Employees at Social Security field offices say the government shutdown has left them unable to carry out an important service for some recipients.
While the agency continues to disburse retirement and disability benefits, workers say they are unable to provide benefit verification letters to people calling in to request them.
These official letters act as a sort of income verification and are therefore key to obtaining aid like housing assistance, fuel assistance and help from nonprofits.
"Not only do people need these letters when they apply for those benefits, but they also often need to recertify to prove that they continue to have an eligible income level, and it often happens on a deadline," says Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Beneficiaries can still access their verification letter online and through the Social Security Administration's automated phone system, the agency says. But during the shutdown, in-person support for the letters is suspended, and when recipients call in to speak with a field office representative, they can't get help with their letter.
And field office workers tell NPR that many people are calling in, seeking assistance. (The workers who spoke to NPR were speaking on behalf of their union because they can't speak on behalf of the Social Security Administration.)
"Anywhere between 60 to 70% of our calls are, 'I need my benefit verification letter right now at this time' during the shutdown," says Tierra Carter, a teleservice worker at an office in Tampa, Fla., who also represents a chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees. "A beneficiary cannot receive a benefit verification letter from the telephone receiver or by walking in through their local Social Security office. And that burdens a lot of our recipients."
Romig notes that "Social Security beneficiaries are much older than the American population on average, so not everybody has a lot of facility with online tools. And likewise, Social Security serves many people with disabilities. And those disabilities could include things that make it hard to use a device, like cognitive disabilities or motor skills or memory issues."
Additionally, critics of the SSA's automated phone system, which include a group of Democratic senators, have reported that it often glitches, loops and doesn't solve a caller's problem.
Barri Sue Bryant, who has worked at the agency for 20 years and represents the Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-area union, says a lot of these calls "tear at our heartstrings."
She says she got a call this week from an elderly man who doesn't know how to use a computer and needed a benefit verification letter so he could finalize his mortgage.
"So, he was going to lose the mortgage if he didn't get it in time," Bryant says. "And then we also had an 89-year-young woman who needed it to get her rent subsidy or she was going to lose it. So, she ultimately could lose her housing over it."
In a statement to NPR, an agency spokesperson said beneficiaries will continue to get their payments, but "as a result of the lapse in appropriation, SSA is following the contingency plan for continued activities."
Bryant and other Social Security employees say it's frustrating that they can't provide the verification letter service during the shutdown.
"They don't consider benefit verification letters essential, but they are to the public, you know. It really runs many of their lives," Bryant says.
Christine Lizotte, a claims representative for the agency in Auburn, Maine, who also represents a union chapter in New England, says even when beneficiaries are able to set up an account online, they often have issues.
"We have some that have navigated it, set up an account, can't remember their email, can't remember their password," she says.
Lizotte said the timing of this shutdown is particularly worrisome in Maine.
Open enrollment for fuel assistance, which for some people requires one of these SSA letters, has begun. She says it's already getting cold in New England, and many folks are calling in for letters and are now worried their assistance won't be sorted out in time.
"If you don't have your application done, by the time it gets cold — and I mean, it's starting to get cold — you may lose out or you may have a delayed fuel assistance voucher, which means the first few months you might be cold," she says.
"So it feels like this huge disservice that we've spent our entire careers here to help these individuals and now are being told, 'Oh, I'm sorry — we can't help you today.' And that is beyond frustrating. Goes against everything we are."
"Almost at a breaking point"
Many workers report an uptick in these frantic and upset callers at a time when SSA workers themselves are struggling.
Because of the shutdown, employees are going without pay, and many of them have also taken on more work in the past several months due to thousands of staff departures at the agency prompted by the Trump administration.
Alex Creese, a claims specialist with the agency in Aurora, Colo., says on behalf of his local AFGE union chapter that many employees are "living paycheck to paycheck" and are worried about paying their bills as long as the shutdown continues. He said the stress of these heartbreaking calls from recipients is exacerbating an already tough situation.
"Right now, with the shutdown, our hands are tied and we're already stretched so thin that now we're stretched even thinner," he says. "So whether it's these programs that we can't offer or programs that we can offer, everything's being impacted. And right now we're just almost at a breaking point."
Creese worries that even more employees will leave the agency.
"We are running on fumes right now," he says. "If the shutdown continues, then … I could see all these talented people leaving. It's just not a good situation right now whatsoever."
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