Acer wrote:
Yes, what I want from government is to sit in a forsaken waiting room for hours like it's 1965 again.

Krugmann wrote:
Now the Social Security Administration, following orders from Elon Musk’s DOGE, appears set to subject disabled Americans to immense hardship....

The story so far: On March 12 the Washington Post reported that the Social Security Administration was considering ending phone service for Americans filing retirement or disability claims. The SSA quickly backed off that idea — sort of. The day after the Post report, however, the agency circulated an internal memo — acquired by the newsletter Popular Information — laying out a plan that would be almost equally destructive.

Under this plan, beneficiaries would still be able to call the SSA. But they would have to verify their identity either over the internet or through in-person visits to field offices.

Bear in mind that we’re talking about older and/or disabled Americans, many of whom are unable to access the internet and physically unable to visit SSA offices — which would in any case be overwhelmed by the increased traffic, given that the agency is already facing large staffing cuts. So this would be a move of almost cartoonish cruelty, and a nightmare for millions of Americans.

Why do this? The alleged justification is to combat fraud. But ProPublica has acquired audio of a closed meeting held with Leland Dudek, the Social Security Administration’s acting administrator, in which he acknowledged that fraudulent benefit claims are not, in fact, a serious problem.

Speedy wrote:
The wait at our local office was three hours or so the last time I was there.

GGD wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
The wait at our local office was three hours or so the last time I was there.

numbered wrote:
This will end up on the other side...