Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday blasted the Social Security Administration's plan to sharply reduce in-person visits to its field offices, warning that the agency's new target to cut 15 million visits a year will make it harder for Americans to access benefits they have earned.
Warren Slams Plan To Slash Office Visits
In a post on X, Warren wrote, "This sure sounds like another way to make it even harder for Americans to get the benefits they’ve earned. I will not stop fighting to protect Social Security."
She attached a screenshot of a Nextgov/FCW article that revealed the Social Security Administration wants to halve the number of people who go to its field offices in the 2026 fiscal year.
According to the report, more than 31 million people visited SSA field offices over the last fiscal year. Now, the agency aims to have 50% fewer visits in fiscal 2026, which began in October, based on internal planning documents.
SSA Pushes More Services To Digital Channels
Under Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the agency is steering people toward interacting with Social Security online instead of visiting a field office or calling the agency, even as he has told lawmakers the agency is not "getting rid of field offices" despite reports of closures.
This shift comes as staffing in field offices is down by nearly 2,000 people, according to an AARP figure revealed in April. In July, SSA reassigned about 1,000 field office workers to answer its national phone line, further tightening staff on the front lines.
Staffing Shortages Fuel Fears Over Field Offices
Nextgov reported that Social Security is also moving to further centralize claims processing, shifting more work now done in field offices into central operations. In an email to staff, chief of field operations Andy Sriubas said the long-standing model of roughly 1,250 field offices acting as "mini-SSAs" must evolve into a national system that uses the agency's full capacity.
SSA says the changes will let field staff focus on in-person problem-solving while routing complex, time-intensive tasks to specialized teams.
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