The Social Security Administration field office in Whitehall, Ohio. (Photo by Marty Schladen/Ohio Capital Journal)
President Donald Trump has cut more than 7,000 Social Security Administration employees, reducing the agency’s ability to connect Americans in Ohio and elsewhere with their benefits, the Democratic commissioner who will lead the agency in 2024 said last Monday.
Under Trump, the administration is failing to report key metrics to members of Congress, and their offices are inundated with constituent complaints, according to former commissioner Martin O’Malley.
When asked about O’Malley’s statements, the offices of Ohio’s Republican senators, Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, declined to comment.
However, the Social Security Administration claimed that it was providing more timely and efficient service than it did under Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden. However, the agency did not respond to questions about agency staffing or the time it takes for applicants to receive benefits after applying.
When Trump took office in January, he appointed Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, to look into ways to reduce the federal workforce. On February 27, the Social Security Administration reported “significant workforce reductions.”
“Through these massive reorganizations, offices that perform functions not mandated by statute may be prioritized for reduction-in-force actions that could include abolishment of organizations and positions, directed reassignments, and reductions in staffing,” the agency told the workers.
As a result, 7,150 people were laid off, resigned, or retired.
The Center for American Progress reported in June that the 13% cut was by far the largest in the agency’s history.
“The last time the SSA had this few employees was 1967, when the agency served 480 beneficiaries for every staff member,” according to the analysis. “In 2025, the agency would be attempting to serve 1,480 beneficiaries for every staff member.”
Computers have allowed each Social Security worker to serve more clients than she or he could 58 years ago, but O’Malley stated in a virtual press conference that the agency is falling behind due to the cuts.
“Every member of Congress will tell you that — regardless of party — their phones have been exploding with additional numbers of people who have been calling their congressional representatives because they can’t get through to Social Security for the benefits that they’ve already earned,” he told CNN.
“Because of the speed and depth of the cruelty of the staff cuts to Social Security — an agency that was already struggling to serve record numbers of new beneficiaries due to baby boomers — the staff was reduced to a 50-year low. Social Security’s consistent, never-fail, monthly payment schedule is in serious jeopardy.”
The offices of Ohio’s U.S. senators, Moreno and Husted, did not respond when asked if they had received any constituent complaints about receiving their benefits, or what they were doing in response.
According to the Social Security Administration, O’Malley’s claims are false. It made no mention of staff cuts, but claimed that service had actually improved.
“SSA’s dedicated workforce is delivering a significantly improved customer experience for the American people, despite unfounded claims being made by former SSA officials,” a spokesperson told me via email.
“Under Commissioner (Frank J.) Bisignano’s leadership, there has been a transformation at SSA that all Americans can be proud of: the average speed of answer for the National 800 Number has dropped from 30 minutes last year to 8 minutes in July 2025; average field office wait times have decreased by 30%; and the SSA website now enables Americans with 24/7 access and management of their benefits after the elimination of 29 hours of previously scheduled weekly downtime.”
However, O’Malley, the former Democratic governor of Maryland, claimed that under current management, the Social Security Administration is no longer reporting certain metrics to Congress and manipulating others to mislead the public.
“It’s not so much what they’re cherry picking and posting, it’s what they’re not sharing,” he said when asked what numbers the public can use to track performance. “I’d like to point you to some things to look at, but they don’t share them. The place has become like a hermit kingdom, where only happy stories are told.
For example, he stated that claimant representatives across the country are telling him “that they’re now seeing a six-month to 18-month waiting period between when an allowance is granted — say in the case of a disability — and when that person received their first benefit check.”
When asked how long the average waiting period for benefits is, the Social Security Administration did not provide a direct response.
O’Malley also stated that members of Congress have not been receiving the same weekly performance reports from the agency as they had in the past.
He also stated that it does not report its “performance center backlog” — the only metric that his administration was unable to significantly improve while running the agency under former President Joe Biden.
The processing centers act as a backstop for Social Security field offices, handling overflow and complex cases. With fewer workers throughout the Social Security Administration, the centers will undoubtedly see many more cases while having less capacity to handle them, according to O’Malley.
“The processing center is like an escape valve and if and when a member of Congress gets them to show what the processing center backlog is, you will see that it’s adversely affecting millions of people,” he told CNN. “In fact, dare I say, it’s probably at an all-time, record high.”
According to a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration, the agency keeps Congress updated.
“SSA regularly engages with Congress and shares timely performance data, which is prepared by SSA’s dedicated career workforce using long-standing agency methodology,” a spokesperson told me. “Additionally, we publish our performance metrics on our website for public awareness to provide a snapshot of the real experiences of the people we serve and highlight the optimal ways our customers can get service.”
For his part, O’Malley explained how he believes the new administration is manipulating some of the metrics it does report.
At the beginning of 2024, the 8 million people who called the agency’s 1-800 number each month had to wait 42.5 minutes on average to be connected. O’Malley stated that after a vendor and technology change, the agency reduced the average wait time to 12.8 minutes before beneficiaries could receive an answer.
The Social Security Administration reported on Monday that those wait times had been reduced even further, to eight minutes. However, O’Malley claims it appears to have simply changed the definition of “answer.”
“‘Answer’ would appear to be anytime a person calls and hangs up after hearing a recording, or calls and gets run around the barn three times by a chatbot and has their call dumped,” according to him. “That is what they call ‘answered.'” That is referred to as’served.’ None of it corresponds to what people are experiencing.
A call to the Social Security Administration’s Georgesville Road field office in Columbus on Wednesday appeared to yield such results. A chatbot asked the caller why he was calling. When he mentioned that he wanted to check his eligibility, the chatbot hung up.
O’Malley also claimed that under Trump, the Social Security Administration avoids answering basic questions about who works there and what they do.
The offices of Ohio’s US senators did not respond to a question about staffing levels. O’Malley explained that this is because the administration has put itself in a bind.
“Out of one side of their mouths they applaud themselves for getting rid of 7,000 people and yet, they won’t share the data in terms of what that means for workloads,” according to him.
