The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently caused panic among recipients after mistakenly informing disabled individuals and senior citizens that their benefits were ending.
Last week, recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the federal program providing financial assistance to disabled Americans and low-income senior citizens, were alarmed to find notifications stating that their benefits had been discontinued.
The SSA website also indicated that some recipients were “currently not receiving payments,” according to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers.
In a letter, the senators explained that constituents who received SSI benefits had logged in to find their payment history and all related data erased.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for SSI, expressed shock at the error, saying, “In my 50 years of work on Social Security and SSI, I have never heard of this happening before.”
It appears the issue was a rare system glitch, and payments were ultimately deposited as planned. However, one affected family stated that Social Security did not contact them to explain the error.
Senators Warren, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Mark Kelly of Arizona wrote a letter to Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek, highlighting how this mistake was particularly concerning for “some of the most vulnerable members of society.”
They emphasized that delayed or disrupted benefits could cause “extraordinary hardship” for low-income seniors, children, and adults with disabilities.
Nancy Altman suggested that the error might be linked to the fallout from recent layoffs at the agency.
The SSA has faced several outages since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut around 7,000 positions.
Maria Freese, a senior Social Security expert at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, pointed out to CBS that “before the Trump administration, Musk, and DOGE took over, there were no major crashes or glitches on SSA’s website,” and “certainly no messages telling people their benefits had been discontinued.”
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