Statement from Acting Commissioner Dudek
Reading Time: 1 MinuteLast Updated: March 26, 2025
The President has appointed Lee Dudek as Acting Commissioner of Social Security. Read his statement reaffirming his Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information.
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Social Security Administration
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Tammie D.
I have a suggestion. The social security fund is not static. Money is constantly flowing in and out of SS.
Has anyone ever considered that the amount of SS being deducted from the now working people who are paying in might need to be raised in order to protect their future SS payments.
The cost of living continues to rise. The number of working people in the US who pay into SS continues to decline. I would think the only way to overcome the current difficulties would be to consider raising SS fees for those who have not yet retired.
David
I tried several times recently with long un-answered telephone calls to get information about my SS. I still have the same questions and uncertainty.
We are being led to believe there is a $500 billion in waste, fraud, or abuse in the SS system. Where does this grossly high figure come from? From a person with an agenda?
Is it from actuaries who work for the SSA? Don’t believe everything you see on the web!
I would like to know specifics on this and how it was decided to terminate jobs of 7,000 employees, many of whom could be providing essential ‘back office’ work. Why not 6,800 or 7,200 according to a real study of actual needs?
Finally, it has become a practice for high-level federal government officials to say they are acting due to the president’s ‘mandate.’ I would point out that a duly-elected office holder has the same power and authority regardless of vote totals. Isn’t this obvious?
Krasnov L.
Who even needs social security in America anyway? Not the billionaires MAGA elected! Krasnov is doing exactly as Putler ordered him to!
Christiana H.
I’m getting worried now, with all these new changes. I’m 72 years old and depend on my direct deposit S.S.A check. Will my check be deposited next month? I have a mortgage to pay and bills to pay. I can barely make ends meet now. On top of this, I bad a bad fall and can’t walk or stand. There is no way I can go physically to a S.S.A office, which is more than 30 miles away. As a disabled woman living alone, there is no way I can get there. I have been on disability until 65, after that I guess you’re not considered disabled anymore. I used to be eligible for Medicaid, but with the 2.5% COLA I went over the “limit” just barely. Now I have to pay Medicare premiums every month $185. Now I get less than I did while on Medicaid. This is a big struggle for me. I have a savings account that I have to use now to pay for some bills and taxes. It was supposed to pay for repairs on my home. Now I have to use it for groceries and co-pays on my medical expenses. While I agree that there is fraud, but most people are not fraudulent. But now we all have to suffer the consequences, because of a few dishonest people.
Dave S.
Excellent job on the Social Security Fairness Act.
ElonsAsscrack
If ‘Excellent’ means Shit, then I agree. Lee Dudek has the brain power of a lightly retarded toddler on meth. In other words, he may be the smartest man in the Trump administration
Dale
Will we see a increase yo monthly benefits for social security 🤔
M. W.
That was mean. I’m a democrat,didn’t vote for Trump but I’m not running my blood pressure up being, angry, and hateful.
We all need to calm down and allow “them”space before lashing out.
A house divided cannot stand, neither a nation.
Travis
TestingTestingTesting
Diane
Fuck you assholes. You will cut and cut and leave it up to us to pay the price with bad service. FUCK YOU ALL FOR FUCKING AROUND AND CUTTING RANDOMLY WITH NO RHYME OR REASON. DEATH TO ALL OF YOU!
Edith M.
What a nice person ???
MZUNGU
You know, you don’t have to sugar coat things. You can come right out and say what you feel!
Hold on a minute…..Is this Diane from Human Resources!?
Kim B.
Dudek needs to inform Americans of what is really happening at DSS, if he expects not to burn in everlasting Hell
George W.
The PERFECT message for sycophant Dudek and his dimwit boss. These numb skulls continue to claim waste, fraud, and abuse while providing no proof of it at all; they have no critical thinking skills nor any skill at competent debate! What we need is an emergency redo of the last election to achieve the personnel reductions our country really needs!
Jeffrey F.
Aren’t you a bundle of thankfulness
J F.
Tell us how you really feel.
Karen C.
WOW. You seem happy. Not really. You should drop the F bomb no one wants to read that .
Laurie
I’m with you! It’s DISGUSTING. The SSA has recouped payments when I went over the limit which was beyond my control as I got a random small Wells fargo check for some acct they were cheating me on from early 2000s, LOL I had no idea they were cheating me…. so they sent me a 250 check in Dec of 2023. I was shocked to even get a check from my bank, and SSA recouped the entire 230 dollars (they allow a 20$ grace) in one month in Feb of 24 leaving me w/about 700 to live on that month. ALSO when my father died & left me some burial fund, and stocks, also I had to repay that, and I diligently reporrt these pymts, and the following yr they took 77$ out of my check monthly for a yr to recoup money I was legally bound to ACCEPT & REPORT! I do know ppl who do not report things, and I warn them it could come back to haunt them if ssa figures it out. As far as medicare? How TF are ppl getting medicare CHEATING? IT’s the providers (I caught a dentist yrs ago doing MA fraud, his dental asst TOLD ME) ..and I submitted a complaint to the ADA, and they notified me they sent him ‘a warnng letter’.Rick Scott is the worst MA fraudster alive, and he’s in congress! Patients DON’T BILL MEDICARE so how can they do medicare fraud? This Dudek creep better keep hands off my SSI. Their info on here says if you have an online acct & thus can verify online, you don’t need to verify in person. Well that is me, so hands off! A judge ruled yrs ago in my favor as I fought for the benefits initially. Stop tormenting ppl and instilling fear they will be on the streets and perish. This man is ‘acting commisioner’ cuz NO ONE would approve of him. Make note of this, he already tried to cut SSA completely out. The courts said no. We have DTs billionaire pals claming the only ppl complaining if they miss a check for a month must be fraudsters or why they worried? Wtf! Ppl pay rent, bills, eat food, pay for meds,…they sposed to go a MONTH w/o doing that? And he said his mom would never complain if she missed her SS for a month. The man is a BILLIONAIRE! OFC SHE WON’T COMPLAIN! STOP GASLIGHTING US. And if these sobs try to stop my survival pymts, I’ll use the words they have on this website to fight them, and I’ll WIN.
Ex: k.
Zavar questo untro uzo”,ue uzio prente .
Laurie C.
Commissioner I don’t understand your recent firings. Specifically in the Northern CA area. They were fired and given 30 days pay without any explanation. The President and DOGE promised full transparency and our family is completely in the dark. If you can step up and outline your rationale we would be appreciative.
James J.
10% of the staff does 90% of the work. Only need to re-assign the jobs. Pay the remaining few 2X their current salary and the annual budget is reduced by 80%.
kbo
You have never worked for government – MOST of those employees work hard and have to put up with the worst, most entitled acting people in the world. If you have ever sat in any government office and watched what those employees have to put up with, you wouldn’t cop such a bad attitude.
Jori L.
Get Elon out of ssa
Justina
And the ssachead said today he expected them to make mistakes.
Lynn
Exactly he was never elected or was he confirmed to do what he’s being allowed to do just put in this position because of his million dollar donation to Trump campaign. If we look at all the non qualified people who in my opinion shouldn’t of been confirmed into the high level positions they were says it all. Isn’t there any one who will stand up and can have Elon removed? What Trump is doing isn’t this grounds for impeachment? I know it’s the House and Senate are responsible for any impeachment proceedings and don’t believe all are in agreement with what’s going on and can see that the agendas and motives of Trump and Musk as starting to be dangerous for the people of the US need to grow balls Those who don’t and do nothing to stop Trump and Musk from continuing this reign of terror should also be the ones removed from office
Patricia V.
How many deceased people are “collecting” Social Security and other relevant benefits? Thorough auditing needs to be done. Might be in the billions.
Roni
No true. SSA has safe guards against this. He is saying people are getting benefits that have birthdays of 1875. Impossible since SSA wasn’t established until the 1934 of so
MaryC
This is an AI response. Is this the goal of the SSA, to replace people with “artificial intelligence” of a machine that doesn’t care about real people?
WillF
Garbage spewed by stupid people
David H.
Keep up , that has already been disproven. For the fourth or fifth time over the last 2 decades.
DH
Keep up , that has already been disproven. For the fourth or fifth time over the last 2 decades.
Donald A.
I want to Thank the President for expediting social security payments due Seniors under the Fairness Act! Too bad the President didn’t have time, in his SOU address to Congress, to have time to highlight this action. The fictional stories that the SSA is paying out billions of dollars To Non-existent individuals, including those who would be hundreds of years old were funny, but anyone familiar with computer databases, knows anything like that would immediately show up as a computer error and be corrected. In fact there are relatively few seniors over 100 receiving benefits. The American Social Security System is highly admired throughout the world as the world’s best run retirement system. AmericanGovernment workers have helped other countries develop their own retirement systems.
Anatole
The grifter had nothing to do with the passing of this bill. Of course, he wants you to think he is doing you a big favor by forcing SSA to expedite payment – can’t wait to see the mistakes that ensue. The repubs and lying Ronald Reagan stole this money from me for years. When I get my retroactive payment, I’ll make it a point to use it to fight the grifter and his ignorant assaults on MY country.
Anatole
Oh please…no skin off the grifter’s nose.
Sondra
The acting Commissioner already reported that was erroneously reported by Musk. However, Trump continued the lie last night even though he knows the truth! He counts on his supporters to believe Musk and him despite no evidence re the alleged waste, fraud and corruption. Hell, even when something is debunked with solid evidence, they still push their lieing agenda.
sam a.
You know what is wrong here? Publish the list of errors for the public to see? In grade school terms “show your work.” Truth is, there are no errors. Tell Elon to get the hell out DOGE.
Oh, and I hope he yelled at his parasitic workers at SpaceX for blowing up the second Starship 8. Fire those bastards.
sylvia
I have waited for SSA phone appointment for today @ 9:01am PT. It took me several times to finally contact SSA. It is Passed 9:33am still waiting. Our local SSA Office would have been 3 to 4 months waiting so I decided to do the phone appointment. I received a call yesterday morning from 1-410-965-1234 I didn’t recognize this number. SSA is 1-800-772-1213. I have voice mail and there was no message left. I checked Google: #from Baltimore,MD(CommissionerSSA…)Finally I get a Washington State call, I answered not really knowing who it could be. Thank God! it was our local SSA office to reschedule my today appointment for later today. I am truly, appreciated the call, sorry about all that is going on with all our Public Offices, I know how difficult it must be to be short staffed & keeping up with changes, etc. We are at there mercy to get paperwork filled out submitted on time. Thank you for all you’ll do for everyone.
Roni
You’ll be waiting longer now with all the staff cuts coming from Dudek
Ludy G.
If people were doing their jobs there would have been no NEED for staff cuts. I have waited as long as 2 hours for anyone to “pick up” just to have the call disconnected. It’s been that way for YEARS….and with every federal governmental agency. With “automation”, no one is answering phones, can’t talk to a real person, and no one calls back. Again, if people aren’t doing their jobs, why are our tax dollars paying them a salary? Is it any wonder that private companies outsource their customer services to people in other countries? The American people are looking for answers, but not willing to do away with wasteful spending to balance the budget.
P.S.
This comment, by Ludy G., is the most rational contribution so far.
And that Diane (3-4-25), has quite the mouth on her. Drinking too much spiked Koolaid.
Leslie P.
I hear you, but am concerned that you appear to be placing all the blame on the SSA’s employees. Congress has consistently tried to elminate SSA altogether and is notorious for cutting staff and funding whenever and wherever they can. Maybe if you do a little research you’ll discover the root causes of the problem and not buy into the employee bashing that many engage in.
Walter
Trump will fail because God will take care of him. If he and the other President Musk last until 2026 it will be a miracle. Because what they are doing is unlawful and when you are unlawful God will not you get away like the fools in America did. Are you a fool that believes those fools?
Randy G.
My ss account was put on hold and I cant get anybody to fix it to release my checks. I have filed numerous requests, been into the local office 3 times, called in, contacted my US congressman and it still is not fixed. What do I need to do to get this fixed?
Katt
Why was your stuff put on hold sounds sketchy