An SSI Mistake

Last week, the Social Security Administration incorrectly told some recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), that they were no longer eligible for payments. Some SSI beneficiaries are “currently not receiving payments,” according to an April 7 letter from senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Mark Kelly of Arizona to Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek, according to the agency’s website.

They also reported that the payment history and all benefit data for SSI beneficiaries had vanished, and they had received numerous notifications about the issue from constituents. “In my 50 years of work on Social Security and SSI, I have never heard of this happening before,” said Nancy Altman, head of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the program, regarding the SSI mistakes. 

Chris Hubbard, has a 37-year-old disabled son who uses the program to pay for his group home. She told CBS MoneyWatch that she learned about the problem on March 31, when members of a Facebook group discussed it. 

Hubbard, who lives with her husband in Westborough, Massachusetts, said she checked her son’s account and was frightened to see a similar message, prompting her to stay up all night refreshing the page. She fell asleep at 5 a.m. without seeing any change, she said. “I was continuing to be worried because the message was still on the site, saying this beneficiary doesn’t receive payments,” Hubbard said. 

However, the right information was on her son’s page the next morning, and the funds were deposited on April 1, as planned. However, she and her husband say they received no communication from Social Security about the issue or an explanation of the error.

 They chose not to call the agency due to excessive wait times. According to Kiplinger, in March 2025, the average time a caller spent waiting on hold to talk with an English-speaking representative was 1 hour and 39 minutes. 

SSI is a vital resource for millions of elderly and disabled people. For some people, these benefits are their only income. It shouldn’t be more difficult for people to get the benefits they need.

Sources:

LeValley, Donna. “Social Security Phone Wait Times: The Best Times to Call.” Kiplinger, Future plc, 7 Apr. 2025, http://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/social-security/social-security-phone-wait-times-the-best-times-to-call. 

Picchi, Aimee. “Social Security Wrongly Told Disabled People and Some Seniors Their Benefits Ended, Causing Alarm.” Edited by Alain Sherter, CBS News, CBS Interactive, 8 Apr. 2025, http://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/social-security-doge-ssi-error-message-currently-not-receiving-payments/#site-header:64.