DES MOINES - Former Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley warned during a press conference with the IDP on Thursday that the SSA budget and workforce reductions that Republicans are pushing for could lead to an inability to make payments to seniors on time, a problem that could potentially grow so severe the agency collapses.

“Over these last forty-five days we have seen Social Security underneath the meat cleaver of the DOGE-Trump-Musk administration. An agency that was already struggling to serve record high numbers of beneficiary customers every single day, with staffing reduced to a fifty year low. It’s now seen just in the last forty-five days seven thousand people that were either fired or paid to leave … everything that I’ve seen so far has led me to the only conclusion a reasonable person could draw, which is that they are trying to crater this agency and push it into a total system collapse.” – Former Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley

“Many of us interact with a lot of seniors who are still working. Regrettably, I ran into one at Menards the other day, and I said, ‘Aren’t you retired?’ He says ‘I am, but the social security I got based on the wages that I earned while I was working are not enough to meet all my needs.’ Eighty-nine years social security has been in place, and it’s really been a sacred, sacred promise between generations that we’re going to ensure the security of the seniors who built this country.” – President of the Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans Ken Sagar

“It is wholly unfair to the public and the staff alike. Underfunding, understaffing, and hiring freezes at the agency will lead to further deterioration of services for the American public much like the Commissioner has just stated. There is a lot of noise around fraud in the social security programs, but there has yet to be found any widespread fraud.” – President for AFGE Local 836 Jeremy Maske

FACT: less than %1 of the total Social Security benefits paid are made in error.

To watch the full press conference, email [email protected] for a recording.