Statement for the Record - Subcommittee Hearing: The Future of Social Security
Subcommittee Hearing: The Future of Social Security
Hearing Time: 3:00 PM
Hearing Location: 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Leland Dudek
Former Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration
The Honorable Chuck Grassley
Chairman
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Bernard Sanders
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Sanders, and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record on the future of Social Security.
I write as a former Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and as someone who believes deeply in the mission of the agency. Social Security is not an abstract budget line. It is the foundation of retirement security, disability protection, and survivor support for tens of millions of Americans. It is also one of the largest and most visible operating agencies in the federal government. The public often judges government by whether Social Security works.
I want to raise two concerns. First, Congress should provide sustained full funding for the Social Security Administration’s operating budget. Second, Congress should establish a new bipartisan Social Security commission modeled on the significance of the Greenspan Commission. The solvency question, the service question, and the modernization question are linked. It does no good to preserve Social Security on paper if the agency lacks the people, technology, physical presence, and operating capacity to serve the public.
Social Security is a cornerstone institution created in response to the Great Depression. That crisis exposed the limits of markets when left to run too far ahead of ordinary people. It exposed the fragility of families when wages disappeared, banks failed, farms collapsed, and communities had no durable safety net. It also exposed the danger of pretending that private arrangements alone could protect an aging, working, and disabled population from national economic failure.
The agricultural crisis of that era was not a side story. Rural America was under enormous stress from debt, price collapse, overproduction, drought, and land that had been pushed past its limits. The country learned a hard lesson. When markets fail, when land is exhausted, when work disappears, and when families have no floor beneath them, the damage is not only economic. It is civic. People lose faith in institutions. Social Security helped restore that faith.
That history matters today. The program is not just a payment system. It is a national promise that work, family, age, disability, and death will not leave Americans completely exposed. It is one of the few federal institutions that touches nearly every family in the country. For many Americans, SSA is not one agency among many. It is the face of whether government can still do basic things well.
That is why the future of Social Security cannot be measured by trust fund projections alone. Solvency, benefit adequacy, and program integrity are essential, but so is the public’s day-to-day experience with the agency. The phone call, the field office visit, the disability decision, the survivor claim, the overpayment notice, the website, and the on-time payment all shape whether Americans believe Social Security is working for them. If Congress wants to restore public faith in government, Social Security is the place to start.
Social Security needs sustained administrative full funding, sheltered from annual budget cycle fights and partisan arguments. The Social Security Administration pays roughly $1.6 trillion in benefits each year to approximately 70 million beneficiaries. Yet the administrative funding available to run the agency is remarkably small, less then $15 Billion annually, when compared to the size, complexity, and public importance of the work.
SSA does not simply issue payments. It determines eligibility. It processes retirement claims, survivor claims, disability claims, Supplemental Security Income claims, appeals, redeterminations, overpayments, changes of address, earnings records, representative payee issues, Medicare-related workloads, and post-entitlement actions. It runs field offices, teleservice centers, payment centers, hearings operations, disability adjudication support, technology systems, cybersecurity functions, fraud prevention tools, and public-facing digital services. That operating mission cannot be treated as an afterthought.
Congress does not annually appropriate Social Security benefits in the same way it appropriates the administrative budget. Benefits are mandatory spending. The agency’s ability to serve the public is not. Each year, SSA must come before Congress for the resources needed to operate the system that Congress has already promised to the American people. That structure creates a serious mismatch. The benefits are mandatory. The service capacity is discretionary.
The result is predictable. When administrative funding is too low, wait times grow. Field offices struggle. Phones back up. Disability decisions slow down. Appeals take longer. Overpayments are harder to prevent and harder to resolve. Modernization is deferred. Fraud prevention suffers. Cybersecurity risk increases. The public loses confidence. That is not fiscal discipline. It is operational neglect.
Congress should establish a rational funding benchmark for SSA’s administrative expenses. One approach would be to cap or target administrative appropriations as a function of total program outlays. A benchmark of approximately 1.3 percent of annual outlays would recognize the scale of the mission while still requiring efficiency and accountability. On a program base of roughly $1.6 trillion, that would provide a realistic foundation for service, modernization, staffing, cybersecurity, and program integrity.
This should not be treated as a blank check. SSA should be expected to show results. Congress should require clear reporting on customer service, pending workloads, field office access, phone service, payment accuracy, disability processing times, IT modernization, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and employee productivity. But the starting point must be honest. An agency cannot modernize, protect the trust funds, reduce improper payments, and serve 70 million beneficiaries on hope.
The administrative budget is not overhead in the ordinary sense. It is the delivery system for earned benefits. It is also the first line of defense against waste, fraud, abuse, and public frustration. If Congress wants Social Security to be there for the public, Congress must fund the agency that makes “there” real.
SSA also needs true digital modernization. Modernization must expand service, not replace it. That does not mean forcing every person into an online channel. It does not mean closing field offices and calling the savings innovation. It does not mean placing a chatbot in front of an old process and declaring victory.
Real modernization means giving the public options. It means allowing people to do simple things online, quickly and securely. It means giving employees modern tools so they can resolve problems the first time. It means improving identity proofing, case management, data exchange, payment accuracy, fraud prevention, medical evidence collection, notices, scheduling, and customer service. It means designing technology around the person being served, not around the limitations of legacy systems.
The public needs choice, optionality, in how it interacts with SSA. Many people can and should be able to complete routine business online, but others need in-person help, phone service, a representative, or additional support because they are grieving, disabled, homeless, elderly, rural, limited in English, low-income, or lack reliable internet access. A modern SSA must be able to serve all of them. Digital service should reduce unnecessary trips to field offices; it should not make field offices less available for those who need them.
A growing nation, like a growing bank, needs more access points, not fewer. Banks do not serve a growing customer base by simply telling everyone to use an app. They invest in digital tools, fraud controls, call centers, branches, specialized support, and customer segmentation. They create more ways for people to reach the institution. SSA should think the same way.
The issue is not whether SSA should be digital. It must be. The issue is whether digital modernization will expand access or restrict it. Congress should insist on modernization that improves public service. That means modern technology, better data, stronger cybersecurity, secure identity proofing, faster claims processing, and more self-service where self-service makes sense. It also means preserving human access for the cases that are complex, sensitive, or urgent.
Transformation should not be measured by how many offices are closed. It should be measured by whether the public can get the right answer, through the right channel, at the right time.
The second issue is solvency. Social Security needs a new Greenspan commission. The Trustees have again made clear that Social Security faces a real financing challenge. The combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds are projected to pay full scheduled benefits until 2034. After that, continuing income would be sufficient to pay only about 83 percent of scheduled benefits. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is projected to face depletion earlier, in 2032.
Those dates are no longer distant. They are inside the planning horizon of current retirees, near retirees, workers, employers, state governments, financial markets, and every Member of Congress.
Congress should not wait for a cliff. It should create a new bipartisan Social Security commission now. I do not care whether it is called the O’Malley Commission, the Bisignano Commission, the Astrue Commission, the Saul Commission, or something else entirely. The name matters less than the charge. The country needs a serious, bipartisan, fact-driven process that brings together people who understand Social Security as both a financing system and an operating agency.
The membership should include former confirmed Commissioners of Social Security, former Acting Commissioners of Social Security, and current and former members of the Social Security Advisory Board. These individuals have seen the system from the inside. They understand the law, the politics, the operations, the technology, the workforce, the beneficiaries, and the consequences of delay.
The commission should not be designed as a political theater exercise. It should be built to produce options that Congress can actually consider. The charge should include at least five tasks.
First, it should present Congress with solvency options that protect current beneficiaries and give younger workers enough notice to plan. Waiting until the last moment will force harsher choices and undermine public confidence.
Second, it should examine the interaction between benefit adequacy, payroll tax revenue, taxable wage policy, retirement age policy, disability insurance, survivor protections, and the treatment of low-wage workers. Social Security is not just an accounting problem. It is a social insurance system. Far too many people die while waiting for a disability decision. Far too many people have only a social insurance check as their sole source of income.
Third, it should consider the optionality the public desires while preserving the program’s core insurance structure. Americans may disagree on the details of reform, but they deserve a process that examines choices honestly. That includes how to strengthen the earned benefit promise, how to treat future workers fairly, and how to preserve public confidence across generations.
Fourth, it should examine the administrative foundation of the program. Solvency cannot be separated from operations. A program that cannot answer the phone, process claims, prevent improper payments, maintain secure systems, or deliver timely disability decisions will lose public support even if the trust fund math is repaired.
Fifth, it should recommend a long-term administrative funding and modernization model for SSA. Congress should not fix the financing structure of Social Security while leaving the operating agency on unstable annual funding and outdated systems.
The Greenspan Commission succeeded because the country had reached a point where delay was no longer responsible. We are approaching that point again. The difference is that we can still act before the deadline becomes a crisis.
The future of Social Security is in our hands. It will not be secured by slogans, denial, or neglect. It will not be secured by ignoring the financing challenge, underfunding the agency that administers the program, closing access points in the name of modernization, or asking fewer employees to serve more people with outdated technology while the public waits longer for help.
Securing Social Security’s future requires three commitments pursued together: protecting the earned benefit promise, funding the agency that delivers it, and supporting digital transformation that gives the public more ways to be served, not fewer. These are not competing priorities. They are one responsibility viewed from three sides.
A beneficiary does not experience Social Security as an actuarial table. A widow experiences it when her survivor benefit is processed. A retired worker experiences it when the payment arrives on time. A disabled worker experiences it when the evidence is gathered and the decision is made. A family experiences it when the agency answers the phone, fixes the record, corrects the payment, or explains the decision. That is why administrative funding, modernization and solvency must resolve together.
Congress should provide sustained full funding for SSA operations, tied to a rational benchmark and clear performance expectations. Congress should support true digital modernization that expands access, improves accuracy, strengthens security, and preserves human service. Congress should also establish a new bipartisan Social Security commission made up of people who have governed, administered, and advised the program. The commission should provide Congress with serious options on solvency, service, modernization, and administrative funding.
Social Security is one of the most successful public programs in American history. It deserves more than crisis management. It deserves stewardship.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record.
Leland Dudek
Former Acting Commissioner, Social Security Administration
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