The threat of delays in receiving Social Security due to staffing delays hits home for one Darby woman who nearly lost her home waiting for her check to arrive.
Social Security recipient Lynne Deshields was invited to tell her story by Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, D-5, during a press conference Monday across from the Chester Social Security office.
In 2018, Deshields was forced to retire from the postal service due to an on-the-job injury.
While she had a pension, it did not cover all her bills, and approaching age 62 she realized she needed to file for Social Security.
She hired a lawyer to get the paperwork filed and was approved, but her funds did not arrive. The lawyer got paid but her checks never appeared.
“Boy, oh boy, it was a long journey. It was a fight. I had to fight every day. It was like a homework assignment,” DeShields said. “In the meantime they foreclosed on my house. That’s how long it was.”
At one point she was sent to the Social Security office at Seventh and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia only to arrive and find they no longer take in-person claims.
“Don’t make me cry because I remember those times,” she said recalling the pain.
“I worked hard for my money. Since I was 15 I paid into Social Security and I deserved it,” she said. “It took so long because they are understaffed and now he’s cutting more staff. I don’t know what’s wrong with this guy.”
Just days from losing her home the money finally came.
She urged residents to resist efforts to layoff Social Security Administration employees and close some offices by President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency adviser Elon Musk, and to call all their elected officials in support of Social Security.
“It’s our money that we earned, we put it into the system,” DeShields said. “I want us to move and fight, fight fight.”
The ins and outs of the DeShields matter remained unclear.
View from the House
Scanlon held the press conference to decry reported plans to cut staffing of Social Security Administration by what she said could be up to 50 percent.
The most recent Associated Press reporting is that the administration has proposed cutting the jobs of 7,000 of the 60,000 agency workers, and closing field offices, up to 47 of the 1,200 and several regional offices. It’s unclear if the any offices would be in the Philadelphia region.
“Social Security is a sacred contract. For almost a century Americans have honored it: You’ve worked hard. You contributed your share in good faith, but now unelected bureaucrats and billionaires are telling you that contract doesn’t count anymore,” Scanlon claimed. “They are going to make it harder for you to get your money back.”
Scanlon said over 142,000 residents in her district of about 760,0000 residents, receive benefits and cutting staff will only make it harder to get benefits.
Scanlon said announced job cuts and the possible closure of field offices would force millions of seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors to endure longer wait times, delays in benefits, and reduced access to the services.
Scanlon said Musk in his role as head of the (DOGE) with the intent to find waste and fraud in government agencies has been a mirage.
“They say they are eliminating waste and fraud but they have been unable to prove it but that is particularly true with respect to Social Security,” Scanlon said.
There is a DOGE website that purports to show the cuts and savings at https://doge.gov/savings.
Scanlon said claims by Musk to have found checks were going out to recipients claiming to be 150 years old was a lie.
“Elon Musk and his DOGE brothers just didn’t know what they were doing and they didn’t bother to ask anyone who did,” Scanlon said.
Scanlon said proposals to eliminate phone service and in-person identity checks of individuals applying for benefits, and to stop sending paper checks will impact some very poor individuals do not have bank access.
Scanlon claimed they will privatize the operation, turning it over to a bank card company that the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has sued for systematically failing disabled and older Americans through the use of junk fees and mismanagement.
That bureau has been one of the agencies targeted for downsizing by DOGE.
“While our Republican colleagues say they don’t plan to cut benefits, what they are doing will make it take months longer to apply or receive a benefit. That’s a cut,” Scanlon said.
A response
While Social Security officials said the rumor of a 50 percent reduction is false they do hope to reduce staffing to 50,000, down from the current level of approximately 57,000 employees.
In a Feb 28 posting to the agency’s website they said initial steps to reduce the workforce included offering a limited number of employees the opportunity to leave the agency under the Deferred Resignation Program and Voluntary Early Retirement.
The agency said they have operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices and that is no longer sustainable. The agency will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions.
Tony Heyl, director of Communications and Public Policy at ALS United Mid-Atlantic, said the proposed changes make accessing benefits for those with a disability worse and with a fast-moving disease like ALS the changes will rob them of limited time.
“It makes things more costly, stressful and inefficient,” Heyl said. “Social Security benefits are crucial to our patient population.”
He said it would be challenging for those suffering from the disease to have to go to field offices in person which will delay benefits and he also said they are already finding extremely long wait times.
“Some may even die, due to these delays,” Heyl said. “We need to appreciate the real human costs that these changes are having.”
“This is about peoples’ lives, it’s about people’s freedoms,” said Lauren Alden from Liberty resources, who also spoke. “Systems that should be helpful in accessing freedom should not make it harder for a community to be free.”
A request for comments from Shawn Fordham, regional communications director for Social Security in Philadelphia, the office of U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick and Delaware County Republican Party Chairman Frank Agovino were not returned.
Originally Published: March 31, 2025 at 6:39 PM EDT