{"id":368249,"date":"2025-12-24T21:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368249\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:48:07","slug":"in-person-office-services-to-be-reduced-nbc-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368249\/","title":{"rendered":"In-person, office services to be reduced \u2013 NBC Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Social Security Administration<\/a>\u00a0is hoping to cut visits to its field offices in half next year, a move that advocates for the agency fear signals\u00a0more closures<\/a>\u00a0are coming.<\/p>\n

Field offices have long been community-based branches that serve as the public face of the SSA, which provide in-person help for people applying for retirement and disability benefits, getting Social Security cards and other important services.<\/p>\n

A November internal field office operating plan shared with The Associated Press outlines a proposed target of 50% fewer field office visitors in fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal year 2025, or no more than 15 million field office visits by members of the public. Agency field offices saw more than 31.6 million field office visits from SSA recipients from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, according to the agency document.<\/p>\n

In Illinois, there are 47 Social Security Administration Office locations, according to the SSA website. More than 20 of those are in the Chicago area, the site showed. <\/p>\n

Barton Mackey, a Social Security spokesperson, told The Associated Press \u201cfield offices are, and will always remain, our front-line, providing in-person services to the approximately 75 million Americans who receive monthly payments and more than 330 million Americans with Social Security numbers, which the Commissioner has reiterated countless times since his confirmation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Security Administration under President Trump\u2019s leadership is serving more Americans than ever before at quicker speeds, and meeting customers where they want to be served,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cThrough technology improvements and modernization, more Americans are choosing to easily and quickly manage their benefits online or over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nextgov\/FCW first reported on the agency\u2019s plan to reduce field office foot traffic.<\/p>\n

At least 7,000 SSA<\/a>\u00a0workers have been laid off from the agency this year as the Trump administration has proposed a number of plans to streamline services at the SSA.<\/p>\n

In March, after outcry from lawmakers and the public, SSA\u00a0leadership partially backtracked on a plan<\/a>\u00a0that would require all new and existing beneficiaries who are unable to use the agency\u2019s online portal to travel to a Social Security field office to verify their identity.<\/p>\n

Jessica LaPointe, a union leader for 30,000 Social Security workers through the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, said field offices are part of the quality of life agenda within communities, especially for \u201cpeople who don\u2019t have the resources to purchase technology to navigate the online world and they should be able to walk into an office to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the SSA wants \u201cto allow AI and the internet to replace a well-trained, well-vetted workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several field offices in rural areas of the U.S. have already closed this year because of a lack of staffing.<\/p>\n

The Social Security website lists several office closures as well as offices that are\u00a0only able to assist by phone<\/a>\u00a0until further notice. The agency says the closures are not permanent, rather, the offices are closed due to maintenance or facilities issues that the agency is working to resolve, the agency says.<\/p>\n

Chris Delaney, a Social Security claims specialist and president of AFGE Local 3343 in Hudson, says he cannot imagine how SSA can have a goal of cutting foot traffic when his office is seeing an increase in foot traffic and a growing aging population reliant on SSA income. The Hudson office sees roughly 30 to 60 visitors per day who have questions about their benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people can\u2019t get past the ID verification on\u00a0login.gov<\/a>, and just because they have a cellphone doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re capable of creating an online account,\u201d Delaney said. \u201cHaving people in the office when they need it is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 operating plan also calls for all requested appointments to be scheduled within 30 days, instead of the current rate of 78.3% of all appointments scheduled within 30 days.<\/p>\n

Social Security is one of the nation\u2019s largest and most popular social programs. A January poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that two-thirds of U.S. adults think the country is\u00a0spending too little on Social Security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The agency has faced several lawsuits over the Trump administration\u2019s plans to overhaul the agency.<\/p>\n

In October, Democracy Forward, a legal group challenging the Trump administration\u2019s policies, filed a lawsuit to compel SSA to release public records about service disruptions and policy changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter executing the largest staffing cuts in the 90-year history of Social Security, they\u2019re trying to deal with a problem they created without any meaningful discussion,\u201d LaPointe said. \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing is void of public input.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC Chicago reached out to the Social Security Administration for more information but did not immediately hear back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Social Security Administration\u00a0is hoping to cut visits to its field offices in half next year, a move that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530,733],"class_list":{"0":"post-368249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-personal-finance","10":"tag-personalfinance","11":"tag-social-security"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}