President Trump’s pick to lead the Social Security Administration faced a grilling by Senate Democrats at his confirmation hearing Tuesday, with questions over DOGE-led cuts that have exacerbated customer-service problems and raised fears about the future of the program that pays benefits to more than 70 million Americans.
Who is Trump’s pick to head Social Security? Trump chose Frank Bisignano, the CEO of financial technology company Fiserv since 2020 and a former Wall Street executive, to head Social Security. “Frank is a business leader, with a tremendous track record of transforming large corporations,” Trump said in a social media post back in December.
Bisignano portrayed himself as an efficiency expert and said he aims to improve service at Social Security. He called the 1% improper payment rate found by Social Security’s inspector general “five decimal places too high.” Bisignano said Tuesday that his company today processes more than 250 million payments totaling more than $2.5 trillion a day, compared to the 74 million payments a month processed by Social Security, totaling about $1.6 trillion a year.
“We will get the error rate down, and be more accurate in payments,” Bisignano pledged. “Working in collaboration with the men and women of the Social Security Administration and you here in Congress, we will better serve the American people.”
In an interview with CNBC last month, Bisignano said the clear objective behind his nomination was to turn around the Social Security organization and improve services. “It’s going to be a technology story,” he said then, indicating plans to use artificial intelligence to target fraud, waste and abuse. “The objective is not to touch benefits,” he said. He also called himself “fundamentally a DOGE person,” again emphasizing a focus on efficiency.
Bisignano on Tuesday promised to do whatever is required to protect private information at Social Security. He acknowledged a leadership issue at the agency and said he would take charge and would look to improve workforce morale. He also emphasized that Trump has promised not to touch Social Security benefits.
Fears about DOGE: The Musk-led effort has targeted Social Security for cuts, and the agency announced last month that it “plans to reduce the size of its bloated workforce and organizational structure” and would be cutting 7,000 of 57,000 workers. It denied rumors of much steeper cuts.
As DOGE hunts for supposed benefits fraud, the already-embattled agency now faces a full-blown crisis, with reports of chaos and service problems caused by staffing shortages and the departures of experienced officials.
“Today’s news brings fresh reports that it is bedlam out there in Social Security,” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, said Tuesday. “The urgency for today’s hearing couldn’t be greater. Since Donald Trump took office, Social Security has experienced the most chaos in its history. Mass personnel layoffs, eliminating phone service for basic help, sending seniors to overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure. Political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information, creating a big risk for what I call the mother of all identity thefts.”
Wyden and other Democrats warned that claims by Trump and Elon Musk of massive Social Security fraud are a deliberate effort to set the stage for benefit cuts — a scheme to break Social Security in order to “save it.”
“I think there’s been a plot afoot here,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “Step one is to lie about not intending to damage Social Security and about intending to protect Social Security benefits.” Step two, Whitehouse warned, was to discredit the Social Security system, to open the door for Musk’s team of “tech bros” to take over.
Democrats also expressed fears that Bisignano’s business track record might be a prelude to privatizing the program. “The Musk-Lutnick-Trump plan for Social Security is to take away earned benefits from seniors, hollow out the agency in preparation to hand it over to private equity, and give the savings over to their billionaire friends,” Wyden claimed.
Bisignano testified that he had “never thought about” privatizing Social Security.
“I've only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion,” Bisignano said, adding, “I don’t see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run for the benefit of the American public.”
Some advocates for seniors still worry: Richard Fiesta, the executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an advocacy group founded by the AFL-CIO, noted that Bisignano had refused to explicitly refute Musk's claim that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and called on senators to reject his nomination.
“Retirees who tuned into Frank Bisignano’s confirmation hearing hoping to hear that he planned on halting the chaos and destruction of the Social Security Administration caused by Elon Musk’s DOGE team were left disappointed,” Fiesta said in a statement. “Mr. Bisignano knows a lot about processing payments and came across as a big fan of artificial intelligence in call centers. Unfortunately, he said nothing to assure older Americans that he gets the unique challenges technology presents to Social Security beneficiaries, who are older and have less access to or familiarity with technology.