A decent chunk of my research agenda over the past four or five years has been on how to reduce administrative burdens to provide health insurance. A lot of that work has been focused on the barriers to care a token premium ($1 for instance) imposes. I don’t spend any formal time on Social Security as there are plenty of other people doing excellent work in that space as they have paid the decade long price to develop deep expertise. But administrative burden is real in that field.
So when I see this:
DOGE has announced a total of 45 Social Security field office closures–so far.
SSA has 1,200 field offices where people can receive in-person help getting benefits, updating records, enrolling in Medicare & more.
They served 30M applicants & beneficiaries in 2023 — nearly 120K *per day*.
— Kathleen Romig (@kathleenromig.bsky.social) February 26, 2025 at 4:56 PM
I immediately think about administrative burden as the lens to look at things.
Social Security is a complex bureaucracy with numerous rule-in and rule-out criteria for anything other than a normal retirement age retirement collection. It is confusing. It is tough. And people need help.
Eliminating help by decreasing the number of customer service reps in a call center and thus increasing wait times or shutting down offices means fewer people will get the help and the services that they are legally entitled to.
And the people who lose out are not uniformly nor randomly distributed. Well educated individuals with money and good social connections will do fine. Christensen et al looked at the distribution of administrative burden in 2020:
Integrating insights from various disciplines, this article focuses on one aspect of human capital: cognitive resources. The authors outline a model that explains how burdens and cognitive resources, especially executive functioning, interrelate. The article then presents illustrative examples, highlighting three common life factors—scarcity, health problems, and age-related cognitive decline. These factors create a human capital catch-22, increasing people‘s likelihood of needing state assistance while simultaneously undermining the cognitive resources required to negotiate the burdens they encounter while seeking such assistance. The result is to reduce access to state benefits and increase inequality.
Administrative burden was weaponized in the first Trump administration; for instance immigration applications were deemed incomplete if any cell was left empty even if that cell was not relevant to the applicant. We will see more of this going forward.
Baud
If they have to piss off somebody, I’m glad it will be old people trying to get their Social Security.
No Nym
“Eliminating help by decreasing the number of customer service reps in a call center and thus increasing wait times or shutting down offices means fewer people will get the help and the services that they are legally entitled to.”
I think that is the point: Make government so it does not function for “the little people” and then people will agree that government doesn’t work! Medicaid work requirements also worked from the other end of the burn-it-down spectrum to create a whole layer of bureaucracy that was unsustainable. I am not sure what we are legally entitled to is going to matter much from here on, and I say that as someone who is retiring in the next 5-6 years.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Speaking as one of them; I’m on a “SSA Deposit Watch” this weekend- mine is normally deposited on the 3rd and since that’s Monday, it showed up on the Sunday before, last month.
Ohio Mom
People hear “Social Security” and think retirement benefits but that is not the only program the SSA administers. I won’t claim to know the full list, I know about SSI and SSDI but I can’t stay right now and write a long comment. Maybe later.
I will say this, when Ohio Son was on SSI, we’d get periodic telephone audits so they could make sure he didn’t have more than $2,000 in assets. I’d chat up the interviewer, where is where I learned that it takes a full year to be trained in all the programs.
There are a tremendous amount of rules and people often need help navigating them. Closing the offices is going to cause a lot of heartache and missed benefits, which means setting off all the things that not having any money puts in motion — people will be made homeless, for starters.
RSA
Relatedly: I was reading an article about how cuts to Medicaid would be implemented, and a Republican politician suggested a work requirement. He didn’t say what we all know, that his goal is simply to push people off the Medicaid rolls. Whether they need the safety net but are unable to meet the requirements? Republicans don’t care.
beckya57
This is exactly parallel to the push for work requirements for Medicaid. Since Medicaid recipients are mostly either children, elderly, disabled and/or are working, these requirements are totally unnecessary and wasteful. The intent is simply to make the benefits harder to access, full stop. As with so much of the hideous policy of this era, this stuff largely started with Reagan. I’m old enough to remember when his administration arbitrarily kicked thousands of people off disability and made them reapply. The vast majority that reapplied got their benefits back, because they were truly disabled, but not all had the resources to reapply, so the usage of the program went down, which of course was the point.
WTFGhost
Translation: muskovites want people like me to die.
That’s what happens when a hapless m-effer loses all hope and means of support.
NeenerNeener
At least one of the two SS offices in Rochester, NY was in rented office space. I spent hours in the one in Greece, NY to straighten out paperwork because I didn’t go on Medicare right away when I turned 65. (I was still working and had better insurance from my employer so I didn’t see the need at the time.) The office had over half a dozen admins working at any one time and they were all always busy. Closing even that one office is going to cause all kinds of mess in Rochester. If the other office is also in rented space Rochester folks are really screwed.
ExPatExDem
The goal of the ownership class with any public benefits program is to eliminate them and steer the money into their own pockets.
It’s amazing how many Joe Lunchpails think that Elon Musk is now working tirelessly for the common man. If Leon had his way, we’d all be living in X-towns, paid for our work in DOGE-coin, that we could only spend at X-stores.
A triumph of the war on public education, I guess.
Bokonon
One thing stands out – the GOP is gambling that they will somehow escape accountability from the voters for all of this.
Do they know something we don’t know? Are they just confident that their right-wing media and messaging machine, coupled with an engaged base and unlimited amounts of billionaire funding will keep them in power? Or do they know something else about what’s coming?
rk
I’m not so sure about that. I once had to deal with medicare for my mother (I have authority to speak on her behalf) over an issue too long to go into details of. I called medicare, was told that social security office was the place I should have called. I called the social security office, and was told that medicare was wrong to direct me to them. The guy spent 20 mins talking to me, then made an appointment for me (2 months down the road) with medicare. On the appointed day, I had taken time off from work for the call and no call came. I gave up. That was five months ago. Not the Trump administration. I’m fairly well educated, and I know that it’s very hard to get any benefits, even those you’re entitled to. I almost gave up at one time trying to get disability benefits for myself for a short period. The website and the questionnaire to fill was awful.
My guess is that they don’t need to get rid of social security or anything else. Just gum up the work. Have a government system which is impossible for anyone to access and you achieve your goals. You may have the right to get social security benefits, but good luck applying for them. It won’t just be the uneducated or poor who will suffer.
Baud
@Bokonon:
They know that since 1980 voters have never abandoned them for more than 2 years.
BigG
Medicare is also run through SSA. When signing up my wife last year, it was hours on the phone, then weeks waiting for paperwork that didn’t show. At the nearest big city office you take a number ( no appointments allowed) and wait for 3 hours, and they never processed the form we sent them. Luckily we found a much smaller office about 30 minutes away where you can have your questions answered within 10 minutes and they actually process the paperwork you give them. closing these offices will just gum up the system to the point that it doesn’t function at all (see also what they are doing to the IRS).
WTFGhost
@Bokonon: They assume it will have been forgotten about, the SCOTUS will shove it down or throats, and we’ll accept it.
They don’t think anyone cares about us gimps and in general, they are totally not wrong. We aren’t warm and soft and cuddly. We’re defensive and prickly sometimes. Instead of living for birdies and puppies and rainbows, we might eat a shotgun because y’all don’t realize our pains ruin those things, sometimes for decades.
Meh. It happens, people die. But I’ll fight back as best as I can, for as long as I can.
TBone
Am so overly familiar with this concept that I am rendered speechless. Momentarily.
I made every single investment org send me paper statements because I do not purchase printer ink or use my printer unless I’m scanning something of import. Earn those fees you lazy lobberscotchers!
That example is merely the tip of my iceberg.
PET PEEVE
El Cruzado
A friend of mine works for immigration (processing H1B applications) and what he told me about the first Trump administration is that they were ordered to deny applications for absolutely anything not 100% correct. Any typo, any difference in spelling somewhere ought to mean immediate dismissal.
I imagine that policy is back in effect, plus whatever else they can come up with, minus whatever mechanism the folks at the top can figure out to collect bribes.
Matt McIrvin
@Bokonon: They may be planning all sorts of horrible things to disrupt elections–I was just talking about it in other threads–but… it’s worth keeping in mind that “they’re acting as if they’re never going to be held accountable, do they know something we don’t?” is a thing I remember hearing even during the George W. Bush years.
And Bush won reelection! But the reckoning came after that. It was worse than it’d have been if we’d booted him in 2004. But that also meant they got more of the blame… for a little while.
The main thing they rely on is that memories are short, the people are impatient, elites tend to assume everything will be OK, their most horrifying ideas tend to get dismissed as jokes or hyperbole until they actually happen, and a plurality of the population kind of like to think of themselves as conservative even if they don’t like conservative policy.
Republicans have a remarkable tendency to air their scheming right out in the open like snickering cartoon villains, and they favor direct and stupid approaches to subtle and complex ones. I don’t think they know anything we don’t. In fact, I suspect they know LESS than we do. But watch for horrible trial-balloon ideas reacted to with dismissals along the lines of “oh, they probably don’t really mean it.”
ArchTeryx
@WTFGhost: They always have. From an NG adult like me, take my word for it: They always have.
You sound like you’re in a similiar place than I was in 2017. If you need assistance, just write me at my email or we can set up a private chat. I will do whatever I can.
ArchTeryx
@WTFGhost: Even you would be amazed at how indifferent people were to my plight during the 2017 push to repeal the ACA. I’m not talking about the fascists. I’m talking about OUR OWN SIDE. I made the mistake of airing my case on LGM, and was told a bunch of times by their own commenters and at least one front pager that eh, people die, and if we tried to save everyone, we’d go bankrupt. This was coming from the liberal side.
The disabled are the easiest group in the world to use as scapegoats, and they’ve scapegoated us a lot longer than the LBGTQ+ crowd (though the “T” isn’t exactly safe at the moment either).
The Thin Black Duke
@Matt McIrvin: The GOP expects white people to not take their genocidal plans seriously. Black people know better. Black people know that when it comes to Republicans doing awful shit to people, there is no bottom.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: I’ve had to adjust my thinking to think dumber. Like, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about weird loopholes they could use to legally convert the US to a dictatorship, like Kurt Gödel at his citizenship interview. (I don’t think anyone knows what Gödel specifically had in mind. It hardly matters–there are a lot of ways to do it. I had my own favorite involving spamming the country with newly admitted states.)
Anyway, none of that matters, because the approach they actually took is sledgehammer-unsubtle: just have the President start ruling directly by executive order, without regard for legality, and dare Congress and the courts to do something about it, knowing there are enough loyalists in there that they often won’t, and they have no divisions to enforce it anyway. No weird trick, just WHAM WHAM WHAM.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I’m not.
I’m an old, if you didn’t know that. I’m retired, if you didn’t know that. I live on SS, if you didn’t know that. As millions of us do. It’s paid into for decades so that we have an actual retirement income guaranteed. These rich selfish assholes don’t want to pay in the fair, minimal amount like everyone else has to do so that we can live, rather than starve. Mainly because many, many employers (and many of the wealthy) HATE that they get to live very well and that most of us get to live and don’t have to work till our dying day so that they can be even wealthier. In many of their minds it’s a crime that SS, much of our government exists and they have to help pay for it. It’s pompous, arrogant and asinine that they have multiple homes, bank accounts bigger than many banks, servants that often get paid doodly squat, and they want more. Not all of them are this way but too many are, and we are seeing the worst side of this from the guy that is supposed to work for all of US, gets paid well for it and is pissed that he doesn’t get it all. Greed always fucks over the people with the least, by some of the people with the most. And there are always far more with the least than with the most.
Cheap, rich bastards.
suzanne
@The Thin Black Duke:
The GOP expects that their white voters are the white people who live in exurbs and rural areas, only ever see black people on TV, and won’t believe genocide or suffering is happening because it isn’t visible to them….. out there, on the fifteenth exit down the interstate.
Phylllis
@RSA: I can speak a little to this regarding work requirements. I handled Medicaid for children and pregnant women. Almost all of my clients worked, and many had pretty good jobs for the area. The sticking point for them was the premium for full family insurance and the hit on their take home pay. Most of the folks on Medicaid who don’t work, can’t work. They’re elderly, or disabled, or taking care of high needs family members.
Bokonon
Back when I was younger and more idealistic (and looking to meet girls), I used to do political canvassing and organizing. And this cycle used to drive me crazy. From talking with people and trying to meet them where they are, I discovered that lot of voters really just WANT to vote for Republicans for various reasons – religion, tribe, perceived self-interest, branding – and then they may vote reluctantly for Democrats to come in and fix the things the Republicans screw up.
And then they will turn right back to the Republicans. Zero focus, zero memory, zero accountability, zero loyalty to the Democrats who tried to fix things. It’s like the Democrats actually earn CONTEMPT for their efforts.
Bokonon
Shorter GOP – “Oh yeah? PROVE it!!
“Oh wait … because of DOGE, we went ahead and closed all the local offices where you could go to prove it. Oh well. Sucks for you! Learn to code!! LOLZ!”
The Thin Black Duke
@suzanne: The white people still won’t believe it, even when the Republican thugs are loading their white suburban asses into the cattle cars in the end. So much of what defines their identity as a voluntary inmate in White America is predicated not on what they are but what they’re not.
hitchhiker
The administrative burden is the very thing they use to justify this gleeful take-a-blowtorch-to-it approach.
It’s all stupid and it doesn’t work and it’s too hard and the people who work at these offices are lazy moochers and in the end if you make it through the system you get a teeny tiny pittance! Let’s wreck it, that will feel good.
“Reasonable people” who are still lucky enough to be outside the system and not needing it for themselves just want it to be more efficient, see? I’m watching in real time while they tell themselves righteously that something has to be done, and we’re lucky that a couple of great businessmen are handling it for us.
It’s all fucking backwards.
Matt McIrvin
@Bokonon: The talking heads often say that Americans are policy liberals but temperamental/aesthetic conservatives. That’s an oversimplification, but there’s something to it. Republicans get the benefit of the doubt because they have a down-home/nostalgic/conservative aesthetic that appeals to the median voter. Democrats are the credentialed Mr. Fixits that you bring in when everything goes to hell because of the Republicans. But you never want to keep them around, they’re boring and weird and have disturbing ideas.
It’s not just true of whites either–I think a lot of minorities have conservative cultural attitudes but only vote Democratic because Republicans obviously fucking hate them. (Republicans act as if Democrats pulled some scurvy trick that fooled them into getting support from minorities and don’t wonder if they’d do better by not being so incredibly racist. But the racism gets them a lot of white support so they run with it. And in some cycles, they can shave off some marginal fraction of minority groups by pretending they hate some other minority more, one you hate too.)
Bokonon
This last election cycle was an absolute case in point. I personally encountered lots of black and hispanic voters absolutely STRAINING to justify their lunge towards the GOP. Because of inflation, trans people using bathrooms, trans athletes, pronouns, crime, violent Venezuelan gangs up in Aurora (a short distance from where I live). There was a whole constellation of reasons, a whole constellation of memes and distractions. They were so self-assured and even belligerent about it.
suzanne
@The Thin Black Duke: I know. The denial is strong.
But it always astonishes me how the white people who are the most freaked out by black people…. rarely know any. They don’t encounter minorities in their daily lives, and that is entirely by design.
Ohio Mom
@RSA:
 
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Uh, yes. LGBTQ+ people and their interests, combined with a fair amount of religious conservatism among people of color, is an uneasy alliance in our coalition.
Bill Arnold
@ExPatExDem:
Earlier this week, Elon Musk was said to have lost 7 billion dollars in a day; reduction of net worth.
That is, over 24 hours, 81 thousand dollars per second.
That is well in excess of the median personal annual income in the USA.
Ohio Mom
@RSA: The thing about a work requirement, once you subtract Medicaid recipients who are in nursing homes, are too disabled to work, are babies and children, already have jobs that pay very little and don’t come with health coverage, there’s only a few single digit percentage points of recipients left.
Enforcing work requirements is an expensive undertaking — you need the sort of bureaucracy Republicans claim to hate. That in itself will cost most than any savings, plus the jobs those relatively few Medicaid recipients are going to get are most likely not going to provide health coverage. So they will still be on Medicaid.
Finally, this whole go to work first is backwards. Sick people don’t land jobs and can’t keep them. Get them health care under Medicaid and then they might be able to join the workforce.
It’s scary seeing how many sadists I am sharing my country with.
LAC
@suzanne: It has definitely hampered my ability to find community in the predominately black churches I attended. That is a non-negotiable if I am going to attend church services.
Thankfully, the majority of black voters got with the program.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think you are over thinking things David. Tesla doesn’t have field offices, so would the Federal Governments need one is how Musk’s drug addled brain works. Remember, this the guy who fired the entire Super Charge team because one of his VPs told him they were essential workers.
Ohio Mom
@WTFGhost: Yes, please stick around, we enjoy your company.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I have to admit, I never imagine them sticking it to their own voting base so directly.
Juju
All I know is that I am sick to death of all those people in the Trump administration. At this point I wouldn’t be upset about the meteor.
suzanne
@LAC: I am not surprised to hear that. I am sure it causes a lot of internal conflict.
When I lived in AZ, we attended a really religiously liberal Methodist congregation near our house. Majority white, but not exclusively so. One of my co-congregants was a classmate of mine from high school (Casual friend?) who is a Black lesbian, and her wife and kids. I know that she didn’t feel comfortable going to the Black church she grew up in. (I didn’t feel comfortable going to the white church I grew up in, either.) I’m sure that this is a really hard thing for a lot of people.
Big Fly
@Ruckus:
Harrison Wesley
I guess when they’ve eaten their Wheaties or hamberders or whatever, they’ll feel potent enough to come after Railroad Retirement. I don’t look forward to that too much. Though hopefully RR unions will be together enough to hand them a national rail strike in return. At which point Musk will announce the takeover of America’s railroads by SpaceX.
jonas
Unfortunately blue states can pull similar shennanigans with administrative burden. I know someone who lost a job recently out there in CA and their unemployment benefits application — submitted online — got held up for some reason, so they were instructed to call a hotline and provide some additional information or something. It took a year to get through. They actually hired a service that automatically dials the number hundreds of times a day and patches you through if a human picks up. Problem is, everyone does that now, so the system is completely overloaded and nobody gets through. One evening, he just randomly called to see what would happen and low and behold someone answered and put their application back on track. By that time they were owed thousands in back UI payments and most people would have long given up and ended up under an overpass.
This is precisely what will happen to SS under DOGE.
LAC
@suzanne: That has been my experience. I have a number of gay friends and I find that when I do go to church, it is to places where I do not have to hear about “praying for the sinner, etc” . I know it has been harder for my gay friends who are black to find a church home as so many avoid the ones they grew up in like the plague.
Anonymous At Work
Closing field offices and understaffing call centers will also have the net effect of decreasing staff availability for the rich, educated and well-connected. Increased workload will increase churn, which sets things into a vicious spiral, especially if you add a RIF order. Less experienced and fewer staff and now, “everyday” (white, rural/suburban, retired) people will have serious problems.
Ksmiami
@Ohio Mom: why should this country remain as is. Break it up
Ruckus
@Bokonon:
It’s like the Democrats actually earn CONTEMPT for their efforts.
They DO earn it. But it’s not because they are trying to earn it, it’s because some of the overly monied (like shitforbrains – you know the guy that can’t add 2+2 and gets well paid to screw us over and his puppet master) are trying to -well I can only think of one word that fits- fuck over all the rest of us, you know the people that work for a living and have to clock in every day, and shop for everything they need carefully, don’t get a limousine and a driver, and when they retire likely live on that social security they paid into their entire decades long working lives. IOW the normal people. Those people that are vain, obnoxious, wealthy way, way beyond any need, AND always wanting more because they earned it by being wealthy, pompous, and arrogant beyond belief. They have more than enough, and want more, all of it more. Because they are SPECIAL. (And no I do not mean that in a good way..)
Professor Bigfoot
@Big Fly: Exactly.
This shit is existential, quite literally, for us olds who depend on it to keep a roof overhead and food on the table.
So yeah, go ahead, piss off all the old people.
Josie
I needed to talk to Social Security to ask questions about the Fairness Act. I called at 7:00 a.m. on the dot and waited 40 minutes to talk to an agent. Those poor people are so slammed already. I can’t imagine what it will be like if this goes through. Surprisingly, the person was quite cheerful and really helpful.
emjayay
This is my occasional complaint about this stupid commenting system that puts replies to a comment ten feet down below the one commented on so no coversation is possible, and there is no thumbs up function to simply communicate approval of a comment.
I do not understand how anyone would want to use this crap forum for their thoughts, JOHN COLE.
Ohio Mom
@Ksmiami: I am having a hard time imagining how the U.S. could break up without a lot of upheaval that hurts and even kills people. That to me is a definite drawback.
Ohio Mom
@emjayay: I use the search function when I want to see how comments connect. I hate nested comments myself.
dougcb68
I had to wait 3 and a half hours in the San Diego Social Security Service Center to change my address last summer. For some unstated reason I was unable to do this online.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I have to admit, I never imagine them sticking it to their own voting base so directly.
That’s because they didn’t use to do this, at least not to anything approaching the current assholes in charge. We all need to remember that one of them is the world’s richest person and the other one isn’t doing all that bad for as insanely stupid he is. They want it all. The money, the control, the very large stage to stand on with spotlights showing how so wealthy they are. Because money is after all the end all be all. Even if the never elected to anything guy inherited most of his. As was somewhat the case with his ignorant asshole friend/puppet. And he thinks he’s suffering because we have money to eat and keep maybe one roof over our heads. And likely not a lot more.
Ruckus
@dougcb68:
You had to do it in person because someone else could do it for, well themselves, if you didn’t have to be there in person with a reasonable ID to do it face to face.
WTFGhost
Hey, folks, I don’t want to make too many responses right now, so I do want to mention, I’ve never met anyone better than me at not-dying.
I’m angry at a few things, personal things. And I’m furious at what the administration is doing, lawlessly, while Republicans smirk and pretend everything’s okay, because, hey, it’s always okay if you’re a Republican, until it affects poll numbers. And everything I want to do is impaired by a brain that malfunctions, and leaves me exhausted.
What I want to do is go out and slaughter face-eating leopards, metaphorically speaking, but I also know that’s not the way. Anger and hate and torture and slaughter is the way of cowards, which is why Republicans have been calling for it since 9/11/2001. (I’m sorry, “reasonable Republicans,” but they have been. Courage means holding on to your values, even when you’re afraid. The opposite of “courage,” is “cowardice” – doing the wrong thing because you’re afraid. And, yes, I’m very disappointed that Republicans couldn’t be brave, and fight terrorism the right way.)
I want to teach compassion, but, I’ve been bullied and abused all my life. I know compassion, but, obviously, I haven’t been all that good at teaching it! So I’m scared, and angry, and trying to turn it into action, and, well, trying to stay alive, which isn’t as easy as it sounds, but, again, I’ve gotten good at it.
Today, anger, fear, and a bit of other stuff spilled over, but, it also reminds me that I do need to stick around. I’m a shaman and my spirit animals include Snake, and one of the things about Snake is, Snake won’t bother you, until you step into Snake’s territory, and then, you feel big and strong until this relatively tiny creature strikes before you can see it, and the fire starts burning.
So I plan to stick around to find out what wanders into my lair, as best as I can, and that’s pretty amazingly well. Thanks for the good wishes.
lowtechcyclist
@emjayay:
I personally prefer nested comments but it really isn’t a great burden to just read them in chron order.
Besides, there are so many people in comments here that are worth reading, so it’s worth dealing with non-nested comments in order to read them.
And finally, of course, this is the way the blogfather likes it, and he strongly dislikes nested comments, so this is just the way it is, and it ain’t gonna change. I’m willing to deal with it rather than go somewhere else, but to each their own.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
That should be “not all old white people”
I’m an old white person, and have seen what asshole white people think everyone else but them should have to do. I did very small tolerance machine work for decades and I mention this for 2 reasons. First, most people don’t do this sort of thing for a living, and second, far fewer woman do it – or at least that was what I saw. There is very little they couldn’t do, because most of it didn’t take a high strength level. (And yes I’ve known women stronger than me) but the work did require the ability to not mind getting dirty, or at least let it not stop you.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
He doesn’t mind complaining about something that he doesn’t own or control, who made a modern back fence place to discuss things with far more people than any actual back fence anywhere will have. Something that affects him because, well it’s him. IOW he wants a world to his specifications, not the one we have.