Senior citizens and elected officials in the Houston area have been raising alarm bells over longer wait times on the phone and in person at social security offices.
On the phone, many folks are waiting more than two hours just to speak with someone. And in person, it’s not uncommon for people to wait for four hours when visiting a social security office.
Many worry recent cutbacks in Washington will exacerbate this – with more staff cuts and potential slashes to benefits.
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Joel Smith is the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Union, Local 3184 in the Houston area. He spoke with Texas Standard.
Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: What’s causing these long wait times that we’re hearing about?
Joel Smith: Short version is cutting the staffs, not having appropriate training for staff available, and of course being promised to have software systems that would help us in the future that never came to fruition.
Is this all on the Trump administration and the DOGE cuts and all that?
No, absolutely not. This is a combination of failed leadership over decades.
Now, is it being exacerbated lately? Perhaps you could say that. But this has been a long-term disaster.
You work for Social Security. Long waits have been an issue for a long time. How do you know to what extent these cuts are affecting your ability to do your job?
One, I have to say, I’m speaking as a union president.
I’d have to tell you that here pretty soon, I anticipate that residents or citizens will be hoping for a two- to four-hour wait, because it’s going to get significantly worse.
We’re constantly being told to quit. We have employees that are being told to quit or have quit. We’ve lost years and years and years of institutionalized knowledge. It takes a long time to do this. We do not have the manpower to handle it. We’re going to have even less manpower to handle it, less skilled manpower to handle.
And the reality is, is we’ve seen wait times nearly double in a couple of years and we expect it’s going to double again very soon.
In these first hundred days or so of the Trump administration, have you seen a change in wait times and lines, or is it too early to say there’s been an impact on your office in the Houston area?
The wait times increased significantly.
We’ve implemented new policies where now, all of a sudden, things that we used to handle on the phone – like direct deposit changes or retirement applications where we were to identify people over the phone – now all these individuals have to come in and show us ID.
So, nationally, we’re potentially looking at increases of over 10,000 people a day. In the meantime, we’re cutting staff by potentially 7,500. And that’s to go with still dealing with the aftermath of the baby boom.
So again, I’m not being alarmist when I’m saying this, you’re gonna be begging for a two- to four-hour wait time pretty soon, because that’s where we are now. The trajectory of where we’re heading is much, much worse.
What’s the impact on people who rely on Social Security when wait times are this long and as you say, potentially much, much longer?
Well, we’re dealing with, obviously, individuals who live further distances away. They’re having to drive for things that we’re normally able to handle with the phone. They’re having to wait hours and hours in the lobby.
You know, I tell people, “hey, you might want to be able to watch a movie on an iPad or something if you’re here.”
You’re dealing vulnerable populations. We’re dealing people with schizophrenia, being in an office with other individuals and having breakdowns. It’s not the best environment for the public and it’s certainly not the best environment for the people that work here.
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What has been the impact on the staff recently?
Imagine working for an employer where an employer is telling you every day you need to leave. I always tell people… I liken it to a bad marriage where one party is just being hateful to the other person just because they’re too cowardly to be the one to end the marriage, right? So you’re constantly being pressed to be one to go down to the courthouse and file the divorce certificate.
Employees who can leave are leaving. The employees that are staying are the ones who are close to being retirement-eligible. In addition to, Congress is about to cut the retirement benefit package. So when that happens, you’re going to see even more of us walk out the door.
We’re educated. We have options, right? We’re not lazy despite the many, many myths of federal employees. I get it. But the reality is, is these employees have easily worked 40-plus hours a week over their life. And that’s steady employment. You know, they’ve been working hard trying to address these things.
There’s less of us. There’s more work. There’s not really any overtime available. We’re not able to serve like we were able to serve. And so, as a result, what’s happening, y’all are waiting longer. And frankly, we’ve had enough. We’re walking out the door.
What sort of leverage does the union have here to fix the situation or make it better?
The only power we have is the power to talk to the people.
The way I tell people is, I hate to break it to you, but when the founders invented the Constitution, they intended the power of the United States president to be a little bit more than the power of the president of Local 3184.
So, right, what is it going to take? It’s going to take people to go to their individual congressmen to put power on the president to make the kind of changes that we need to make.
Because the reality is, is the way these agencies are going right now, the way this agency is going, I can say we are doomed to fail and we are at the point where it’s going to break soon – if it hasn’t already broken.
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