
Social Security Office Near Me – A Social Security worker helps a veteran with questions about benefits next to a poster advertising the agency’s online services. Many claimants who file online do not receive all the benefits to which they are entitled. Photo: Jim West/jimwestphoto.com.
You need to figure out if retiring at 62 or 65 makes sense? Wondering how much your monthly Social Security benefit will be? Have you been married three times and wondering what that means for benefits?
The answer has never been wider than your local Social Security office, whose staff are highly trained to give you accurate and helpful answers. There’s a reason Social Security is the most popular of all government programs.
But that will change if the Social Security Administration’s “Vision 2025” is adopted. Officials are considering closing most of SSA’s more than 1,000 community offices in the United States, where 43 million people sought services last year.
Although visitor numbers continue to grow, Vision 2025 effectively eliminates face-to-face service and replaces it with Internet service and an 800 phone number.
Thirty thousand field office workers will be laid off, while nearly 11,000 positions have been cut. When SSA asked for employee input on Vision 2025, the overwhelming response was that field offices are critical to the agency’s mission.
“Americans are being cheated out of what they deserve,” said Witold Skwierczynski, head of the union’s advisory board. “Every Social Security beneficiary deserves the personal assistance they’ve paid for throughout their lives.”
The 800 number, which currently has long wait times, may be automated. Beneficiaries must resolve the questions before they can speak to a live representative. And the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) suspects that the SSA is outsourcing call centers to other countries.
The confusing MySSA website presents its own challenges. Until now, beneficiaries have been able to obtain documents such as Social Security number verification and verification of benefits received simply by going to a field office and requesting them.
Such applications are often needed on the same day to apply for mortgages, apply for jobs, and qualify for federal aid programs. When viewing the SSA website, it can take a week or more for the most common types of documents to appear in physical form in the requester’s mailbox.
Later this year, SSA plans to stop issuing these simple verifications in field offices — instead of requiring an online or phone connection and then waiting.
“This plan assumes that by 2025, people will want to do all their business over the Internet and not leave their homes,” said Matt Perlinger, an Omaha claims representative.
“Our office is busier than ever. People still need personal service to understand Social Security’s complex program. SSA’s attentive and dedicated staff took the time to explain these programs in detail.
The loss of personal services will cause serious hardship to millions of seniors who do not have access to computers or the Internet. It also increases the distance they have to travel to reach the remaining offices.
The Social Security Works Alliance, which is fighting to strengthen the program, is lobbying to reopen recently closed field offices in Florida, Massachusetts, New York and California.
“The public thought the closing of the Social Security office was very bad,” director Alex Lawson said. It always includes local news. We want to make sure that all these service cuts and office closings together make national news.”
He pointed out that social security is threatened from many fronts. It was only after strong public opposition that President Obama abandoned his attempt to implement a lower cost of living. The office closings, service cuts, George W. Bush’s push for outright privatization — all are “part of a Wall Street-led attack on Social Security,” he said.
He said cuts to services undermine confidence in Social Security, so closing offices would threaten the future of the entire program.
Lawson notes that document availability at field offices is “very important for other services like mortgages. A lot of the victims are seniors on energy assistance programs; they have to verify their income to qualify.”
One recently abandoned service is the reassuring document you received every fall that lists your earnings for each year of your life and how much Social Security you’ll eventually receive. You can also check for errors. The Social Security Administration stopped sending out notices in 2011 to save $70 million a year — a pittance for an agency with a $2.8 trillion fund.
“These earnings data are sending super messages — that workers have been paying into Social Security all these years and the SSA has a record of that, and the worker can soon withdraw their capital and get the same amount thanks to those earnings — and all of this is real.
“And in the meantime, workers now have disability coverage, and in the event of a worker’s death, survivors are covered.”
Public and congressional pressure forced the SSA to resume mailings this September to people who had not yet received benefits, but they now receive them only every five years between the ages of 25 and 60 (annually thereafter) and only if they have never received benefits. registered to view their statement online.
“These statements are mildly eye-opening and tend to increase support for Social Security, but they would only do so by one-fifth if they were to come,” Campana said.
Skwierczynski noted that according to surveys of SSA staff, many applicants who apply online are making decisions that could result in permanent loss of benefits. SSA staff are trained to spot these errors.
Ryan Gurganious, North Carolina’s disability compensation administrator, cited an example: “When a disabled person is working, we ask them, ‘Do you pay special expenses at your job to be able to work. ?’ They might say, “I have to have county transportation pick me up in my wheelchair, and that’s a $40 a month fee.”
“We know that $40 isn’t in the equation when we calculate their benefits, so they get a bigger SSI check. But the computer doesn’t ask them that.”
Labor Notes employee Jenny Brown cites a personal example. His father was initially told he was just shy of completing the work credits needed to qualify for Social Security benefits. He worked for several ye
ars at a public university that was not part of the system at the time.
But the wary office worker realized he was also a World War II veteran — and a special rule for those vets forced him to pay more every month.
David Sheeagley, AFGE representative and SSA’s teleservices center in Cleveland, noted that SSA staff “support people through stressful transitions, whether it’s death, disability or retirement. In other words, our job at SSA absolutely requires people to want to speak to the public.
Another aspect of SSA’s long-term plan is that people using the MySSA site are at risk. The New York Times reported that a group of Vietnamese criminals attacked Experian, the private credit reporting company that manages some of the MySSA user data. Although SSA data was not affected at the time, 200 million accounts were compromised.
H.R. 3997, supported by AFGE, would suspend field office closings until SSA provides good cause. The bill also requires communities to weigh the possibility of closure. However, the bill faces an uphill battle to reach the US House of Representatives. As of May 9, it had only 15 supporting sponsors.
“No one asked for this plan,” Skwierczynski said. “These Social Security benefits belong to all Americans. Our mission is to preserve the benefits and services they deserve.”
Although demand will increase as baby boomers retire, SSA does not expect to wait until 2025. Management has closed 80 field offices and shortened working hours in other offices by closing Open Wednesdays and 3 p.m.
AFGE is encouraging union members and anyone who wants Social Security—that’s just everyone—to delay Vision 2025. The website afge.org/saveoursocialsecurity has ways to ask your legislators to support H.R. 3997. Site visitors can submit a letter to the editor and find tools to educate their community.
A version of this article was published in Labor Notes No. 423, June 2014. Don’t miss an issue, order today.
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UPDATED AT 4:26 PM ET July 6, 2022 PUBLISHED AT 6:29 PM ET July 5, 2022 PUBLISHED AT 6:29 PM EDT July 5, 2022
ORLANDO, Fla. – Frustration and frustration continue to mount after more than a hundred people again waited hours in line on Wednesday 6 July to access their local social security.
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