Democrats call on Social Security watchdog to investigate DOGE cuts' impact

Democrats are pressing the acting inspector general for Social Security for answers about how changes to the agency’s operations under the Trump administration are impacting services, while raising concerns about potential disruptions in benefits.

In a Wednesday letter to Acting Inspector General Michelle Anderson, a group of Democrats called for the watchdog to review the agency’s actions to reorganize its “organizational structure, close numerous offices, and significantly reduce its workforce to determine whether it has affected the agency’s ability to provide quality customer service.”

“These actions have already created a chilling effect among the agency’s workforce, with several senior SSA officials with centuries’ worth of institutional knowledge and experience having already left the agency,” the letter stated. “We are concerned that this hostile environment will foster burnout, low morale, higher attrition, and worse productivity among employees. 

“Collectively, this will undoubtedly lead to disruption in benefit payments and increasing barriers for Americans to access their Social Security benefits.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signed onto the letter, along with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.), top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

Among the questions the senators present for review are inquiries about how incentivizing employees at field offices to resign impacted customer service, as well as the effect of incentivizing appeals council employees to do the same on appeals council decisions.

They also ask how reducing regional office and staff impacts customer service, and whether “incentivizing hearing office employees to retire or resign improved the agency’s ability to timely process disability appeals hearings.”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) said that it has not “permanently closed or announced the permanent closure of any local field office,” although it said it must temporarily close a local field office “from time to time” for reasons like weather, damage or facilities issues. It also closed its civil rights office weeks back.

However, Government Executive reported earlier this month that the agency has set a goal of “field office consolidation” in 2026, as the Trump administration undertakes a sweeping operation to shrink the size of government, with its Department of Government Efficiency at the helm.

SSA has also said it plans to cut down the “size of its bloated workforce and organizational structure,” and has set “a staffing target of 50,000, down from the current level of approximately 57,000 employees.”

The Hill has reached out to SSA for comment.