How Social Security Will Be Affected by The Government Shutdown

The failure to reach a budget agreement will shut down much of the federal government on Wednesday, but several critical benefits — including Social Security retirement and disability payments — will continue to flow to the more than 74 million Americans who receive them each month.

Applications for benefits will also remain available online, by phone, and in-person at Social Security field offices, which generally stay open during budget lapses.

“We will continue activities critical to our direct-service operations and those needed to ensure accurate and timely payment of benefits,” said Tom Holland, Social Security’s chief financial officer, in a recent letter outlining the agency’s contingency plan for a shutdown.

Social Security and Medicare are not subject to annual budget negotiations because their funding is already authorized by law. Social Security is funded largely by payroll taxes split between workers and employers, while Medicare is partly funded by the same revenue stream. This means retirement, survivor, and disability benefits will continue without interruption. Supplemental Security Income, a program for low-income or disabled individuals, is funded through congressional appropriations but has enough funding to cover payments through December.

However, some non-essential services will be paused, including benefit verification, corrections to earnings records, and replacement of Medicare cards, according to the agency.

If the shutdown extends into mid-October, it could also delay the announcement of Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which is tied to inflation data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That agency is expected to suspend operations during the shutdown.

In a message to Social Security employees on Tuesday, Commissioner Frank Bisignano said that President Trump opposed a shutdown but that Democrats in Congress were blocking efforts to keep the government running.

“The agency has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse in appropriations forced by congressional Democrats,” Bisignano wrote. Essential Social Security employees will continue reporting to work, though like other federal workers, they will not be paid until the shutdown ends.

Union leaders expressed concern about the strain this places on staff, noting that the agency has already faced deep cuts. “We have a well-documented morale crisis at Social Security, made worse over the past eight months as we have lost thousands more employees,” said Social Security Workers United, a committee within the American Federation of Government Employees that represents 40,000 workers. “Delaying our paychecks will make the morale crisis even worse. We are being asked to keep delivering earned benefits while our own financial situations suffer.”

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