DOGE Wants to Cripple Social Security Phone Services

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Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz acknowledged in a leaked memo that the change would cause “increased challenges for vulnerable populations”

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is planning to restructure the Social Security Administration’s phone support services in a move that could force millions of seniors to require in-person services from the already understaffed agency.

According to a leaked memo obtained by Popular Information and later reported by Axios, Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz proposed adding additional online identity verification to Social Security claims processing in an effort to clamp down on alleged payment fraud. In reality, Social Security fraud is quite rare, affecting less than 1 percent of payments between 2015-2022. By Diaz’s own admission, the additional identity verification could cause increased wait times, and potentially delay or deny services to vulnerable seniors.

In the leaked memo, Diaz suggests that the SSA use “current internet identity proofing, for agency benefits claims and direct deposit changes done over the phone. For instances where a customer is unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identifying documentation.”

Social Security recipients are already required to go through an identity verification process if they utilize the agency’s phone service, and discrepancies are typically resolved by mailing copies of identifying documents to the SSA for verification. A former SSA official told Axios that the memo was crafted at DOGE’s request.

Requiring in-person verification would, as Diaz herself wrote, result in “75,000-85,000 additional visitors per week” to SSA offices, “longer wait times and processing time,” “increased challenges for vulnerable populations,” a higher demand for “resources, staff, and systems updates,” and “increased costs for identity proofing services and potential budget shortfalls.”

Sounds awful, so why do it? Well, the most likely result would be that thousands of people — either through delays, roadblocks, or inability to access in-person services — will stop receiving social security payments. Fewer payments mean less spending on Social Security, and that’s ultimately the Trump administration’s goal.

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Last week, amid rumors that SSA telephone services would be cut off entirely, the agency issued a press release stating that phone services would remain available. “SA is increasing its protection for America’s seniors and other beneficiaries by eliminating the risk of fraud associated with changing bank account information by telephone,” the agency wrote.

DOGE’s incursion into the SSA has already wreaked

havoc on the agency. Musk has accused the program of being “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” and falsely claimed that millions of payments are going out to dead individuals who are over 120 years old. Ten SSA field offices have already been shut down by DOGE, and Musk is floating over $700 billion in cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicaid.

As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the Trump administration is also planning to offload the cost of overpayments and other errors made by SSA officials onto the seniors who receive them. Earlier this month, interim SSA chief Leland Dudek announced that the agency would be increasing the amount of money it withheld from social security recipients who had been overpaid from 10-100 percent — potentially their entire check. For the millions of elderly Americans who rely on social security to make ends meet, an error made by the government could result in a devastating penalty.

Essentially, the Trump administration’s plan to cut back on Social Security seems to be focused on making it more difficult to access benefits, and increasing the amount of money they can withhold from recipients.