The Daily Populous Monday April 14th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by latintimes.com and submitted by SpecialSpace5

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed the Trump administration on Friday over a report that the Social Security Administration (SSA) will exclusively communicate through X, the social media platformed owned by DOGE head Elon Musk.

Right, because Grandma is on X.

This is corruption, plain and simple. https://t.co/zGlUFvnVLv — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 11, 2025

"Right, because Grandma is on X. This is corruption, plain and simple," said Warren. The report, published by Wired, details that the agency will stop communicating with the media and the public through press releases and "dear colleague" letters amid major staffing cuts.

SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis told managers earlier this week that, instead, "the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public ... so this will become our communication mechanism."

Trump officials rejected that the change will impact beneficiaries, with White House spokesperson Liz Huston saying the SSA is "actively communicating with beneficiaries and stakeholders."

"There has not been a reduction in workforce. Rather, to improve the delivery of services, staff are being reassigned from regional offices to front-line help – allocating finite resources where they are most needed. President Trump will continue to always protect Social Security," she added.

The outlet also detailed that the SSA's regional office workforce is set to be cut by almost 90% and that since February the agency has cut 7,000 jobs. The agency currently has 547 employees in almost a dozen regional offices, with the figure expected to drop to about 70 after the cuts.

Kerr-Davis acknowledged to a SSA employee that the restructuring can limit SSA's ability to combat fraud. "Won't losing subject matter experts lead directly to fraud, waste, and abuse?" the staffer asked. "Yes, I mean, we do rely on [their] help ... Things are going to break, and they're going to break fast," she replied.

FormerUsenetUser on April 13rd, 2025 at 20:54 UTC »

I am 70, have a desktop computer, and a good Internet connection. I am computer literate. I have worked in Silicon Valley as a technical writer. I refuse to ever use X because it is toxic.

People who are so poor they rely mostly on Social Security for income, and/or live in rural areas, often don't have a computer, a good Internet connection, or the level of computer literacy that I have. Of course, Musk doesn't actually want people to get their benefits.

OldSchoolBubba on April 13rd, 2025 at 20:39 UTC »

This is actually a very big deal. Musk is the owner of X-Twitter. He just fired all of Social Security's field Public Information Offices. Their central PIO is minimally staffed so changing their messaging platform from government SSA computers to the private company he owns is a big time conflict of interest. That's obvious self enrichment at taxpayer's expense which is a federal crime he will be held accountable for in the future.

usernames_suck_ok on April 13rd, 2025 at 20:30 UTC »

I'm not even on X, and I'm in my 40s.