LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The results of federal funding cuts impacting the Social Safety Administration have begun filtering into Southern Nevada, extending phone wait instances on its predominant 800 phone line and on the toll-free extensions of its area places of work in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, based on casual analysis performed by the 8 Information Now Investigators.
The SSA offers People sure “financial protection,” administering advantages like retirement and incapacity, in addition to enrolling individuals in Medicare and issuing Social Safety numbers and playing cards, based on the administration web site.
In early 2025, President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity focused the SSA and promised to shrink the scale of its workforce and finances whereas conserving intact the advantages of the 72.5 million Social Safety beneficiaries.
Social Safety Administration may reduce as much as half of its workforce
“The waste, fraud and abuse is at a level like nobody’s ever seen,” Trump stated shortly after he took workplace for his second time period. “It’s been going on for years and all you have to do is look at the social security roles, look at some of the things, look at where the money is going.”
Billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s choice to spearhead Doge, supplied specifics comparable to his intention to put off 7,000 workers and shut 47 area places of work throughout the nation, largely within the south and southeast, and one in Nevada.
“We want to make sure that people who deserve to receive social security do receive it, and that they receive it quickly and accurately,” Musk stated.
The 8 Information Now Investigators spent elements of two days calling the Social Safety predominant 800 quantity and phoned the sector places of work in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas to see how the finances cuts and workplace closures impacted maintain instances. Till not too long ago, the company made its knowledge with regard to cellphone wait instances obtainable on its web site, as evidenced by this screenshot of what it calls “800 number performance.”
As of the time of this report, the info displaying “phone metrics” confirmed that the common pace of a solution, excluding callback wait time, is a wildly optimistic 18.5 minutes. Calling the principle quantity a number of instances, the automated system would cling up as quickly because it declared a wait time of over 120 minutes. As soon as, it supplied to name again, however by no means did. And one other time, it allowed a caller to carry, which even the SSA web site says there isn’t a assure to be answered in beneath three hours.
“It was really frustrating and it was a pretty long one,” Tatsiana Lenoard, a customer Tuesday to the Las Vegas Social Safety area workplace, stated.
Leonard stated she waited on the cellphone together with her mother and father, who additionally wanted to be on the decision, for two hours and 41 minutes. She stated your complete household was tethered to one another whereas they ran errands and picked up youngsters. Nonetheless, she ended up having to go to the workplace as a result of the cellphone name was not enough to finish her enterprise with SSA.
Mary Franklin, who additionally visited the Las Vegas Social Safety area workplace, runs a sober residing residence. She was accompanying one in every of her residents to acquire identification and different necessary paperwork from SSA. Franklin expressed comparable experiences when calling the 800 numbers.
“It said I had a 100-minute wait,” Franklin stated. “And then, after you wait, it just goes dead. The phone just goes dead.”
That exact same factor occurred to the 8 Information Now Investigators when calling the native area places of work. Greater than as soon as, a caller stayed on the cellphone for as much as about 20 minutes till the cellphone both went lifeless silent or a message got here on saying to name again. Typically, calling again solely produced the identical outcome.
Calling the sector places of work, although, often produced passable outcomes. Representatives from the Las Vegas area workplace answered the 8 Information Now Investigators’ calls inside 4 and 10 minutes at completely different instances all through the day.
The calls have been strategically performed on Monday, the final day of June, through the lunch hour, late afternoon, and early night. One other spherical of calls was made on Tuesday, the primary day of July, at the start of the workday.
Social Safety continues to be a serious subject throughout President Trump’s second administration. The White Home stated, as a part of the finances invoice bouncing its approach by Congress, that 88% of all seniors who obtain Social Safety pays no tax on their advantages.
