Make the Social Security Administration more efficient?

That's impossible.

Hi, I'm Scott Ott with Bill Whittle and Stephen Green and this episode of Right Angles

brought to you by the members at Bill Whittle.com.

Gentlemen, we see a lot of hand-wringing and caterwauling lately where people are concerned that somehow

grandma is going to lose her social security because the Trump administration is making efforts to whittle down the Social Security Administration to the essence of what needs to be done for the customers that it actually serves.

Trump has been more vocal than most Republican candidates for president over the years in saying that he would protect people's

Social Security benefits. He believes people paid into that. People should receive the benefit

out of it. But Stephen Green buried in the story that I saw in the Wall Street Journal about

the cuts to staffing at the Social Security Administration were these numbers.

And some of this just really blew my mind.

About 70 million people get checks each month from the Social Security Administration.

Those are both Social Security Retirement Benefits and the Disability Benefits.

Staffing was at a peak of about 68,000 people working for that agency in 2010,

and now it's on its way down to around 55, perhaps 50,000 people. On March 31st, they made the announcement, or actually they made the announcement in advance, but starting on March 31st,

the Social Security Administration said that there would be no phone calls anymore for people who were

filing for first time Social Security benefits or for people who wanted to change their direct

deposit information. All of that had to be done either online or in person at an office.

They said they wanted to do this to reduce the risk of fraud that is apparently more likely

to happen over the phone.

And Steve, that Doche plans call for reducing the number of field offices by 50 from the 1,200 field offices that there are now for the

Social Security.

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