A fast collection of administrative, staffing and coverage adjustments the Social Safety Management underwent early on in the second one Trump management are making it a lot more difficult to get incapacity advantages that hundreds of thousands of American citizens depend on to make ends meet.
The company reduce greater than 7,100 jobs – greater than 13% of its body of workers and its biggest staffing reduce ever. It closed six of its 10 regional places of work, moved extra services and products on-line and expanded the usage of computerized and synthetic intelligence techniques on its public telephone strains.
Some laws modified and adjusted again once more. For example, Social Safety officers introduced in March 2025 that folks would not be capable of practice for advantages at the telephone, solely to opposite direction a month later.
We’re social paintings professors at California State College, Sacramento, Binghamton College in New York and the College of Wisconsin-Madison who learn about those techniques. And now we have every independently discovered that even sooner than 2025, it was once exhausting to get incapacity advantages.
Now, we’ve discovered that the method has develop into even more difficult.
Lacking metrics
In June 2025, the company got rid of key customer support metrics, comparable to telephone wait instances and incapacity declare processing instances, from its site. This knowledge had equipped the general public with vital transparency concerning the company’s efficiency.
Missing perception into the affects of the numerous adjustments underway, we introduced a challenge to check how they have been affecting get admission to to incapacity advantages. We interviewed advantages representatives – attorneys, social staff and different forms of advocates who assist candidates and beneficiaries navigate Social Safety techniques.
We carried out in-depth interviews with 52 advocates at 32 nonprofits, comparable to criminal support businesses and incapacity organizations. Those organizations jointly lend a hand over 8,000 other folks yearly.
We’re referring to those advocates by way of pseudonyms to care for their privateness. Many insisted that neither they nor their employers be recognized because of worry of retaliation by way of the Trump management.
We revealed our findings in collaboration with two nationwide incapacity advocacy organizations, the Incapacity Rights Schooling and Protection Fund and the American Affiliation of Other people with Disabilities, in March 2026. We took the step of publishing with those organizations sooner than filing our paintings to educational journals as a result of we needed to proportion those findings with the general public once imaginable.
16 million other folks get those advantages
The Social Safety Management is a federal company that runs one of the vital nation’s largest social protection internet techniques, together with advantages for greater than 60 million retired staff, in addition to survivor advantages for the spouses of staff who’ve died and their kids who’re below 18.
As well as, the company administers two forms of incapacity advantages to a complete of 16 million other folks.
Supplemental Safety Source of revenue, or SSI, is a public help program for low-income older adults and other folks with disabilities below age 65. In 2026, it supplies a most of US$994 monthly for anybody individual getting advantages.
Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage, or SSDI, supplies a restricted pension for individuals who have labored lengthy sufficient to qualify and still have disabilities that save you them from operating to any extent further. Bills range in line with one’s previous wages, however the per 30 days reasonable in 2026 is ready $1,634.
To obtain both more or less advantages, American citizens should meet the Social Safety Management’s strict definition of incapacity, which considers well being standing, previous training and employment and age to decide if a bodily or psychological incapacity makes anyone not able to paintings.
There aren’t any deadlines on how lengthy you’ll obtain SSI advantages. However kids and adults below age 65 are matter to periodic checks in their eligibility and should adhere to this system’s inflexible laws. As an example, they may be able to’t have greater than $2,000 in belongings at any time whilst receiving advantages, should publish their pay stubs for any earned revenue per 30 days, and should file any adjustments of their residing state of affairs, marital standing or financial institution accounts.
Ray Render, left, a staffer for Rep. John Rose, meets with constituents in Gallatin, Tenn., about their considerations associated with adjustments to Social Safety Management practices in March 2025.
AP Picture/George Walker IV
Encountering lengthy wait instances and chatbots
The Trump management made no formal adjustments to eligibility standards for SSI or SSDI, regardless of taking into account proposals that will have narrowed eligibility laws and probably excluded hundreds of thousands who qualify for those advantages these days or lowered the dimensions of advantages bills for many of us with disabilities.
But if the City Institute, a nonpartisan analysis heart, analyzed state-level information from the primary part of 2025, it discovered that 7% fewer claims for incapacity advantages have been submitted to the Social Safety Management than right through the similar length a 12 months previous.
We were given extra perception into those adjustments right through our interviews.
We heard that with fewer workers, the company had fewer other folks to be had to reply to telephone calls, contributing to lengthy waits. Customer support protocols additionally modified in order that telephone calls to the Social Safety Management have been routed to box places of work the callers hadn’t dialed, the place team of workers couldn’t assist them.
Different advantages representatives encountered AI chatbots that didn’t resolution their questions, or discovered that staffers with specialised wisdom have been reassigned to accomplish different duties.
“I just have so many cases that are stuck in purgatory because they don’t have enough workers to work them,” mentioned Jane, a paralegal we interviewed in Social Safety’s Kansas Town area. “They don’t have enough workers to answer the phone to tell me what’s happening to them.”
Box place of business frustrations
Every other supply of friction emerged round visits to Social Safety Management box places of work.
The company has greater than 1,200 box places of work around the country the place other folks can search services and products. In a while sooner than Trump took place of business in 2025, the company started shifting from walk-in services and products to requiring appointments. However the Social Safety Management had promised in 2024 that it might “not turn people away” in the event that they couldn’t or didn’t wish to make an appointment.
And but advantages representatives instructed us in 2025 that many box places of work did require appointments, and became other folks away in the event that they arrived with out them.
This was once particularly irritating as it was once exhausting to make the ones appointments over the telephone anymore, mentioned Freddie, a advantages consultant within the Denver area. “Now, we can’t reach anybody at Social Security,” she instructed us. “We can’t get through to make an appointment.”
As of Might 2026, 10 places of work in 9 states are both open on an appointment-only foundation or closed to the general public till additional understand.
Hindrances on-line and in individual
The Social Safety Management’s push to habits industry on-line assumed that everybody may simply use virtual platforms. However that’s merely no longer true for most of the maximum prone low-income other folks with disabilities who’ve or are making use of for SSI and SSDI advantages.
As Michael, an legal professional within the Atlanta area, defined, it’s no longer cheap to suppose that “someone who’s in their 20s, but unhoused” or “someone in their 70s and having issues with memory loss” can take care of an internet software procedure.
Every other problem is the Trump management’s crackdown on immigration, which has now prolonged to people who find themselves licensed to reside in the US. Many immigrants who get incapacity advantages, or who improve their family members with SSI and SSDI advantages, are not certain it’s protected for them to seek advice from Social Safety places of work.
The ones fears have been strengthened in February 2026, as reviews emerged that some Social Safety staff have been instructed to proportion appointment information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers.
A number of advantages experts instructed us they not understand how to advise such shoppers concerning the possible dangers of interacting with the Social Safety Management, together with whether or not it was once protected to seek advice from box places of work or whether or not the company may proportion their data with immigration government.
Death whilst ready
Group of workers cuts intended that the problem-solvers who advocates had as soon as became to had left, taking years of experience with them. The company’s final team of workers contributors have been more difficult to succeed in than ever. Some have been much less accustomed to the intricacies of the Social Safety Management’s insurance policies and procedures than their senior colleagues who had left.
As incapacity advantages have develop into more difficult to acquire, many of us are struggling. We heard more than one accounts of terminally unwell shoppers loss of life sooner than receiving advantages for which they have been eligible.
As an example, Anne, an legal professional within the company’s Philadelphia area, described the case of a homeless, critically unwell consumer who couldn’t transfer ahead as a result of Social Safety Management team of workers instructed her that they couldn’t find forms she had submitted 3 years previous.
“This woman is dying,” Anne mentioned. “All you have to do is push a little button to get this moving, and you’re telling me you can’t.”
Miranda, an legal professional within the Philadelphia area, defined that previously, she advocated for shoppers over complicated criminal problems. All over the second one Trump management, that’s modified.
Now, her shoppers might to find that they want an legal professional merely “to make sure something gets off someone’s desk and then faxed into the system.”
Faxing, hardly ever vital for many on a regular basis industry transactions, is regularly used right through the incapacity advantages software procedure.
“It is taking more of my time to do the same amount of work, which then means we’re not able to take as many cases” mentioned Megan, a paralegal within the Boston area.
Suggesting imaginable enhancements
Our file comprises suggestions for making improvements to how the Social Safety Management responds to programs for incapacity advantages.
In our view, the company must make use of sufficient other folks to take care of all programs and appeals in a well timed and correct way whilst protective the information privateness and accessibility for all candidates – together with the ones from immigrant households.
We additionally consider that the company’s leaders can be smart to pay attention critically to comments from skilled advantages representatives who assist other folks with disabilities practice for SSI and SSDI advantages, comparable to the ones we interviewed, and their shoppers.
