Trump, Musk should get cautious with Social Security cuts

The Trump administration’s wielding of the budget ax at the Social Security Administration is causing insecurity among seniors and those with disabilities. This unnecessary anxiety, regardless of the stated goals, takes it toll.

Many Social Security offices are targeted to close, two of them north of New York City so far. Phone access to personnel is reduced, and taxpayers who earned their benefits honestly over the years are being called in for personal appearances of dubious necessity.

Again, fraud should be weeded out, but the Department of Government Efficiency hasn't put up the evidence to justify the chain saw. And how temporary disruptions will be, and whether they lead to a better system in the long run as promised, cannot be predicted. Top administration officials have not established the credibility needed to reassure the frightened. Nor do they seem to try. Consider recent statements by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

"Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month, my mother-in-law — who's 94 — she wouldn't call and complain," Lutnick said on a business and tech podcast. "She'd think something got messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining." Clearly, the concerns of people who live check-to-check are a hypothetical abstraction to billionaire Lutnick. And not everyone can use the mySocialSecurity account available online.

Newsday recently interviewed Laura Leitner, the daughter of a 97-year-old, who handles this kind of business for her mother. She was at the Social Security office in Melville to help her mother obtain the benefits of her late husband. This new personal appearance requirement is "outrageous," she said. "Disabled, elderly people don't have transportation," Leitner said. "The phone line was critical for them. Even though it takes two hours to reach someone, it's still a critical aspect for people that need to speak to somebody at Social Security."

All this is done in the name of "identity verification" and fraud prevention. DOGE's diminishment of day-to-day help services is chaotic, not productive. For example: SSA’s processing system sometimes misses out on recording state-reported deaths, according to a recent inspector general’s audit. So should the system be fixed, or the public punished by service cuts and layoffs? As for recent mass dismissals: Only one half of one percent of the SSA’s total expenses last year were administrative costs, officials said.

The prospect of SSA fraud was reviewed by outsiders long before Musk. According to the nonprofit Brookings Institution, fraud represented "0.00625% of the annual budget, far less than what private companies like Mastercard or Visa would accept."

All of that means DOGE needs to start proceeding with caution. Elon Musk and President Donald Trump shouldn’t have to learn at this stage that Social Security is an important public benefit, not a Ponzi scheme, and that degrading the agency’s public interface hurts citizens. 

But apparently they do.