WASHINGTON — The leader of the Social Security Administration under President Joe Biden says President Donald Trump’s staff cuts could cause such disruption in the agency that seniors might miss benefit payments.
Martin O’Malley, who served as commissioner of Social Security from December 2023 to November 2024, said the current administration’s efforts to shrink the workforce will send away essential personnel and jeopardize the agency’s most basic functions.
“I think for the first time in 90 years, we’re going to see an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley told HuffPost on Monday. “I hope that doesn’t happen, but I believe it will. And at the very least you are going to see wait times skyrocket.”
More than 73 million people, including 56 million seniors, rely on the Social Security Administration for monthly benefit checks. Missed payments could cause hardship for recipients and political trouble for the president, whose opposition to Social Security benefit cuts has been a signature issue.
Martin O’Malley, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, says he’s concerned staff cuts at the agency could interrupt benefit payments. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Already, Democrats have hammered Trump and Elon Musk — the White House adviser leading Trump’s purge of the federal workforce via his so-called Department of Government Efficiency — for seeking major reductions of the Social Security Administration’s 60,000 employees. Musk’s young DOGE disciples have been posted in SSA conference rooms and reportedly have sought access to sensitive payment information.
“Make no mistake: Trump and Elon are breaking Social Security to enrich themselves. It’s seniors who will pay the price,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday. Democrats have long said the agency needs more administrative funding, which currently amounts to just half a percent of its total cost.
O’Malley said 30% of the agency’s information technology specialists were eligible for retirement during his tenure and that their work was so important he hesitated to cut back on remote work for fear of pushing them toward the exits. Now the Trump administration is actively shoving out workers.
“You’re talking about an agency that already has been operating at a 50-year low in staffing,” O’Malley said.
Spokespeople for the Social Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek announced last week the agency would undergo a “massive” reorganization with “significant workforce reductions,” offering longer-tenured employees options for buyouts and early retirement programs. Dudek then placed two dozen senior staff on leave and announced plans to consolidate regional offices, according to a memo obtained by HuffPost.
Members of Congress have long scrutinized wait times for appointments at Social Security field offices and delays in answering calls to the agency’s 800 number. It’s hard to see how staff cuts could improve on those customer service metrics, though Dudek has said some employees could be reassigned to “front line” positions answering calls and staffing field offices.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, has repeatedly warned that the Social Security Administration and other agencies rely on outdated IT software, including a programming language known as COBOL that was first created in 1959. The GAO noted in a 2023 report that the SSA has had to rehire retired staff and that “having a shortage of expert personnel available to maintain a critical system creates significant risk to an agency’s mission.”
O’Malley said that during his tenure he saw two widespread systems outages that both resulted from legacy software straining under new tasks.
“It’s a very fragile system,” O’Malley said, adding that an exodus of experienced staff will “create a super high risk of collapse and system failure.”
In an email to staff over the weekend, Dudek said the agency had been running on “autopilot” for too long and that customer service has suffered as a result.
“The changes we implement acknowledge the urgent customer service crisis we face and are determined to fix,” Dudek wrote. “For our dedicated staff and every American we serve, these difficult decisions are not setbacks but opportunities to create a more efficient, accountable, and responsive government.”
