Gillibrand, Colleagues Press Social Security Head On Plan To Slash Field Office Visits

Gillibrand, Colleagues Press Social Security Head On Plan To Slash Field Office Visits

Dec 15, 2025

Lawmakers raise alarm about whether Trump administration is seeking to "quietly kill field offices," implement backdoor benefits cuts

"Once again, you seem to have adopted a slash-first, think-later approach to 'modernizing' SSA, and beneficiaries will pay the price," wrote the senators

Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, pressed Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano about reports that SSA has a new plan to slash nearly 15 million field office visits annually. The agency has not provided details as to how it plans to achieve this goal.

Gillibrand requested critical details about the agency's plan in a joint letter with Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), including which specific services SSA will deploy for online users and for individuals calling the national 1-800 number, whether beneficiaries will be able to get assistance in field offices without an appointment, the current average wait time to schedule a field office appointment, and more. The senators asked for a response by January 6, 2026.

"We are concerned that these efforts are in fact part of a plan to 'quietly kill field offices,' implementing a back-door cut in benefits by making it harder for Americans to access the Social Security customer services they need," wrote the senators.

The lawmakers raised concerns that this drastic plan will force beneficiaries to use SSA's bug-prone website or push them into never-ending customer service phone tree "doom loops." This will almost certainly force some Americans to suffer from delays in benefits or miss them all together.

The Trump administration has relentlessly attacked Social Security. Under Commissioner Bisignano, the administration has worked to implement policy changes that would make it harder for Americans to get their benefits, including burdensome in-person and bug-prone identification processes that would force more beneficiaries to visit field offices each year. At the same time, they are slashing SSA's workforce by around 7,000 and closing regional offices.

As the top Democrat on the Senate Aging Committee, Senator Gillibrand is a staunch supporter of Social Security. She recently introduced three bills to boost and protect benefits for seniors:

• Social Security Emergency Inflation Relief Act: would provide a $200-per-month increase to Social Security checks until July 2026.
• Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act: would increase Social Security benefits by leveraging the formula used to calculate yearly cost-of-living adjustments to better account for seniors' expenses.
• Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act: would help undo President Trump's damage to the Social Security Administration.

In response to Trump administration cuts and overhauls at SSA, Senator Gillibrand has rallied alongside seniors and unions to demand a reversal of staffing and service cuts and advocated against the closure of SSA offices across the country and in New York. Following Senator Gillibrand's advocacy, SSA reversed its decision to restrict certain phone services that serve as lifelines to beneficiaries seeking to access and maintain benefits. She also invited Commissioner Bisignano to join her in a visit to an SSA field office in New York so they can evaluate the impact the Trump-era changes have had on SSA response times, communication, and outreach.

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