TACOMA — Advocates for seniors are raising alarms over changes involving Social Security, and their work appeared to pay off in the short term.
On Wednesday, in response to the pushback, Social Security Administration announced it would delay and in some cases roll back new rules around proving identities via in-office visits, now starting mid-April.
“We have listened to our customers, Congress, advocates, and others, and we are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the country’s most vulnerable populations,” said Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security, in Wednesday’s announcement.
The move came following public pressure ahead of a previous March 31 implementation deadline.
Changes include new rules regarding over-the-phone services, cuts numbering the thousands in the workforce and closures of many regional offices. There’s also DOGE staff vetting the administration’s systems in a quest to catch what they deem as fraudulent payments.
On March 15, The Seattle Times reported that Ned Johnson, 82, had been declared dead and had lost his benefits. Johnson, as The Times report illustrated, is still very much alive.
In Washington state, 2023 figures list 1.45 million recipients of Social Security benefits, with Pierce County home to the second-largest number by county at 163,600 recipients. King County, at No. 1, was listed with 312,615.
AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for issues affecting people ages 50 and older, on Wednesday said it had taken an “all hands on deck” approach in a full-scale advocacy and education campaign. It noted online that “AARP activists have sent more than a million emails and calls to Congress in the past few weeks, voicing their concerns about recent SSA changes.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington on Wednesday held an online briefing for reporters, offering perspective from those tied to the agency, either as regional workers or recipients, of what they’ve seen so far.
Laura Novakoski has worked at the Social Security Administration for more than 30 years, including at the Portland Metro field office for the last 12 years, serving residents from Southwest Washington and Oregon. She also is secretary of AFGE Local 3937, which represents SSA employees throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.
She said Wednesday that she was retiring after becoming “exhausted and demoralized” working at the agency and facing the current round of cuts and operational changes.
“I feel like I’m in the last life boat off of the sinking ship,” Novakoski said.
She noted planned operational changes over handling recipients’ accounts over the phone, “forcing people to come into offices,” had already projected an increase of office visits nationwide by “75,000 to 85,000 people a week, more than what we’re already serving… .”
The projection was included in a leaked memo reported by various media from Acting Deputy Commissioner of Operations Doris Diaz.
“So that’s going to crash our wait times,” Novakoski added. “I mean, there’s no place to sleep in a lobby.”
New deadline for implementation
Dudek, in his SSA update on Wednesday, said, “In addition to extending the policy’s effective date by two weeks to ensure our employees have the training they need to help customers, Medicare, Disability, and SSI applications will be exempt from in-person identity proofing because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a person’s identity.”
The agency stated, “Under the updated policy beginning April 14, 2025, individuals applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Medicare, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) who cannot use a personal my Social Security account can complete their claim entirely over the telephone without the need to come into an office.”
Wednesday’s update also stated, “Individuals who cannot use their personal my Social Security account to apply for benefits will only need to prove their identity at a Social Security office if applying for Retirement, Survivors, or Auxiliary (Spouse or Child) benefits. SSA will enforce online digital identity proofing or in-person identity proofing for these cases.”
It also said it would not enforce requirements “in extreme dire-need situations,” and was working on a bypass process for those instances.
The agency previously sought to enforce changes related to “identity proofing procedures for both benefit claims and direct deposit changes” starting March 31, according to an earlier Social Security Administration online post.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that about 47 percent of the quarter-million people who call Social Security’s 800-number have reached a representative this year, down from 60 percent last year.
Average wait time for a callback is two hours, and the wait for an in-person visit can take weeks.
“If Social Security wrongly declares you dead … it’s your problem,” Murray said Wednesday. “If you can’t verify your identity because there’s no office near you and no appointment available for months, that is a problem.”
Murray was asked what people could do in seeking improvements or preserve benefits, including the workforce.
“Let your member of Congress, even let the White House know that this is a program that you count on and that you expect them to respect,” she replied.
‘Five things’ and hours on the phone
Novakoski also referenced Elon Musk/Department of Government Efficiency’s “five things” email, assigned to employees to detail what they’d accomplished in the week.
“I’ve been recycling the same bullet points for weeks. Nobody reads them. Nobody cares,” Novakoski said. “It’s just a power play. I wrote something as simple as I communicated with my supervisor. I helped the public in English and Spanish.”
Another participant in Wednesday’s briefing described their experience trying to help someone get an online account set up.
Sara Lambert of Carnation receives Social Security benefits and volunteers at a local senior center in her area helping people sign up for their benefits.
In one instance, one elderly senior, 85, recently sought Lambert’s help in updating her address for Social Security.
“We sat down at a senior center computer to create an online Social Security account for her,” Lambert recounted. “No matter what we did, we kept getting messages that something was incomplete or incorrect. We finally found a phone number to call to get some help.”
Lambert said despite the more-than two hours of assistance, problems persisted, and they were advised by the government agent to contact login.gov.
“We’ve opted to meet again,” Lambert said. “This time, we’ll be bringing snacks and maybe a crochet project to work on while we wait.”
