The SSA Press Office has been in overdrive lately squelching rumors and impressing upon the public the Trump Administration’s commitment to Social Security. In this latest press release it lays out myriad accomplishments over Trump’s first 100 days in office. Here’s a summary.
Progress on the Social Security Fairness Act
SSA has made significant strides in implementing the Social Security Fairness Act, having paid over $14.8 billion in retroactive payments to more than 2.2 million individuals affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset.
Cost avoidance and efficiency initiatives
SSA has identified over $1 billion in cost avoidance or efficiencies for fiscal year 2025 through new, common-sense approaches in areas such as payroll, information technology, contracts and grants, real property, printing, travel, and purchase card policies.
Workforce optimization
SSA has broken down work silos by combining similar functions across offices. So far, SSA has processed to completion about 350 deferred resignations, over 3,000 voluntary separations, and about 2,000 employees in support positions have accepted and will be reassigned on a flow basis to the offices in most need of staffing resources.
Modernizing telephone services
SSA has begun rolling out to all of its field offices a modern, telecommunications platform that it successfully implemented on its National 800 Number. Once fully implemented, this platform will allow the agency to better manage calls to its field offices nationwide while providing more self-service options for customers, including artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled enhancements.
Fraud prevention
SSA has implemented enhanced fraud prevention tools for claims filed over the telephone, further modernizing the agency’s services and strengthening program integrity. The new technology enables SSA to identify suspicious activity in telephone claims by analyzing patterns and anomalies within a person’s account. If irregularities are detected, the individual will be asked to complete in-person identity proofing to continue processing their claim. Here’s the latest on identity proofing.
Addressing aged records
SSA has made significant progress in improving the accuracy of death data. Updating the records of individuals who are implausibly old to be living is an important anti-fraud measure. Criminals may use those individuals’ information to commit fraud. As part of this effort, SSA has safeguards in place to ensure that it does not update records for individuals who are still alive.
Stewarding taxpayer dollars and ensuring program integrity
SSA announced it will increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) beneficiaries from 10 percent of a person’s monthly benefit, resulting in an increase in overpayment recoveries (i.e., program savings) of about $7 billion in the next decade.
Improving payment accuracy
SSA has begun a phased rollout of the Payroll Information Exchange (PIE) after years of delays. PIE allows the agency to receive automated wage information directly from payroll data providers. This data exchange improves payment accuracy, reduces improper payments, eases the reporting burden on individuals, and results in more efficient use of SSA’s limited administrative resources. It’s estimated that PIE will save $1.1 billion in OASDI benefit payments over the next 10 years, in addition to $1.8 billion in Federal SSI payment savings over the same time period.
Enhanced communication and transparency
In keeping with President Trump’s belief that good government must serve the People, SSA has regularly published updates on agency operations across all of its communications channels and will continue to do so. This includes publishing on SSA’s website key performance data previously available only to SSA employees. The agency regularly updates the data, so the public can see how the agency is doing. The public can access the webpage at ssa.gov/ssa-performance.