WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, led a cheer of “hands off our Social Security” during a Congressional Black Caucus press conference as she works to stand up to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to the Social Security Administration.
Sewell joined with members of the caucus to call out DOGE’s efforts to cut 7,000 SSA workers and reshape the agency.
“Social Security is not an entitlement,” Sewell said during a press conference recently. “It is an earned benefit.
“Trump and Musk, they understand that it is wrong and unpopular to summarily slash Social Security. So what are they doing? They’re going after the system itself. They’re trying to break the system itself.”
More than 1.1 million Alabamians receive Social Security benefits, according to the agency.
The SSA is terminating leases for some of its offices this year, including one in Gadsden located at 634 Broad St. The office is set to close in September. The space is identified as a small hearing room or a “room within another SSA office”, according to a SSA list of closures. The agency said because most hearings are now held virtually, in-person hearing sites are no longer needed.
Sewell called Social Security benefits for her constituents in Alabama’s seventh Congressional district “the difference between putting food on the table, medicine in the cabinet, and gas in the car.”
The agency is also implementing a new requirement to strengthen identity verification that could require people to visit a local office to meet the requirements. Website outages have also plagued the Social Security Administration and beneficiaries have had trouble accessing their benefits online, the Associated Press reported.
House Democrats and Sewell also participated in a hearing on Social Security with former SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley and those personally impacted by the cuts.
Sewell asked Judith Brown, a disability advocate, what would happen to her family if they didn’t receive a Social Security check and asked her what she would tell Musk.
“I did not expect to need my benefits at 37,” Brown said. “It was devastating, but I knew there was something in this country that would help me be able to continue to raise children who then themselves needed support.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said on Fox Business’ ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ that DOGE has done a “great job” of finding ways to find savings in programs like Social Security,
“Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid is going to blow up and it’s going to go broke if we continue down the path of what the Democrats want,” Tuberville said. “We have to reform it.”
The Social Security trust fund reserves are set to run out in 2035 and 83% of benefits would be payable at that time unless Congress intervenes.