The Social Security Administration considered suspending its phone services amid pressure from Elon Musk’d Department of Government Efficiency, as DOGE thinks this would have cut down on fraud, waste and abuse but then backtracked from the decision gauging the massive backlash waiting for it. The telephone service is for filing retirement and disability claims. If this stands suspended, elderly and disabled people would have to file their claims on the Internet or have to visit the field offices to process their claims.
The agency’s toll-free number is what many older customers have been relying on for ages as they can’t access the Internet
The Washington Post reported about the proposed change in the decades-old facility, after which the proposal was dropped. But the Social Security Administration said they will go ahead with a narrow change fend of March that won’t allow customers to change a direct deposit routing number or other bank information by phone.
Elon Musk and Social Security row
After Elon Musk’s DOGE shut down many Social Security offices in its attempt to save federal money, panic spread that Elon Musk was after the Social Security payment. In a recent interview with Fox, Elon Musk called Social Security ‘entitlement payment’ though Republicans claimed that his target is to weed out the fraud in SS payments — and a lot of which is routed through telephone calls. “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
“20 million people who are definitely dead marked as alive in the Social Security database,” Musk said.
President Donald Trump assured that he won’t touch Social Security and Medicare but in the existing system, dead people are receiving money.
SSA commissioner said the agency’s data have older people with no date of death but that does not mean they are receiving benefits.
Coming to numbers, Social Security handles about 9.5 million claims a year for retirement, survivor and disability benefits, and Supplemental Security Income, paying $1.5 trillion in benefits last year. Of Americans aged 65 and over, 86 per cent receive Social Security payments and phone claims make up about 40 per cent of claims.
