By Michael V. Cusenza
South Queens residents and borough elected officials have expressed anxiety over the Trump administration’s reported austere intentions to carve up the Social Security Administration.
Congresswoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) recently called for the halting of any plan that would gut an already understaffed SSA. In a letter that she and 151 other Democrat members of Congress sent to Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek, Meng expressed “grave concern” over possible Social Security field office and hearing office closures across the country and mass firings of employees that would impact the agency’s ability to serve the public and deliver Social Security payments.
The 6th Congressional District, which Meng represents, includes two Social Security field offices: in Rego Park at 63-44 Austin St., and in Flushing at 138-50 Barclay Avenue.
Earlier this month, several news outlets reported that the Trump administration had imminent plans to close Social Security field offices and significantly reduce the SSA workforce.
Late last month, 24 SSA senior staff resigned as Dudek announced plans to consolidate 10 regional offices down to four and cut 7,000 workers.
“Shuttering field offices and gutting SSA staffing has nothing to do with ‘governmental efficiency,’” the letter to Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek said. “As you know, SSA already operates with a customer service budget of under one percent of benefit payments. Staffing is at a 50-year low, despite serving a record number of beneficiaries. Years of understaffing and lack of resources have led to a customer service crisis at SSA. Closing the very field and hearing offices that beneficiaries rely on and gutting staff would only deepen the crisis, chaos, and confusion.”
Senior Trump advisor Elon Musk has characterized Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
“When you look at the future obligations of Social Security, the actual national debt is like double what people think it is because of the future obligations. So basically, people are living way longer than expected and there are fewer babies being born. So you have more people who are retired that live for a long time and get retirement payments. However bad the financial situation is right now for the federal government, it will be much worse in the future,” Musk said last month in an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
President Donald Trump has insisted that any cuts to Social Security would be focused on fraudsters and what the administration considers excess.
Still, beneficiaries already worried about budget knives may have to brace for deep, impactful cuts to the integral agency.
“If implemented, these actions will devastate SSA’s ability to serve the public and deliver Social Security payments, inflicting back-door benefit cuts on the American people,” Democrats wrote in the missive to Dudek. “We stand with the 70 million Americans who rely on Social Security to make ends meet, and the civil servants who work tirelessly to ensure beneficiaries receive their payments in full and on time every month. We have a clear message: devastating SSA’s ability to deliver benefits to the public is a de facto benefit cut.”
