AARP Furious About Trump Administration Curtailing Social Security Phone Service

WASHINGTON — The leading advocacy group for older Americans is not happy at all about the Donald Trump administration’s plans to require office visits for certain Social Security requests that have long been handled by phone. 

The Social Security Administration announced Tuesday that, beginning at the end of the month, anyone unable to prove their identity via SSA.gov will have to do it in person at one of the agency’s 1,200 field offices instead of just picking up the phone.

“Asking tens of millions of Americans to jump through new hoops and prove their identity in the next 13 days to access the customer service they have paid for is deeply unacceptable,” AARP Vice President Nancy LeaMond warned in a letter to Leland Dudek, Social Security’s acting commissioner. 

Dudek said the change was necessary to prevent Social Security fraud, which has emerged as a top concern for President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, with the duo falsely claiming Social Security makes bogus payouts to millions of phantom beneficiaries. 

Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has pushed the Social Security Administration to shrink its staff, office space and contracts. Dudek was put in charge after he went around superiors, who have since resigned, to help DOGE gain access to the agency’s most sensitive databases, which contain personal information about practically everybody in America. 

Earlier this month, Dudek canceled contracts with the state of Maine in an apparent act of retaliation against Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who has resisted Trump’s efforts to disallow transgender athletes from playing girls’ sports. Dudek quickly reinstated the contracts, saying it had been a mistake; he admitted to HuffPost this week he was upset at Mills. 

Starting March 31, per Dudek’s new policy, people who can’t authenticate their identities through the Social Security website’s “my Social Security” feature will have to come to the office for things like benefit claims and bank account changes. Dudek said the change could prevent $100 million in fraud annually, less than 1% of the agency’s outlays. 

“These changes are not intended to hurt our customers,” Dudek told reporters on a press call. “These changes are designed to make sure the right payment goes to the right person at the right time.”

Data from Social Security’s “800 number performance” dashboard indicates fewer than half of calls get answered, with an average wait time of more than 21 minutes as of February, and callbacks typically take two hours. Field offices currently receive more than 100,000 visitors a day. 

In a leaked memo describing the plans that was obtained by Popular Information, a Social Security official estimated field offices would get an additional 75,000 to 85,000 visitors per week. Appointments in recent years have typically required scheduling weeks in advance. 

AARP is an influential lobbying and membership organization representing one of the most powerful voting groups in the U.S. It said its members had delivered more than 800,000 messages to members of Congress in the past two weeks urging lawmakers to protect Social Security from the Trump administration’s changes.

“With Americans already waiting hours to get connected with Social Security on the phone, it is outrageous that under this new policy, older Americans, especially those in rural areas, will have to call, wait on hold for possibly hours, make an appointment, or even take a day off work to claim the benefits they have worked for and earned,” LeaMond wrote. “There is nothing ‘efficient’ about creating more confusion and disrupting the lives of millions of hardworking American taxpayers with such short notice and with no input from the public.”