite vast evidence that the problem is overstated.
/snip
Leland Dudek, who became acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk’s team behind his bosses’ backs, has issued a series of rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems. Others have left in disgust.
/snip
Here is the link to the article, without the paywall. https://archive.ph/rn8HY
This article in the Washington Post published earlier today, at the same time the confirmation hearings were being conducted for Frank Bisignano. I have been watching the hearing on C-Span, and have not finished yet. I am sure I will have more observations, once done. For now, let me say - looks like another shill who is comfortable bull shitting Senators.
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
was fine until these bastards came in. Maybe we should steal from them. I hate these swamp dwellers.
