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 important 800 phone line and on the toll-free extensions of its subject places of work in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, in response to casual analysis carried out by the 8 Information Now Investigators.
The SSA gives Individuals sure “financial protection,” administering advantages like retirement and incapacity, in addition to enrolling individuals in Medicare and issuing Social Safety numbers and playing cards, in response to the administration web site.
In early 2025, President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity focused the SSA and promised to shrink the dimensions of its workforce and price range whereas holding intact the advantages of the 72.5 million Social Safety beneficiaries.
Social Safety Administration might reduce as much as half of its workforce
“The waste, fraud and abuse is at a level like nobody’s ever seen,” Trump mentioned 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 equivalent to his intention to put off 7,000 workers and shut 47 subject places of work throughout the nation, principally 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 mentioned.
The 8 Information Now Investigators spent elements of two days calling the Social Safety important 800 quantity and phoned the sector places of work in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas to see how the price range cuts and workplace closures impacted maintain instances. Till lately, the company made its knowledge with regard to telephone wait instances out there on its web site, as evidenced by this screenshot of what it calls “800 number performance.”
As of the time of this report, the information displaying “phone metrics” confirmed that the common velocity 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 dangle 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 is no such thing as a assure to be answered in underneath three hours.
“It was really frustrating and it was a pretty long one,” Tatsiana Lenoard, a customer Tuesday to the Las Vegas Social Safety subject workplace, mentioned.
Leonard mentioned she waited on the telephone along with her dad and mom, who additionally wanted to be on the decision, for two hours and 41 minutes. She mentioned your complete household was tethered to one another whereas they ran errands and picked up kids. Nonetheless, she ended up having to go to the workplace as a result of the telephone name was not ample to finish her enterprise with SSA.
Mary Franklin, who additionally visited the Las Vegas Social Safety subject workplace, runs a sober dwelling residence. She was accompanying one in every of her residents to acquire identification and different essential paperwork from SSA. Franklin expressed comparable experiences when calling the 800 numbers.
“It said I had a 100-minute wait,” Franklin mentioned. “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 subject places of work. Greater than as soon as, a caller stayed on the telephone for as much as about 20 minutes till the telephone both went lifeless silent or a message got here on saying to name again. Usually, calling again solely produced the identical consequence.
Calling the sector places of work, although, often produced passable outcomes. Representatives from the Las Vegas subject workplace answered the 8 Information Now Investigators’ calls inside 4 and 10 minutes at totally different instances all through the day.
The calls have been strategically carried out 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, initially of the workday.
Social Safety continues to be a significant problem throughout President Trump’s second administration. The White Home mentioned, as a part of the price range invoice bouncing its means via Congress, that 88% of all seniors who obtain Social Safety pays no tax on their advantages.
