Helen Farnham

8 May 2025

When I applied for my Learner’s Permit Driver’s License, I arrived just after the Driver’s License Center opened, eager to beat the lines and start driving – only to wait four and a half hours just for the chance to take the brief, ten-minute Learner’s Permit test. This experience is likely all too familiar for the hundreds of millions of Americans who need to access government offices to obtain driver’s licenses, passports, and other government documents and to receive social security benefits, including Retirement, Disability, Medicare, and SSI. Luckily for me, a larger Driver’s License Center opened in my area soon after, providing me with a more efficient option where I could acquire needed documents in under an hour in most cases. However, many Americans are not so lucky, and under current policies, long wait times (and their associated administrative burdens) in widely used Social Security Administration offices may see an increase. 

Despite claims from the White House that the Social Security Administration would remain untouched by vast spending reduction efforts, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) webpage boasts about the forced closures of forty-seven Social Security Administration (SSA) sites (as of early April)[1]. Furthermore, the agency recently announced a plan to reduce the SSA’s workforce by 7,000 people [2]. According to the Center for American Progress, “…when field offices close, the number of people receiving disability nearby falls by 16%, cutting families off from lifesaving supports”[3]. These actions pose a grave danger to the millions of Americans who rely on Social Security benefits.

In 2023, almost twenty-eight million people accessed SSA services in person, with over three million of these individuals facing wait times longer than an hour [4]. Three of the major causes of lengthy wait times identified in the 2024 SSA Inspector General report are the number of customers, staffing, and appointments; all of these are negatively impacted when offices are closed and employees laid off. Furthermore, this report states the high rates of employee departures from 2021 to 2022 led to “a loss of institutional knowledge across [the] agency… translating into higher costs and potential degradation of customer service” [4]. In the past couple of months, over forty SSA jobs have been eliminated, and many more are expected to be removed [5]. Given the relative job insecurity, many more employees are likely to leave preemptively and seek more secure employment elsewhere. These losses will likely lead to increased delays, wait times, and errors in services, increasing the administrative burdens placed upon people seeking services.

The loss of employees and office locations can increase learning and utilization costs, contributing to the administrative burdens experienced by those who need SSA benefits. Unpredictable, lengthy wait times can make it increasingly difficult for people to access social services. Many SSA locations operate on a nine to five (or similar) weekday schedule, meaning many may have to miss work or find childcare to access services. 

Additionally, people may face different challenges accessing Social Security Services depending on where they live. The twenty-six offices reported to be closed this year are distributed across rural areas and larger cities [1]. In rural areas and small cities, this may be the closure of the only nearby SSA office, which can effectively prevent many elderly and disabled people, particularly those who lack transportation, from accessing assistance. In larger urban areas where there may be other nearby SSA offices, closures can still lead to longer waits and delays as the understaffed remaining SSA locations are forced to serve a much larger population than they previously had capacity to serve.  

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wrote a letter to the Acting Commissioner of the SSA outlining the harms facing her constituents if the hearing office in White Plains, New York closes as it is currently slated to. She writes that “if SSA does not open an alternative site, beneficiaries will be required to travel between 24 and 135 miles to be serviced…” [6]. She discusses how this dramatic increase in distance between people and their closest SSA hearing office would be incredibly disruptive, particularly for those seeking redetermination hearings after an initial denial of services [6]. Accessibility to hearing offices is another important component to think about when considering the variety of different services that are at risk of being disrupted. 

While there have been efforts to increase virtual services, these options are still frequented by errors and dysfunction. According to the Inspector General Report, thirty-three percent of a sample of customers attempted to access services online but faced difficulties that prompted them to go in person instead [4]. In order for virtual services to be used as an effective replacement for human workers, further investment, both monetary and timewise, is necessary. Currently, congressional appropriations determine funding for the SSA. While cutting costs is an important goal, investment into improving and expanding virtual services has the potential to save costs in the long run and reduce the need for so many in-person locations.

However, in order to address these issues and minimize the learning costs placed on customers, the SSA should retain as many current employees as possible, ensure that American communities have a sufficient number of offices to adequately serve their populations, and improve the accessibility and quality of online services. 

Retaining experienced employees is an important way for the agency to prevent turnover, which can become very expensive, as well as loss of knowledge, which can lead to reduced efficiency. Additionally, maintaining enough in-person locations to support local populations is another important way to improve accessibility to services, whether it be through continuing to have multiple open locations in urban areas (so that wait times can be managed) or opening offices in remote communities. A careful assessment of the needs of different areas is essential in making sure that every American can receive access to important services. 

Increasing the quality of online services while simultaneously expanding awareness of these services is another important way to improve access to services and reduce wait times at in-person sites. Office managers estimated that up to ninety percent of people who visited in person could have accessed services virtually [4]. Currently, customers can apply for benefits and appeals, receive status updates, and request replacement Social Security Cards online (although there is some variation depending on location) [7].  Streamlining these websites to make them easier to navigate, as well as increasing public knowledge about virtual services, are important ways to improve access to necessary services. The Inspector General’s report suggests that “search engine marketing, public service announcements, radio advertisements, television advertisements, media articles, blog posts and social media” are all mechanisms that can be used to improve public knowledge [4]. This will also reduce the number of people who utilize in-person services, alleviating some of the pressure of overburdened offices and reducing lengthy wait times and delays.  

In my area, the opening of a larger, well-staffed Driver’s License Center led to reduced wait times and increased efficiency at both centers, improving the ease and experience of the thousands of people who utilize those locations. Likewise, ensuring that there are enough SSA employees, physical locations, and accessible online services is essential for reducing the obstacles and hardships facing the millions of Americans who seek access to the various social programs provided by the Social Security Administration.

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Image via Pexels Free Photos

Works Cited

[1] “Savings.” Department of Government Efficiency, 24 Feb. 2025, doge.gov/savings.

[2] Lopez, Ashley, and Jenna McLaughlin. “The Social Security Administration Says It Plans to Cut Some 7,000 Jobs.” NPR, NPR, 28 Feb. 2025, http://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5296986/trump-worker-cuts-social-security-administration. 

[3] Williamson, Molly  Weston. “Cuts to the Social Security Administration Threaten Millions of Americans’ Retirement and Disability Benefits.” Center for American Progress, 12 Mar. 2025, http://www.americanprogress.org/article/cuts-to-the-social-security-administration-threaten-millions-of-americans-retirement-and-disability-benefits/#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20when,families%20off%20from%20lifesaving%20supports. 

[4] Ennis, Gail S. May 2024 ed., Office of the Inspector General Social Security Administration, 2024, Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/152307.pdf (No. 152307).

[5] Hager, Eli. “Anxiety Mounts Among Social Security Recipients as DOGE Troops Settle In.” ProPublica, 22 Feb. 2025, www.propublica.org/article/doge-social-security-elon-musk-trump-closures-benefits.

[6] “Gillibrand Demands Answers On Closure Of Social Security Administration Office In White Plains.” Kirstin Gillibrand U.S. Senator for New York, 14 Feb. 2025, https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-demands-answers-on-closure-of-social-security-administration-office-in-white-plains/. Accessed 14 Apr. 2025. 

[7] “Online Services .” Social Security Administration, 2025, http://www.ssa.gov/onlineservices/.