Frank Bisignano, Social Security commissioner nominee, at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025. (Senate webcast)

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel voted Wednesday to send Frank Bisignano’s nomination as Social Security commissioner to the floor, despite allegations from Democrats that he was dishonest in his testimony before the committee about his relationship with Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting operation.

The 14-13 party-line vote took place one day later than originally scheduled in an ornate room just steps from the Senate floor, instead of the committee hearing room.

Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said Tuesday morning that he supported Bisignano’s commitment to improve customer service and reduce improper payments.

Crapo also committed to looking into an anonymous whistleblower letter that was sent to the committee’s Democrats, though he declined to delay the panel’s vote until after that process concluded.

“Even though the timing of the anonymous letter suggests a political effort to delay the committee vote on this nominee, my staff have told Sen. Wyden’s staff — and we have discussed this just now — we are open to meeting with the author of the letter and keeping the individual anonymous,” Crapo said. “However, any information provided by the individual must be thoroughly vetted, including allowing the nominee the opportunity to respond.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking member on the panel, urged Crapo to delay the vote until after a committee investigation, alleging Bisignano was untruthful during his testimony.  

“This nominee lied multiple times to every member of this committee, including the bipartisan Finance staff and the nominee’s actions and communications with DOGE remain very much at the heart of my objection here,” Wyden said. “My office received an account from a whistleblower about the ways the nominee was deeply involved in and aware of DOGE’s activities at the agency.”

Wyden said that Bisignano, though not confirmed and with no official role yet at the agency, intervened at the Social Security Administration to ensure that staff from U.S. DOGE Services had “immediate access to Social Security systems.” DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, is a temporary Trump administration entity aimed at slashing the federal workforce and spending.

Wyden also argued that Bisignano’s history in corporate America wasn’t a good fit for running the Social Security Administration, saying he “has made a career of swooping in, firing workers, selling off pieces of the company and merging with a competitor.”

“These practices may be good for shareholders, but they hurt American families,” Wyden said. “So we, Senate Democrats, are not going to stand by idly while Trump’s cronies take a sledgehammer to Social Security and deprive seniors of their earned benefits under the false manner of fighting fraud.”

Bisignano hearing

Bisignano, of New Jersey, testified before the committee for nearly three hours in late March, fielding questions on several issues, including overpayments and customer service.

He pledged to reduce the 1% overpayment rate significantly and said he could bring down the average wait time for customer service phone calls from about 20 minutes to less than one minute.

“If you look at the Social Security website, and you look at the statistics, taking 20-plus minutes to answer the phone is not really acceptable,” Bisignano said during his confirmation hearing. “And that’s the reason why only 46% of the phone calls get answered, because people get discouraged and hang up.”

Bisignano promised senators he would ensure Americans’ personal information would be kept secure.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Bisignano testified he would “ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.”

“So my first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services,” Bisignano said. “And I’ve only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion.”

He also rejected the possibility of privatizing Social Security.

“I’ve never thought about privatizing. It’s not a word that anybody’s ever talked to me about,” Bisignano said. “And I don’t see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run to the benefit of the American public.”

Bisignano works as chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fiserv, Inc., which “enables money movement for thousands of financial institutions and millions of people and businesses,” according to its website. The company is based in Wisconsin.

He previously worked as co-chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Frank Bisignano, the nominee for Social Security commissioner in the Trump administration, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025. (Screenshot from Senate webcast)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration pledged Tuesday that if confirmed he’d ensure Americans can access customer service however they choose, though Democrats questioned how that would be possible if thousands of employees are fired and offices throughout the country are closed.

Social Security Commissioner nominee Frank Bisignano testified during a nearly three-hour hearing in the Senate Finance Committee that he wants to ensure beneficiaries have the option to visit an office, use the website, or speak to a real person after calling the 1-800 number.

“On the phone, I’m committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience; waiting 20 minutes-plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear,” Bisignano said. “I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process.”

Bisignano promised lawmakers he would reduce the 1% error rate in payments, which he said was “five decimal places too high.” And he said repeatedly that personally identifiable information will be “protected.”

Elevator music

Democrats and Republicans on the panel repeatedly raised concerns about how long constituents already wait for their phone calls to be answered when they need to make changes or have an issue with their Social Security benefits.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said that on Monday to prepare for the hearing, his staff called the Social Security Administration’s customer service number, but were disconnected twice and then had to wait an hour while listening to “D-grade elevator music.”

“It could have at least had Olivia Newton-John or some mediocre 70s music,” Daines said while playing a recording of the hold music.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy asked Bisignano how he’d ensure potential changes at the Social Security Administration wouldn’t exclude seniors who are unable to attend in-person meetings at a field office.

Bisignano said he views the phone as a “mandatory way for people to communicate,” especially since the Social Security Administration received more than 80 million calls last year. 

“If you look at the Social Security website, and you look at the statistics, taking 20-plus minutes to answer the phone is not really acceptable,” Bisignano said. “And that’s the reason why only 46% of the phone calls get answered, because people get discouraged and hang up.”

Bisignano said he believes he can get wait times on the phone line down to under one minute.

“I think we can also help the people within the organization answer questions better by bringing artificial intelligence to them, to prompt them with the information they need,” Bisignano said.

Bisignano, of New Jersey, works as chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fiserv, Inc., which “enables money movement for thousands of financial institutions and millions of people and businesses,” according to its website. The company is based in Wisconsin.

He previously worked as co-chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

DOGE pursues office closures

Democrats appeared unconvinced that proposed changes from the U.S. DOGE Service and Elon Musk would have a positive impact on the Social Security Administration.

“Earlier this month, at the direction of Elon Musk and DOGE, the administration announced plans to close 47 Social Security offices, including the one in Littleton, New Hampshire,” Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said. “Shortly thereafter, the Social Security Administration announced plans that would force more applicants and beneficiaries to go in-person to offices, while at the same time laying off staff who work in those remaining offices. If the Littleton office is closed, North Country seniors would be forced to travel nearly 100 miles to the next closest New Hampshire field office.”

Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet criticized the Trump administration for announcing plans earlier this month to eliminate “access to a number of service options over the phone.”

“Instead, they’ll need to either use an online verification process or call to make an in-person appointment,” Bennet said. “The agency itself estimates that this will add 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visitors a week to field offices.

“As my colleagues have already said, wait times for appointments can already take a month. And that in-person appointment is only going to get harder to make if the agency cuts 7,000 employees and ends up with the lowest head count in decades.”

Minnesota Democratic Tina Smith said the Trump administration choosing to “drastically reduce phone service and force people to apply for benefits in person” while shuttering offices was unacceptable.

“So you can call this rank incompetence, or you can call it the don’t-know-don’t-care game plan that DOGE has taken across the board,” Smith said. “But to me, it honestly looks like sabotage.”

Bisignano testified that he, and no one else, would make the final decision about whether to close field offices.

“What I will commit to is that there will be no decision made without you knowing about it,” he said. “I have no intent to close field offices, but I’ve studied nothing on the topic. So, it’s a little hard to commit to something.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis urged Bisignano not to “pull any punches” on decisions about closing field offices.

“What you’re going to find out is, after you do the analytics, every member of Congress, except for me probably, will like your analytics, except to the extent that it affects one of their offices and their district or state,” Tillis said.

‘Fraudsters,’ newborns and layoffs

Bisignano distanced himself from some of the comments Trump administration officials have made about Social Security, though he appeared reluctant to do so.

He didn’t agree with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said on a podcast that his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she missed a Social Security payment and that “the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen because whoever screams is the one stealing.”

“It would be hard to get to that conclusion,” Bisignano said.

He said he didn’t agree with trying to use Social Security as a political weapon, after Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto asked about news reports the acting Social Security commissioner tried to make changes to how Social Security numbers are issued to newborns in Maine.

“The current Social Security administrator briefly ended a contract that had allowed parents of newborn babies in Maine to sign their children up for a Social Security number at the hospital,” Cortez Masto said. “Instead, he required them to do so in-person at an office.”

“The current administrator, according to a New York Times article, said he had ordered the move after watching Gov. Janet Mills clash with Mr. Trump at the White House,” she added. “He then quickly reversed that decision, but said he did it because he felt that the governor of Maine was not being real cordial to the president.”

Bisignano appeared to reject the possibility of mass layoffs at the Social Security administration when asked about the issue by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Do I think it’s a great idea to lay off half of the employees when a system doesn’t work? I think the answer is probably no,” Bisignano said.

Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch asked whether Bisignano would have taken the same approach to firing some federal workers that DOGE has, which Welch described as a “shoot first, aim later” system.

“No,” Bisignano said.

During another part of the hearing, Bisignano said that he believes his job as commissioner would be to “ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.”

“So my first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services,” he said. “And I’ve only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion.”

Bisignano also rejected the possibility of privatizing Social Security.

“I’ve never thought about privatizing. It’s not a word that anybody’s ever talked to me about,” Bisignano said. “And I don’t see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run to the benefit of the American public.”

A Social Security Administration sign on a field office building in San Jose, California, in 2020. (Photo by Michael Vi/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democrats warned Monday about President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s plans to pare down the Social Security Administration, an agency that pays out benefits to tens of millions of Americans.

Lawmakers, a Social Security recipient and a former commissioner cried foul over the U.S. DOGE Service and administration’s agenda to cut jobs, terminate office leases and change how Americans can contact the agency.

Trump and his top reelection campaign donor are “attacking Social Security through the back door by making it harder and harder for people to collect the benefits they are legally entitled to,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during a virtual press briefing hosted by the Democratic National Committee.

“The world’s richest man may not understand what it means to worry about not getting a monthly Social Security check, but tens of millions of Americans know that fear deep down in their guts,” said Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development.

Just over 73 million Americans received retirement and disability benefits last month, according to the Social Security Administration.

The agency will distribute approximately $1.6 trillion in benefits this year, according to its own data. The program accounts for roughly one-fifth of federal spending.

Musk has a recent history of publicly attacking the agency. He told podcast host Joe Rogan in February that Social Security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Weeks later on Fox Business, Musk said to host Larry Kudlow that Social Security is “the big one to eliminate” when it comes to fraud and spending.

Job cuts, office closures

In early March, Musk’s DOGE announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs from Social Security and close numerous regional offices, according to media reports.

Despite potential office closures, the administration also plans a policy change that will require recipients to show up in person to verify certain changes to their accounts.

A federal judge Thursday temporarily restrained the Social Security Administration from sharing access to any sensitive files with DOGE.

“I can tell you that democracy is waking up to this very, very real threat that they are coming for Social Security,” former Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley said during the briefing.

O’Malley, also a former governor of Maryland, accused the Trump administration of allowing wait times for the agency’s 1-800 number to skyrocket after he and former President Joe Biden worked to improve the hotline.

“Make no mistake about it, in order to rob Social Security, the co-presidency of Musk and Trump must sour enough Americans against the agency, undermine trust in the agency, and they do that by breaking and debilitating the agency’s ability to provide a high level of customer service,” O’Malley said.

Darlene Jones, a Social Security recipient from Arizona who had to retire early and still cares for an adult child with disabilities, told reporters on the call, “We worked our entire lives to own what we have. President Trump and shadow president Musk have to be stopped before they harm seniors, especially those in rural America.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said Trump and Musk “sure as hell don’t know how much it costs to make dinner for a week, buy a bag of pet food or catch the bus every day.”

Social Security data shows that among beneficiaries 65 and older, roughly 12% of men and 15% of women rely on Social Security checks for 90% of their total income.

White House says intent to identify waste, fraud

In an emailed statement provided to States Newsroom, the White House brushed off the attacks.

“Any American receiving Social Security benefits will continue to receive them. The sole mission of DOGE is to identify waste, fraud, and abuse only,” according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Acting Social Security Commissioner Lee Dudek said in a press release Monday that the agency “is taking several important steps to increase transparency and accountability in order to help others understand our agency’s work and the complexities we navigate.”

Nearly 3,000 employees have either been placed on administrative leave or accepted offers to leave the agency in exchange for a one-time payment of up to $25,000, according to data linked in the press release.

Additionally, the agency plans to terminate 64 leases, saving roughly $4 million in annual rent.

Musk took to his social media platform X to defend the new policy change requiring in-person office visits as a way to avoid fraud.

Confirmation hearing

Trump’s pick to lead the agency, Frank Bisignano of New Jersey, president and CEO of Fiserv, will appear before the Senate Committee on Finance Tuesday.

Warren said she and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, top Democrat on the Finance Committee, co-wrote a letter to Bisignano this weekend to put him “on notice.”

“These new developments leave us deeply concerned that DOGE and the Trump Administration are setting up the SSA for failure — a failure that could cut off Social Security benefits for millions of Americans — and that will then be used to justify a ‘private sector fix,’” Warren and Wyden wrote.

A 2011 photo shows an exhibit at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum that commemorated the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act in August 2010. (FDR Presidential Library & Museum/via Flickr)

The Social Security Administration has summarily closed a federally funded consortium of research centers, including one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that studied demographic trends and the impacts of policy on the federal retirement system.

Terminating the program has sharply limited the program’s research sources at a time when the Social Security Administration is poised to cut 7,000 workers, close field offices across the country and cancel the ability for people to file for benefits by telephone.

“It’s very, very frightening,” said Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works. “I’ve been working on this issue for 50 years and I think this is the most destabilized I’ve ever seen the administration of Social Security.”

The UW center was one of six members of the Social Security Administration Retirement and Disability Research Consortium. The consortium was established in its current form in 2019, a successor to retirement research centers established in 1998.

The Trump administration announced Feb. 21 that the consortium was being dissolved in keeping with an executive order President Donald Trump signed Jan. 22 gutting diversity activities across the federal government.

Shutting down the consortium canceled 19 research projects that were underway at the UW’s Social Security research center, said its director, J. Michael Collins. Collins, a specialist in family economics at UW-Madison. Collins holds positions at the university’s School of Human Ecology, The La Follette School of Public Affairs and several other university offices.

Research by the center and its consortium partners in collaboration with Social Security represented an important collaboration that has helped shape policy for the 90-year-old Social Security program, Collins said. Studies on the income and expenses of older Americans, for example, have helped guide the formulas that the Social Administration uses to develop its annual cost of living adjustments.

“It really is a collaboration, and that is hard to build,” Collins said — and may be difficult to recreate.

Along with canceling the consortium agreements, the Social Security Administration has relocated its own research operations while also cutting staff.

“They’ve greatly reduced their ability to conduct research internally,” Collins said. “Why would they want to eliminate their research capacity to that degree?”

Established during the Great Depression to lift seniors out of poverty, the Social Security program is primarily funded by payroll taxes. As each generation retires, its members’ benefits are paid by the generation of workers behind them.

Social Security provides retirement benefits as well as income for people with disabilities. About 73 million people in the U.S. receive benefits from the system, according to the Social Security Administration. Three out of four are 65 or older. Another 15% are people with disabilities under the age of 65.

One project underway at the UW center when the research consortium was canceled was looking at the impact of state mandates requiring employers to provide sick leave for employees — a law on the books in about a half-dozen states. (Wisconsin is not one of them.)

That study could have provided evidence whether or not mandated sick leave policies reduce the need for future permanent disability claims. “Either way, that’s an important question for Social Security” to understand, Collins said.

Another project cut off was a study of Long Covid — the lingering collection of health-hampering symptoms reported by millions of COVID-19 patients. Understanding how the condition affects trends in work, health and disability could inform the projections Social Security actuaries must make as they look at the program’s prospects 75 years into the future, Collins said.

The UW center was also contributing research to help structure Wisconsin’s ABLE account — a savings account for people with disabilities that the state is in the process of establishing.

The UW center was launched with a five-year grant for $12 million. The grant was renewed in 2024 with another five-year grant that was supposed to be for $15 million. About $2.3 million of that has been spent, but with the termination there will be no reports or final studies, Collins said.

Altman of Social Security Works said research has been integral to the Social Security system from when it was established in the Great Depression, spearheaded in part by people with ties to UW-Madison.

“They’ve always done research to determine how the program should be structured, what the needs of the American people are, how economic security can be improved and what other countries are doing,” Altman said. “You have to be informed to have legislation that will work and have administration that will work.”

The Feb. 21 Social Security Administration press release announcing the termination of the research consortium said the research center agreements “included a focus on research addressing DEI in Social Security, retirement, and disability policy” and that ending them was in line with ending “fraudulent and wasteful” initiatives.

“The reality is that Social Security is gender neutral, racially neutral,” Altman said. Nevertheless, she said, various social differences are important in understanding how disparate impacts might affect the long-term operation of the program. For example, an accurate projection for the program’s resources and ability to pay benefits in the future requires considering the differing labor force participation rates of men and women.

Altman said contrary to the claims of the Trump administration, its actions with the Social Security Administration are “the opposite of rooting out waste, because it’s creating it.”

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

The Social Security Administration’s actuary estimated that 30,000 people died in 2023 while waiting for a decision on their application for disability benefits.

That’s according to testimony given to a U.S. Senate committee Sept. 11, 2024, by Martin O’Malley, who was then the Social Security commissioner.

O’Malley said disability applicants wait on average nearly eight months for an initial decision and almost eight more months if they are denied and request reconsideration.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) makes monthly payments to people who have a disability that stops or limits their ability to work. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) pays people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.

Social Security announced Feb. 28 it plans to cut 7,000 of its 57,000 workers, part of the Trump administration’s initiative to reduce the federal workforce.

The deaths claim was made March 9 in Altoona, Wisconsin, by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Social Security Administration: Testimony by Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley before the Senate Committee on Budget
• Social Security Administration: Disability
• Social Security Administration: Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• New York Times: Social Security Administration to Cut Roughly 7,000 Workers
• Associated Press: Social Security Administration could cut up to 50% of its workforce

Does the Social Security Administration estimate that 30,000 Americans die annually waiting for a decision on their disability benefits? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.