Hundreds Join Hands Off Social Security Protest in Santa Barbara

Hundreds of people gathered on West Figueroa Street on Thursday to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to many Santa Barbara seniors’ “lifeline”: social security. 

Protesters leeched onto the street outside of the Social Security Administration Office, holding cardboard signs declaring, “Hands Off Our Social Security!” alongside the familiar, punny insults often flung at the Trump administration. 

More than 50 percent of seniors in America rely on social security for all or most of their income, said Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, president of the Social Security Works PAC, who led the event organized by Indivisible Santa Barbara. 

In Santa Barbara County, 78,455 seniors receive benefits through social security.  

Santa Barbara resident Linda Brophy did not feel comfortable sharing exactly how much she receives through social security, but she is feeling “very nervous” in the face of the cuts. She said her check pays for the roof over her head, medical care, and other basic essentials.

“It pays for me to live,” she said with a jaded chuckle. “There are no vacations on social security…. And if it goes away, I may lose my home.”

So far, Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have drastically reduced the Social Security Administration’s workforce (with more positions currently at risk), and threatened to shut off phone lines and close the doors to more than 40 offices. The cuts are part of the administration’s efforts to reduce government spending. 

Although Trump promised (many times) that he would not touch social security, the White House and Musk claim that there are billions of dollars of “waste and fraud” within the country’s “entitlement spending,” such as Social Security and Medicaid.

The administration has proposed cutting the agency’s staff by 7,000 people, and other employees have already accepted buyouts. More cuts to staff could lead to closed offices, further delays on payments, and strain on support services.

Earlier this month, however, the Social Security Administration reversed the decision to close phone lines after much backlash, and will continue to allow most applicants to apply by phone. “They say one thing one day and another thing the next day. It’s hard to know what to expect,” Bauman said.

He called all of this a “backdoor” assault on social security to undermine the program from the inside out. 

“What they’re really doing is attacking the infrastructure that makes it work,” he continued. “In all candor, the offices were understaffed to begin with. So now, it’s at a point where you go into the office, you could wait for hours and hours and hours.”

He thinks that disabling the program will enable the administration to say, “Well, see, it doesn’t work,” and privatize it. “It puts all the needs of these people at the bottom,” Bauman said. 

Bauman noted that the claims of fraud and waste — such as Musk saying that people “over 150 years old” are collecting benefits — are ridiculous and false. “There are zero 150 year olds receiving social security,” he said. He added that the software works, and has never missed a payment in 89 years. 

In other words, social security is not the villainous fraud-machine the administration may make it out to be. 

In response to the pressure being put on social security, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter and gathered 105 signatures from the House and Senate saying, in so many words, “No to Social Security office closures.” Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal, who attended the protest on Thursday, was one of the first to sign on.

“Social Security is your money. It’s our money,” Carbajal told the crowd. “These services are a lifeline for so many people. Billionaires like Trump and Elon Musk and their misguided DOGE claim there’s fraud. We all know it’s a bunch of bullshit. They’re trying to find money to fund the $7 trillion they’re trying to give away in tax breaks to the richest Americans and corporations in our country.” 

“So today I’m here with you in solidarity, to speak out, to speak loudly, to encourage you to continue your advocacy, to organize, because more than ever, we need to do that today,” he said.