Offices closing under sharp cutbacks at Social Security
Hardships inflicted on those least able to cope, critics say.
A series of shutdowns across the country by the Social Security Administration is causing major difficulties for the elderly, people with disabilities and other beneficiaries, activists and political leaders say.
The agency has closed about 125 of its approximately 1,250 offices since 2000 — a 10 percent reduction, part of what officials describe as a shift to greater use of online services in an era of budget constraints and a growing population of senior citizens.
In addition, all 533 Social Security Administration “contact sites,” locations that serve remote, rural populations on a weekly or monthly basis, also have closed, said leaders of the union that represents Social Security employees.
Pending June closures of the Arlington, Virginia, field office and one of its Baltimore locations — neither of which has been publicly announced — come on the heels of the shutdown of offices in Milwaukee and Chicago in the past year, which elected officials also protested to no avail.
A spokeswoman for the agency attributed the Arlington, Virginia, closure to an expiring lease and an inability to find space nearby, an explanation that elected officials in Virginia dispute.
“Closing the Arlington office is a shortsighted way to cut costs, and will inflict hardship on people least able to cope with it,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said. He said he is asking the Social Security Administration’s inspector general to investigate whether the agency complied with requirements for public notice and community feedback.
At a noisy rally Thursday under a hot noontime sun, about four dozen people, including Democratic Arlington County Board member Christian Dorsey, protested the impending closure outside the Wilson Boulevard office, which is an easy walk from a nearby subway station.
“I don’t have a car,” said Arlington resident Susan Landfield, 65. “I use public transit and it’s about two hours” to the next-nearest office.
Social Security Administration spokeswoman Nicole Tiggemann said the General Services Administration, which handles federal office leases, has been “unable to find suitable replacement space” in Arlington and will have to close the office because of an expiring lease.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who represents the Hampden-area office in Baltimore that is also slated for closure, said Cummings and other Maryland legislators are working on the matter as well.
The number of Social Security office workers has dropped by 3,500 since 2010, and under the funding level proposed by the Trump administration, another 1,000 jobs would be lost, said Max Richtman, chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. Congress cut the agency’s operating budget every year from 2010 to 2017, before increasing it this year, he said. But with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the demand for services is not going away.
“Despite the recent funding boost, SSA continues to close field offices, primarily in urban neighborhoods,” Richtman said.
In Milwaukee, Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett, who served in Congress from 1993 to 2003, said he still can’t make sense of the sudden decision early this year to close the only field office in the city’s heavily Hispanic and low-income south side.