The Madison Social Security Administration field office. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsinites are holding rallies  across the state Wednesday to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding for operations at the Social Security Administration.

Staff reductions and office closures in the last year have created bottlenecks in service for members of the public who need help from the agency, according to Jessica LaPointe, the Wisconsin-based president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220. The union represents field operations employees for the Social Security Administration across the country.

“We’re struggling to meet the needs of the public,” LaPointe said, with more than 10,000 people a day becoming eligible for the federal retirement program.

Along with AFGE, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans will be rallying outside Social Security offices in eight Wisconsin communities Wednesday.

“When they start closing offices, that hinders our senior citizens,” said Ross Winklbauer, president of WARA. “They call into Social Security if they have a question or to file a claim, and they’re sitting on the phone for hours because of short staffing and not getting their questions answered.”

WARA will take part in a rally starting at 12 noon outside the Social Security offices in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield along with AFGE. Rallies are also planned in Eau Claire, Madison, Racine, Rhinelander, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids. Winklbauer said WARA has about 100,000 members in the state, mostly union retirees, and about 1,000 active participants.

The rallies are part of a national day of action in anticipation of the possibility that the government will shut down at the end of January if Congress can’t agree on a budget for the rest of the year, LaPointe said.

Talks are underway between congressional Republicans and Democrats to enact the rest of the government’s spending plan for the current year by the upcoming deadline.

Nevertheless, LaPointe said the most recent shutdown that started Oct. 1 and ran for a record 43 days brought home to many field office workers in the Social Service Admin. the limits of their compensation, especially if they are furloughed.

In a report released Wednesday, the Strategic Organizing Center said its review of 36,000 Social Security workers’ pay rates showed that 54% — just over half — were paid less than what the MIT Living Wage Calculator has set as a living wage for the regions of the U.S. where they live. The developers of the calculator at the MIT Living Wage Institute define a living wage as “the rate that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live.”

“We don’t get paid enough to save for a rainy day,” LaPointe said. “We’re understaffed, we’re underpaid and we’re struggling to meet the needs of the public who are coming to us for their earned benefits.”

In January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office, the agency’s staff was at its lowest in 50 years, LaPointe said, and “the public was waiting too long for benefits and services.”

Since then, the agency instituted a buyout program, offering workers up to $25,000 to quit, and the staff dropped from 58,000 a year ago to about 50,000 now — “the largest single staffing cut in Social Security history,” LaPointe said. 

About 2,000 field staff were lost in the last year — 10% of the field operations, she said, with the number of employees at some offices falling to single digits. 

LaPointe said the agency has moved to “digital first” operations that favor online or telephone contacts instead of in-person visits. In addition, the agency has shifted to processing inquiries from the public nationally rather than at the local office she said — “where a customer out in California would be served by someone in Wisconsin, or a customer in Madison might be served by someone in New Jersey.”

In an email message, a Social Security Administration spokesperson depicted the digital shift as part of a modernization program so that “more Americans are choosing to resolve their needs online or over the phone.” The statement cited a recent audit by the Social Security Administration inspector general that found average hold times for callers had dropped to seven minutes by September 2025 from a high of 30 minutes in January.

Social Security Commissioner Frank 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,” the spokesperson said.

The Social Security Administration “is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization,” the spokesperson added.

LaPointe, however, said there’s been “a breakdown in community based service” with the new system, and Social Security staffers are no longer the face of government in the local community.

“You now have to have an appointment to do anything with Social Security,” LaPointe said. “It’s created a bottleneck of service to where people cannot get access to apply for benefits in a timely fashion.”

Frontline workers are concerned that a move toward using artificial intelligence technology to review benefit applications will increase errors — either benefit approvals that are mistaken or unwarranted denials, she said.

“It still takes a human being to adjudicate claims — every claim, whether on the phone, online or in person,” LaPointe said.