After cutting Social Security staff by 12 percent, the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency took aim at services offered by telephone. Those phone service cuts were rolled back after Elon Musk’s troops were convinced by senators that fewer employees could not possibly handle more applicants — as many as 85,000 a week, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — but Attorneys General are concerned. On Tuesday, California’s AG, Rob Bonta, released a new webpage, oag.ca.gov/socialsecurity, where residents could “Report Social Security Disruptions,” following the lead of AGs in Arizona and Michigan.
“Within the last months, chaotic changes and disruptions within the Social Security Administration have caused issues for people trying to access their benefits, including reported website outages, difficulty accessing online accounts, and potential delays in benefits,” Bonta’s office reported.
More than 7.4 million people in California receive Social Security benefits, which range from disability to retirement and include survivors benefits. In Santa Barbara, about 86,000 people received as much as $149 million in benefits as of December 2023.
Though Bonta noted that benefits should not be impacted by the chaos in Washington, D.C., if California were to take legal action regarding Social Security benefits, it would need to have information from its residents that impacts have occurred. Bonta and a coalition of state attorneys general have filed more than two dozen lawsuits and amicus briefs in cases against the Trump administration regarding everything from birthright citizenship to the unlawful imposition of tariffs, gaining restoration of funding or a court hearing in about 12 of the cases so far.
As well as filling out a form to report any issues with receiving a check or reaching Social Security by phone, in-person, or online, the webpage advises contacting California’s senators or representatives.
Editor’s Note: This story was corrected on April 17, 2025: Social security recipient numbers do not include Medicare, which about 35 percent of the county’s population receives.
