Connect with us

Politics

Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds

Published

4 weeks ago

on

More than half of the Social Security Administration’s frontline employees are earning less than what’s necessary to afford a basic standard of living in their communities, according to a new report.

Released Wednesday by the Strategic Organizing Center, a research partner for the American Federation of Government Employees, the report found 54% of the 36,000 frontline SSA employees represented by AFGE were paid less than a living wage for their geographic region. A living wage is the minimum income needed for an individual to afford the minimum standard of living in their community.

The report compares each employee’s reported pay rate on the General Schedule pay scale against the estimated living wage rate for the employee’s location, as tracked by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Institute.

In a survey of more than 800 current SSA employees, 17% of respondents with over 20 years on the job told SOC they are working a second job. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they were struggling to provide at least one necessity for their families, and that the recent government shutdown only deepened their financial problems.

AFGE Local 2014 President Shaunellia Ferguson, who represents teleservice center workers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said many of her members are taking second jobs, especially those who are single parents.

“They’re overworked, they’re stressed, they’re underpaid. You probably have one claims representative doing the work of three people,” Ferguson said.

Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they have at least one child or dependent. Of those, nearly 75% of respondents said they were the primary income earners in their households.

Most SSA employees in the survey said that amid these workforce challenges, the agency is unable to keep up with the needs of beneficiaries.

About 70% of surveyed employees said service speed for the public has decreased, and 65% said the quality of service they provide has deteriorated.

“The public is not getting world-class customer service, and that’s what Social Security prided itself on in the past. That’s not happening,” Ferguson said.

Employee satisfaction has been an ongoing issue for SSA. It received the lowest employee engagement and satisfaction scores of all large agencies between 2024 and 2022, according to the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Workforce.

An SSA spokesperson said in a statement that, under the leadership of Commissioner Frank Bisignano, “SSA is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization.”

“The commissioner recognizes the importance of fostering a positive work environment and is dedicated to making meaningful progress in response to employee feedback,” the spokesperson said.

An inspector general report last month found that SSA served 68 million callers in fiscal 2025, a 65% increase compared to the prior year. However, about 25 million calls ended without the caller receiving service — either because the caller hung up and did not complete the call, or because the phone system could not connect callers to an employee. The agency’s wait time metrics don’t include these abandoned calls or callers who received a busy message.

“The wait time is through the roof. I know data might be out there that says something different, but that’s not true. There’s not enough staffing to cover those phone calls. We need people,” Ferguson said.

In a separate report last year, the SOC estimated there are approximately 4,000 Social Security beneficiaries for every agency employee working in field offices.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting on Monday that SSA is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze. A field office manager told Federal News Network that “I have been given zero authority to hire.”

The SSA spokesperson said that “Commissioner Bisignano has pledged to have the right level of staffing to operate at peak efficiency and deliver best-in-class customer service to the American people.

“Through technology enhancements and strategic staffing decisions, SSA is serving more Americans at quicker speeds in field offices and on the phone,” the spokesperson said.

The Trump administration kept a governmentwide hiring freeze in place through mid-October last year. In a follow-up executive order, the administration required agencies to submit annual staffing plans for the coming year, subject to review and approval by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget. Until OMB and OPM approve those staffing plans, are limited to hiring one new employee for every four employees who leave.

A second SSA employee told Federal News Network that SSA is planning to install self-service kiosks in field offices, to reduce the demand on frontline staff to provide in-person help to beneficiaries.

According to SOC’s research, a majority of SSA employees in 25 states are paid less than a living wage — especially across New England and the West Coast. The study shows that at least 75% of SSA employees in Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut earn less than a living wage.

During the 43-day government shutdown last fall, the vast majority of SSA employees were designated as “excepted” staff, and continued to show up to work without pay. Many federal employees have missed two full paychecks during the shutdown, and received one partial paycheck.

More than 80% of survey respondents said they struggled to pay for basic expenses, including housing, food and transportation during the recent government shutdown.

By November 2025, SSA managers told agency leadership that some field office employees working without pay asked to be furloughed for the remainder of the government shutdown, as they could no longer afford the daily commuting costs. Agency leadership didn’t allow employees facing financial hardship to telework during the shutdown.

One day during the government shutdown, two of SSA’s 1,250 field offices closed early because of short-staffing. Just before the shutdown ended, SSA leadership considered whether to put more in-person services on hold.

The release of SOC’s report coincides with a “national day of action” organized by AFGE. The union and SSA employees will hold rallies across the country to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding and staffing for the agency.

The post Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds first appeared on Federal News Network.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Politics

Not What He Expected: Van Jones Asks Black Trump Voters If They Would Vote for Him Again-“1,000% Absolutely Yes!”

Published

21 hours ago

on

February 9, 2026

By

Van Jones

During a segment on CNN, leftist Van Jones asked three Black voters who have supported President Trump in the past if they could do it over, would they vote for him again.

The responses were yeses across the board, with one noting emphatically, “1,000% absolutely yes!”

Jones: If you had to do it all over again, would you vote for Donald Trump again, yes or no?

Voter one: Yes, I would. Now, in the future, I am not a diehard Democrat or diehard Republican. If there were a Democratic candidate who was more aligned for me, then I would vote Democrat.

Jones: If you go back in time, would you vote for Donald Trump, yes or no?

Voter two: Yes.

Jones: I think I might know the answer on this.

Voter two: She said yes. It’s immediately yes.

Jones: If you had to draw over again, would you vote for Donald Trump, yes or no?

Voter three: 1,000% absolutely yes!

Watch:

The post Not What He Expected: Van Jones Asks Black Trump Voters If They Would Vote for Him Again-“1,000% Absolutely Yes!” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

President Trump Absolutely TORCHES Spoiled U.S. Olympic Athlete Who Whined That It was “Hard” to Represent America Due to ICE Crackdowns

Published

21 hours ago

on

February 9, 2026

By

Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

President Trump is livid over a handful of ungrateful U.S. Olympic athletes trashing the greatest nation in the world in front of a global audience and has responded accordingly.

As The Gateway Pundit’s Cassandra MacDonald reported, 27-year-old Hunter Hess, who is competing in freestyle halfpipe, whined to reporters that wearing the American flag “brings up mixed emotions” and is “a little hard” right now because of ICE going after illegals.

Hess added that he’s not the “biggest fan” of much that’s happening in the U.S.

“Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S. I just kind of want to do it for my friends and family, the people who supported me getting here,” Hess said.

His teammate Chris Lillis, a 27-year-old aerials specialist and gold medalist from the 2022 Beijing Olympics, told reporters he also feels “heartbroken” about ICE raids and protests.

He went on to add that he feels the country needs to “focus on respecting everybody’s rights and making sure that we’re treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect.”

The two’s comments were made during a press conference on Friday, just after the Games’ opening ceremony.

When Trump got wind of these remarks, he absolutely went off on Truth Social.

The president decided to focus his ire on Hess, whose comments were the most anti-American. He called Hess a “real loser” who “should have never tried out for the team.”

Trump added that it was “very hard to root for someone like this.”

“U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,” Trump wrote.

“If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this,” he added.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

The post President Trump Absolutely TORCHES Spoiled U.S. Olympic Athlete Who Whined That It was “Hard” to Represent America Due to ICE Crackdowns appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

MN Dem Candidate Shares’ ICE Fear’ Food Deliveries — Mom of Daughter Left Disabled by Illegal Hits Back

Published

21 hours ago

on

February 9, 2026

By

Carissa Aspnes was permanently disabled by an illegal./Image: GoFundMe

Minnesota Congressional candidate, Democrat Kaela Berg, perhaps inspired by Olympic fever, is certainly competing for woke-gold, and the mother of a young woman permanently disabled by an illegal was not impressed with Berg’s virtue signalling.

On Saturday, Berg shared a self-congratulatory video delivering food to people “scared to leave their homes because of ICE.”

“We just finished delivering groceries to folks too afraid to leave their homes because of this ICE occupation in our community,” she preened on camera.

“An amazing amount of people have put together their boxes of produce and meat as well as toilet paper and diapers for those that need it….to dry goods…even some treats to help our neighbors. And we will continued to do this as long as we need to.”

Berg’s self-aggrandizement fell flat for the mother of 22-year-old Colorado woman Carissa Aspnes. On March 28, 2025, Carissa was catastrophically injured in a hit-and-run crash on March 28, 2025. The suspect, an illegal who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, allegedly crashed into her vehicle and fled the scene.

Carissa survived but suffered permanent, severe disabilities: she is wheelchair-bound, nonverbal, minimally conscious, unable to smile or laugh, and requires full-time care.

Carissa’s mother responded to Berg’s post, noting, “My daughter could use a meal since she can no longer go to the grocery store for herself after she got hit by an illegal alien that fled and left her for dead.”

“While you’re at it, you can stay and feed her a meal through her g-tube since she can no longer eat by mouth.”

Carissa’s mother shared the devastating details of the incident.

Watch:

Republican Colorado State Rep. Brandi Bradley introduced the “Carissa Amendment,” which would crack down on crimes committed against US citizens by illegal aliens, yet not a single Democrat voted for it.

Carissa’s family has a GoFundMe to help cover her extensive medical bills.

The post MN Dem Candidate Shares’ ICE Fear’ Food Deliveries — Mom of Daughter Left Disabled by Illegal Hits Back appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Trending