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Doge Social Security Closures: Recipients Need to Visit Offices to Get Benefits

36 points by rntn 2y ago

gotoeleven 2y ago
This is going to really hit hard those of us with unverifiable personal identities.
doomroot 2y ago
The title is clickbait, in the article it says they can verify online. The change is to stop verification over the phone.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  A lot of older individuals still don’t use the internet in any capacity, not even through a smartphone. For those people, effectively the only option is to visit an office.
- acdha 2y ago
  You might want to read past the first paragraph before incorrectly claiming it’s clickbait. The fourth paragraph covers why online verification excludes a lot of people - nearly half of older Americans - and the fifth covers the building closures which remove the option many people use to fill that gap. One thing in particular to consider is how painful MFA is for many people, especially those with marginal connectivity or disabilities, and how commonly older people are phished or have malware on their generally older, often unpatched devices. If you haven’t supported a population like this, it’s way more of a barrier than you might think.
  - billev2k 2y ago
    MFA is often painful for me, and I've been a dev since we were called "programmers".
    - acdha 2y ago
      Definitely. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen some horrid login flow and cringed to think about what it’s like for people who have visual or cognitive impairments, use a janky old phone they got on one of those lifeline plans, etc. If I’m remembering right, one test with SMS codes with a short expiration (10-15 minutes) had lose to half of older users struggling with delays and the challenge of copy-pasting or remembering only the code within that time limit. We have really lost our way as a field for some basic user experiences and that really shouldn’t be acceptable for government services or companies people need to deal with like utilities, banks, etc.
- amazing_stories 2y ago
  It's a terrible policy. I know someone who is 74 and never owned a computer. They own a smartphone but only know how to use the phone app and really don't understand texting. I was shocked when I learned this and I imagine there are many people like him.
  - ohnoitsahuman 2y ago
    A good portion of people in such situations will have children or loved ones who will walk them through online portion.
acdha 2y ago
In addition to the various obstacles this creates for disabled or rural people, I expect this will create a lot of phishing opportunities. The commercial banks struggle a lot with that and they’re not constrained by post-DOGE budgets.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dc396 2y ago
Sounds like the rural, older voters (who leaned strongly towards Trump) are going to be the most affected by this. Sucks to be them. For others, combine closing SSA offices with forcing people who can't/aren't able to use online verification to physically go to an office will probably make the SSA office visit all the more 'fun'. I wonder how much social security identity fraud there actually is (as opposed to the anecdotes of such fraud used to enrage). It's almost like the current administration is trying to make obtaining government services annoying/infuriating on purpose...
k310 2y ago
The point seems to be making Social Security and other services painful to use, rather than eliminating them, which would take an act of congress. The result is the de-facto crippling of the services and/or the privatization of them, per plan [0]. This is particularly harmful or fatal for the V.A., where lives could be lost through cutbacks in services. Loss of Social Security could be ruinous to many seniors. For background on the current plan, see 'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook [1] Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk 'Hijacking' Republicans to Control Entire US Government [2] PDF of their letter. [3] 630K [0] https://www.project2025.org/ https://www.project2025.org/ plus PDF of their plan [4] [1] https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d... [2] https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblowers-warn-elon-musk-hijacking-republicans-to-control-entire-us-government/ https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblo... [3] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-February-5-2025.pdf https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe... [4] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-February-5-2025.pdf https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe...
tmaly 2y ago
I could see this as being a huge problem if people are physically disabled or bed-ridden. They should also provide a home visit service for this to handle those cases.
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  > They should also provide a home visit service for this to handle those cases. Hard to do when you cut staffing and remove offices from many regions.
  - tmaly 2y ago
    They are going to have to hire people back for this. You can't mess with people's social security.

36 points by rntn 2y ago

This is going to really hit hard those of us with unverifiable personal identities.

The title is clickbait, in the article it says they can verify online. The change is to stop verification over the phone.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago
A lot of older individuals still don’t use the internet in any capacity, not even through a smartphone. For those people, effectively the only option is to visit an office.
acdha 2y ago
You might want to read past the first paragraph before incorrectly claiming it’s clickbait. The fourth paragraph covers why online verification excludes a lot of people - nearly half of older Americans - and the fifth covers the building closures which remove the option many people use to fill that gap. One thing in particular to consider is how painful MFA is for many people, especially those with marginal connectivity or disabilities, and how commonly older people are phished or have malware on their generally older, often unpatched devices. If you haven’t supported a population like this, it’s way more of a barrier than you might think.
- billev2k 2y ago
  MFA is often painful for me, and I've been a dev since we were called "programmers".
  - acdha 2y ago
    Definitely. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen some horrid login flow and cringed to think about what it’s like for people who have visual or cognitive impairments, use a janky old phone they got on one of those lifeline plans, etc. If I’m remembering right, one test with SMS codes with a short expiration (10-15 minutes) had lose to half of older users struggling with delays and the challenge of copy-pasting or remembering only the code within that time limit. We have really lost our way as a field for some basic user experiences and that really shouldn’t be acceptable for government services or companies people need to deal with like utilities, banks, etc.
amazing_stories 2y ago
It's a terrible policy. I know someone who is 74 and never owned a computer. They own a smartphone but only know how to use the phone app and really don't understand texting. I was shocked when I learned this and I imagine there are many people like him.
- ohnoitsahuman 2y ago
  A good portion of people in such situations will have children or loved ones who will walk them through online portion.

acdha 2y ago

In addition to the various obstacles this creates for disabled or rural people, I expect this will create a lot of phishing opportunities. The commercial banks struggle a lot with that and they’re not constrained by post-DOGE budgets.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dc396 2y ago

Sounds like the rural, older voters (who leaned strongly towards Trump) are going to be the most affected by this. Sucks to be them. For others, combine closing SSA offices with forcing people who can't/aren't able to use online verification to physically go to an office will probably make the SSA office visit all the more 'fun'. I wonder how much social security identity fraud there actually is (as opposed to the anecdotes of such fraud used to enrage). It's almost like the current administration is trying to make obtaining government services annoying/infuriating on purpose...

k310 2y ago

The point seems to be making Social Security and other services painful to use, rather than eliminating them, which would take an act of congress. The result is the de-facto crippling of the services and/or the privatization of them, per plan [0]. This is particularly harmful or fatal for the V.A., where lives could be lost through cutbacks in services. Loss of Social Security could be ruinous to many seniors. For background on the current plan, see 'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook [1] Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk 'Hijacking' Republicans to Control Entire US Government [2] PDF of their letter. [3] 630K [0] https://www.project2025.org/ https://www.project2025.org/ plus PDF of their plan [4] [1] https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d... [2] https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblowers-warn-elon-musk-hijacking-republicans-to-control-entire-us-government/ https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblo... [3] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-February-5-2025.pdf https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe... [4] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-February-5-2025.pdf https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe...

tmaly 2y ago

I could see this as being a huge problem if people are physically disabled or bed-ridden. They should also provide a home visit service for this to handle those cases.

Jtsummers 2y ago
> They should also provide a home visit service for this to handle those cases. Hard to do when you cut staffing and remove offices from many regions.
- tmaly 2y ago
  They are going to have to hire people back for this. You can't mess with people's social security.