March 26, 2025
Mr. Leland Dudek
Acting Commissioner
Social Security Administration
6401 Security Boulevard
Baltimore, Maryland 21235
Dear Commissioner Dudek:
The National Federation of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans, is gravely concerned by the recently proposed reductions to the number of Social Security Administration (SSA) offices and staff, the increase in the number of services for which a beneficiary may need to visit an office to address in person, and the institution of increasingly aggressive repayment procedures. We seek to make you aware of our objections to these policies to hopefully work toward a resolution that is more beneficial to both the Administration and the beneficiaries who depend upon their monthly payments.
In a blog post dated February 28, the SSA published that it plans to reduce the Administration’s workforce from the current level of 57,000 employees to the staffing target of 50,000 employees. It has also been reported that dozens of Social Security field offices and six regional offices across the country will be closing. Given that the SSA is currently operating at historically low staffing rates, these proposed cuts will further exacerbate already long wait times for critical services like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which many Americans with disabilities rely on to make ends meet. By some estimates, these reductions are expected to increase wait times for essential services, like SSDI benefits approvals, to nearly a year.
With the reduction in the number of field offices, beneficiaries will also have to wait longer and travel farther for in-person appointments. According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately 20 percent of Americans live in a rural area. Closing field offices will make their ability to travel to the nearest Social Security office more difficult, or even impossible. Both of these changes will create an immense and disproportionate barrier for Americans with disabilities, who constitute the vast majority of applicants and beneficiaries for SSI and SSDI. We strongly encourage the Social Security Administration to eliminate these barriers and reconsider your approach.
In a separate blog post dated March 18, the SSA published its intention to implement stronger identity verification procedures using the online “my Social Security account” system. In the post, it states: “Individuals seeking these services who cannot use their personal my Social Security account, which requires online identity proofing, will then need to visit a local Social Security office to prove their identity in person.” This will require virtually all individuals who apply for benefits to complete identity verification, consistent with SSA’s push for beneficiaries to use direct deposit, rather than paper checks. Because many people with disabilities and aging people, including the blind, struggle to use the SSA website for numerous reasons, this will likely increase field office visits by 75,000 to 85,000 per week.
At the same time, you are also closing dozens of field offices all across the country and reducing staff, who are already overburdened. The Administration is trying to funnel a greater number of people through a smaller and more sparsely located set of physical offices. These two strategies are in direct opposition to one another. Further, we have an existing settlement agreement with SSA requiring the agency to accept electronic signatures (which, unlike wet signatures, are accessible to the blind) without further attestation. We believe the new policy requiring in-person verification for applicants (particularly those with representatives) who sign electronically is in violation of that agreement.
Furthermore, in a blog post dated March 7, the SSA published its intent to change the overpayment withholding rate from 10 percent back to 100 percent of a beneficiary’s monthly SSDI payment. While we understand the requirement for the Administration to reclaim overpayments, and we do not oppose the establishment of a repayment plan for that purpose, we find it unconscionable that the SSA would withhold the entirety of a recipient’s benefit. In many cases, recipients of SSDI payments are dependent upon those funds and will face severe hardship if it is removed entirely. This is a policy that we have long had issue with, even under previous administrations, which is why we were highly supportive of the withholding reduction to 10 percent of a beneficiary’s payment that was instituted in March 2024. At the time, 10 percent seemed to be a fair compromise to correct a mistake for which many beneficiaries bear no part of the responsibility.
Finally, we strongly object to the recent closing of the SSA Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity. Without this office, matters pertaining to civil rights, equal employment opportunity, harassment prevention, reasonable accommodations, and disability services will go uninvestigated, unanswered, and unresolved.
The National Federation of the Blind is ready and willing to work with the Social Security Administration to find better ways to address the above problems. We acknowledge the need for more effective and responsible spending of taxpayer money, but we also believe that it should not come with additional burdens for blind and other disabled Americans who already face tremendous barriers in our day to day lives. There must be a better way.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind