Charles T. Hall

Must-read new report!

It's excellent work, providing crucial insight into how service to Social Security applicants and beneficiaries deteriorated over the past year.

It's especially important now that SSA leadership has removed most customer-facing metrics from public view.

William T. Sherman's nearly-final words:

"I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting... 'tis only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."

Reassignment Won’t Fix the Largest-Ever Social Security Staffing Cut The Social Security Administration will have fewer and less experienced staff on the front lines serving the public with significantly less support, leading to worse outcomes for people who rely on So...

Though Trump claims he'll "always protect Social Security," his Admin indiscriminately pushed out 7K+ SSA workers — the largest staffing cut in agency history — compromising access to earned benefits for seniors, bereaved families & people with disabilities. #CBPPSOTU

www.cbpp.org/research/soc...

🚨🚨🚨 Nationwide systems issues are being reported so if you have appointments or business at SSA today, please be aware many of our programs are not working!!Please be patient with us!!! Side note: maybe it was a bad idea to reassign all those systems folks to phones, huh Frankie???? Happy Monday🫠🫠🫠

Coming to Social Security very soon

Then in December, SSA issued guidance saying noncitizen applicants for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) must verify their status via both an online check with DHS as well as by having SSA staff "physically [examining] the original immigration document in person."

secure.ssa.gov/apps10/refer...

SSA reportedly discussed "voiding" SSNs of 500K more immigrants as the Trump Admin revokes their status. That hasn't happened yet (possibly because courts have blocked the loss of status).

If they do, expect more immigrants--newly without status--to visit SSA offices as problems arise.

Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE The recent request goes against decades of precedent and puts noncitizens at further risk of immigration enforcement actions.

Social Security Admin staff are being verbally instructed to share information about in-person appointments with ICE, contradicting SSA's written policy and decades of precedent.

Worse, recent policy changes are forcing millions more noncitizens to visit SSA offices.

www.wired.com/story/social...

Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE The recent request goes against decades of precedent and puts noncitizens at further risk of immigration enforcement actions.

SSA to give appointment info to ICE.

www.wired.com/story/social...

Suicidal is “one option” according to Social Security training.

x.com/govexec/stat...

I thought he wasn’t going to watch

Save us, Bad Bunny!

Vast sums of money were spent wasted on these sucky Super Bowl commercials. So consistently bad.

'We Have Been Scratching Our Brains’: My Mom Just Received a Random $60,000 Social Security Deposit. Is This a Mistake? Is this a real windfall, or has she been caught up in a grand mistake? And what should she do with the money? Money asks an expert to weigh in.

So, I what do you think happened?

money.com/social-secur...

Social Security is directing employees who normally process benefits to answer phones instead After shedding thousands of employees, SSA is reassigning workers amid fears the moves will cause backlogs to grow.

Social Security is pulling employees who normally process benefits to staff phone lines after losing more than 7,400 workers, a shift employees say could slow claims processing and add to backlogs for the public. via Natalie Alms and Eric Katz buff.ly/AacAD7I

April Fools Day

‼️‼️‼️This is verified. I can add buildings in Philly, San Francisco, Richmond, Atlanta and Dallas that we know of. SSA folks chime in if your office has been closed or evacuated please!!!!!!

How tiny

This sounds like it may be a new effort to involve Social Security in immigration enforcement.

secure.ssa.gov/apps10/refer...

Don’t warn them. We don’t want Trump pardoning them.

I’m on a blood thinner and I’ve never had a bruise like that.

Sure to help Susan Collins.

Trust him!

Trump’s IRS chief reorganizes tax agency days before filing season The Trump administration’s IRS chief, Frank Bisignano, is reorganizing the tax agency ahead of the upcoming tax filing season.

Bisignano shaking up IRS as we enter tax season.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Roz Chast. #NewYorkerCartoons

Sign up for our humor newsletter to get cartoons, comics, and more straight in your inbox: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/xXMulf

Weaponizing sensitive government data to try to overturn election results. What authoritarians do. Chilling.

De Speld (a Dutch satire site) has been on top of this: "Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that the Arctic island will henceforth be called Epstein Island, so that Trump will stop talking about it."
speld.nl/2026/01/08/d...

Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds More than half of the Social Security Administration’s frontline employees are earning less than what’s necessary to afford a basic standard of living in their communities, according to a new report. Released Wednesday by the Strategic Organization Center, a research partner for the American Federation of Government Employees, the report found 54% of the 36,000 frontline SSA employees represented by AFGE were paid less than a living wage for their geographic region. A living wage is the minimum income needed for an individual to afford the minimum standard of living in their community. The report compares each employee’s reported pay rate on the General Schedule pay scale against the estimated living wage rate for the employee’s location, as tracked by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Institute. In a survey of 800 SSA employees with over 20 years on the job, 17% of respondents told SOC said they are working a second job. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they were struggling to provide at least one necessity for their families, and that the recent government shutdown only deepened their financial problems. AFGE Local 2014 President Shaunellia Ferguson, who represents teleservice center workers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said many of her members are taking second jobs, especially those who are single parents. “They’re overworked, they’re stressed, they’re underpaid. You probably have one claims representative doing the work of three people,” Ferguson said. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they have at least one child or dependent, and nearly 75% of respondents said they were the primary income earners in their households. Most SSA employees in the survey said that amid these workforce challenges, the agency is unable to keep up with the needs of beneficiaries. About 70% of surveyed employees said service speed for the public has decreased, and 65% said the quality of service they provide has deteriorated. “The public is not getting world-class customer service, and that’s what Social Security prided itself on in the past. That’s not happening,” Ferguson said. In a separate report last year, the SOC estimated there are approximately 4,000 Social Security beneficiaries for every agency employee working in field offices. SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices. Frank Bisignano, the agency’s commissioner, told staff at an all-hands meeting on Monday that SSA is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the company still faces a hiring freeze. A field office manager told Federal News Network that “I have been given zero authority to hire.” A second SSA employee told Federal News Network that SSA is planning to install self-service kiosks in field offices, to reduce the demand on frontline staff to provide in-person help to beneficiaries. According to SOC’s research, a majority of SSA employees in 25 states are paid less than a living wage — especially across New England and the West Coast. The study shows that at least 75% of SSA employees in Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut earn less than a living wage. During the 43-day government shutdown last fall, the vast majority of SSA employees were designated as “excepted” staff, and continued to show up to work without pay. Many federal employees have missed two full paychecks during the shutdown, and received one partial paycheck. More than 80% of survey respondents said they struggled to pay for basic expenses, including housing, food and transportation during the recent government shutdown. By November 2025, SSA managers told agency leadership that some field office employees working without pay asked to be furloughed for the remainder of the government shutdown, as they could no longer afford the daily commuting costs. Agency leadership didn’t allow employees facing financial hardship to telework during the shutdown. Two of SSA’s 1,200 field offices closed early because of short-staffing. Just before the shutdown ended, SSA leadership considered whether to put more in-person services on hold. An inspector general report last month found that SSA served 68 million callers in fiscal 2025, a 65% increase compared to the prior year. However, about 25 million calls ended without the caller receiving service — either because the caller hung up and did not complete the call, or because the phone system could not connect callers to an employee. The agency’s wait time metrics don’t include these abandoned calls or callers who received a busy message. “The wait time is through the roof. I know data might be out there that says something different, but that’s not true. There’s not enough staffing to cover those phone calls. We need people,” Ferguson said. The release of SOC’s report coincides with a “national day of action” organized by AFGE. The union and SSA employees will hold rallies across the country to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding and staffing for the agency.The post Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds first appeared on Federal News Network.

Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds

What about “Where the disastrous Civil War began.”

America lags global peers as Social Security struggles to cover retirees’ living costs New global research reveals India's Social Security payments do not stretch as far as those in many other nations. The U.S. ranks thirteenth globally, with benefits covering about 163% of basic living...

US. Social Security is far from generous compared to other countries.