Market Data 
A Social Security customer service office in Wisconsin is cutting more than 58% of its workers in the coming weeks. It’s one of 41 field offices where staff is being reduced by more than a quarter due to Trump’s budget cuts.
That’s fewer people to answer phones, handle in-person appointments, and process paperwork at a time when retirees flood the agency’s phones and visit offices in droves due to concerns that the White House’s cost-saving efforts will imperil their benefits.
Business Insider obtained and viewed the list of offices, which was on the Social Security Administration’s website as of Sunday but is no longer visible. SSA has over 1,000 locations, but the White House’s DOGE commission plans to close over 25 of them. Already, around 6 million seniors are 45 miles or more away from one.
“The times when you do have to go to the Social Security office are when, oftentimes, something really bad has happened to you,” Bill Sweeney, AARP’s senior vice president for government affairs, told BI. The nonprofit has also reported record call volumes from older Americans worried about their monthly checks.
Short-staffing at field offices comes alongside major changes for Social Security. In accordance with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting goals for federal agencies, the SSA announced it would cut 7,000 employees out of a total of 57,000 — which would place the Social Security workforce at a historic low. New in-person identification requirements have offices bracing for a steep influx of visitors. As of April 9, nine field offices have also reverted to phone-service only, but those locations don’t appear to have direct overlap with the offices facing a 25% or more staff reduction.
The SSA previously told BI that a recent return-to-office mandate will help ease customer service challenges. The Trump administration told BI changes at the SSA are because the president is a “responsible steward” of taxpayer dollars. Trump said new policies that the SSA will alleviate benefits fraud, which made up 0.84% of total improper payments between fiscal years 2015 and 2022, per the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General. He has said that he will not cut benefits.
“The unnecessary loss of field office staff will place greater workload pressure on the remaining employees, which will further depress morale and likely induce more employees to leave, and so on,” Rich Couture, the federal worker union’s SSA General Committee spokesperson, told BI. “High attrition will lead to higher wait times and processing delays for beneficiaries, and will increase the risk of field office closures due to lack of staffing.”
Staff reduction efforts also mean employees who remain at the agency are being asked to consider voluntary reassignments to “mission critical” positions at field offices and call centers. On April 3, employees received an email from the Human Resources department at the SSA. The email, which was viewed by BI, said staff had until April 7 to volunteer: “More than 1,000 of your colleagues have already stepped up to support our mission — but we need more of you to join them.” It is not yet clear how many employees accepted the offer or what positions they will fill.
Low staffing is causing anxiety for beneficiaries
As field office staffing falls, demand for SSA services — or a desire to ensure benefits are secure — has taken hold among some recipients. The agency has seen its daily calls rise by 50,000 from February to March, and the agent busy rate, which tracks how many callers hear a prerecorded disconnect message when they want a representative, has skyrocketed. In a March 28th agency meeting shared publicly, a Social Security operations worker said 665,000 people visited field offices the week before — a “significant” influx of potentially concerned recipients. Recurring website outages are also making it difficult for beneficiaries to get help.
For seniors, this means a chicken and egg scenario: Concerns about Social Security are leading them to call in more and show up more, potentially leading to more work for a dwindling workforce. That could exacerbate anxiety all around.
When visiting a field office, people are “already stressed out,” Sweeney said.
“Having to spend hours and hours fighting with the phones and having to drive long distances to an office just to prove things that you can prove over the phone — it just adds a lot of insult to injury here.”
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