Social Security office in Big Flats targeted for closure by DOGE. Schumer says 'Hands off'
A Chemung County Social Security Administration office appears to be a target of Trump Administration efforts to eliminate alleged waste and fraud in federal spending, and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is alarmed such a move could be harmful to Southern Tier Social Security recipients.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency created by President Trump and overseen by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, placed the Social Security Administration office at 3345 Chambers Roads No. 19 in Big Flats on a list of real estate lease terminations posted on the DOGE website.
The 11,400-square-foot Big Flats site has an annual lease amount of $311,690, according to DOGE, and has more than a dozen employees, Schumer's office said.
Schumer said in a news release DOGE needs to keep its "hands off Southern Tier seniors' and families' Social Security." He also wrote a letter of concern to Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner LeLand Dudek.
"The Big Flats Social Security office is the only location in Chemung County, and with no clarity about the future of the office's over a dozen employees or assurances about continuity of operations for the Southern Tier, local residents deserve answers and — above all — they deserve an open office that continues to provide vital in-person services," Schumer said.
The Big Flats office isn't the only Social Security facility targeted for closure in New York state, Schumer added, noting offices in Poughkeepsie and White Plains last month were included on a list of office spaces up for potential sale.
"The potential closure of our local Social Security office would have a significant impact on Chemung County's older and most vulnerable adults, many of whom rely on in-person services and have limited access to transportation," Chemung County Department of Aging & Long Term Care Director Beth Stranges said in the release.
More: In wake of Elmira camping ban, how new group aims to tackle homelessness in Chemung County
The entire situation has been "cruel and stressful," said Shawn Halloran, president of Local 3342 of the American Federation of Government Employees.
"Closing this office can have devasting impacts on the workforce and the ability to provide assistance to local residents," Halloran said.
If the Big Flats Social Security office closes, the next closest locations for Chemung County residents are in Corning, Towanda, and Binghamton.
READ SCHUMER'S LETTER TO THE ACTING SSA COMMISSIONER HERE:
Follow Jeff Murray on X (Twitter) @SGJeffMurray. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Elmira area Social Security office targeted for closure by DOGE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
6 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Not Your Parents' Retirement: Smart Strategies for a New Era
In the past, retirement followed a predictable script: work 40 years, collect a pension, claim Social Security, and coast through your golden years. However, that formula is now considered outdated. In the modern world, professionals face a vastly different landscape, particularly entrepreneurs, freelancers, and self-employed people. With longer lifespans, volatile markets, shifting job models, and disappearing pensions, retirement is a thing of the past. The good news? The retirement plan your parents had is not the only option you have. Using the right strategies can create a more flexible, individualized, and resilient retirement plan. To prepare for the future, you must think differently—and smarter.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Unpacking rumors that DOGE and RFK Jr. found 8M people fraudulently enrolled in Medicaid
In May 2025, a claim spread online that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the U.S. discovered 8 million people fraudulently enrolled in Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income people. While U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that 8 million people are on Medicaid because of "fraud, waste and abuse," and that DOGE helped determine this, there is no evidence backing up the claim that this number originated from DOGE's work. However, the Congressional Budget Office did estimate that approximately 7.6 million or 7.7 million people would lose Medicaid coverage under U.S. President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which appears to be where Kennedy's numbers come from. Kennedy also claimed, as did many people online, that of the 8 million, 1 million are enrolled in Medicaid in multiple states, about 1 million enrollees are immigrants in the country illegally and another million are enrolled in plans under both Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. However, there is no publicly available documented proof of the double enrollment numbers — for both multiple states and multiple plans — and the enrollees who do not have legal immigration status are on Medicaid through state-sanctioned and -funded programming, not federal funding. In mid-2025, a rumor circulated online that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) found 8 million people fraudulently enrolled in Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income people. The claim spread primarily on Facebook but could also be found on X. Snopes readers also searched the website for information on the claims about Medicaid fraud and DOGE. "DOGE drops the facts, and RFK Jr. confirms it — 8 million people are on Medicaid who shouldn't be," many of the posts read. The text from the post above appears to be copypasta, or misinformation in the form of copied and pasted text, as it reads word-for-word the same in many of the claims reviewed by Snopes. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did allege that 8 million people on Medicaid would be affected by the administration's efforts to cut "fraud, waste and abuse" in the program. However, there is no evidence that DOGE made this discovery — nor did Kennedy provide any proof for his claim. In fact, the number appears to come from preliminary estimates by the Congressional Budget Office on how many people may lose health insurance coverage if Trump's massive legislative budget package — called the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — becomes law without undergoing any changes. Furthermore, Kennedy's claim that these 8 million people represent "fraud, waste and abuse" is in part a matter of opinion, not fact. Asked via email whether DOGE could be credited for this, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields requested Snopes provide an example of the claim. Snopes provided this post from a Facebook account titled, "Donald Trump For President," to which Fields said the White House would not comment on unofficial Republican accounts. After clarifying that the claim spread widely online and may have originated from Kennedy, we did not hear back. We also reached out to DOGE and await a response. The Department of Health and Human Services did not return a request for more information on where Kennedy's numbers came from. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Feb. 5, 2025, officials granted DOGE access to Medicaid systems in its widespread search for fraud. On May 14, 2025, Kennedy said during a committee hearing that "because of DOGE," the agency found 8 million people on Medicaid who would be affected by cuts made for reasons of "fraud, waste and abuse." However, if DOGE did make this discovery, they did not appear to make any public announcement about it. The public face of DOGE, tech billionaire Elon Musk, often makes major announcements through his X page — and a search for "Medicaid" on his X profile returned no results concerning 8 million fraudulent enrollees. DOGE similarly uses X for public statements, and a search of its page for "Medicaid" also returned no relevant results as of this writing. Musk did claim in an X post on Feb. 10, 2025, without providing evidence, that the "magnitude of fraud in federal entitlements," including Medicaid, "exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you've ever heard by FAR." This post did not include hard data or any supposed number of fraudulent enrollees. DOGE releases dollar amounts of its purported savings on its website, but there was not a section for the number of people that the agency supposedly caught committing fraud as of this writing. No reputable news outlets have credited this supposed discovery to DOGE as of publication, and if the claim were true — or if Musk even claimed it was — it would certainly make news. Kennedy's comments during the May 14 committee hearing were in reference to cuts that would be made to Medicaid under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Here is the full exchange between Kennedy and Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif.; see 1:53:00 (emphasis ours): KENNEDY: The cuts to Medicaid are for fraud, waste and abuse, and I'll tell you what that means. It means because of DOGE — and it's about 8 million people who would be affected — because of DOGE, we were able to determine that there are a million people who are claiming Medicaid from multiple states. That's illegal. It's theft. You're not allowed to do that. There are another million people who are collecting both under Obamacare and — HARDER: Mr. Secretary. That has nothing to do with the budget that is actually being proposed — KENNEDY: These are the only cuts that are being made. These are the only cuts that are being made to Medicaid. HARDER: That's not true. KENNEDY: Yes it is. There are another million illegal aliens. We announced the law yesterday, we're not going to pay illegal aliens anymore. The first public reference available of this "8 million" number appears to be a May 11 preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found that "at least" 7.7 million people may lose health insurance coverage by 2034 if the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" became law without undergoing any changes. An updated May 18, 2025, estimate from CBO, available for download here (go to the "Title IV — Commerce and Energy" tab after downloading and scroll to the very end), said "the number of people without health insurance would increase by 8.6 million in 2034," with 7.6 million of that number attributable to Medicaid cuts and another 1 million attributable to the Affordable Care Act. CBO cautioned that it has not yet completed "estimates for effects on spending subject to appropriation and estimates of the effects of interactions among titles of the legislation," meaning these numbers are subject to change. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has also undergone changes since being passed by the House of Representatives on May 22, 2025, and is likely to undergo even more changes once it reaches debate in the Senate. It must pass both chambers and be signed by Trump in order to become law. Kennedy's explanation as to why the 8 million who would be cut from Medicaid represent "waste, fraud and abuse" largely matches with the text from the copypasta, seen below: Over 1 million are double-dipping, illegally getting Medicaid from two different states. Another 1.4 million are undocumented immigrants — and they're being handed benefits funded by your tax dollars. On top of that, another million are illegally enrolled in both Medicaid and Obamacare. Not all of these numbers are available in public documents, making it impossible to check every claim made here, so let's start by looking at the claim that is possible to fact-check. The claim that 1.4 million immigrants in the country illegally are on Medicaid comes from the May 18, 2025, CBO estimate (emphasis ours): Included in that 8.6 million total are an estimated 1.4 million people without verified citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status who, if section 41110 were enacted, would no longer be covered in state-only funded programs in 2034. While such immigrants are largely ineligible for federal health insurance, Medicaid is a joint state and federal program — and some states offer Medicaid or Medicaid-like benefits to people without legal immigration status using state funds, which is what CBO references. Thus, legally speaking, those immigrants who enroll through state-sanctioned Medicaid programs aren't committing fraud or abuse. (On the federal spending level, noncitizen immigrants — both with and without legal authorization — can be eligible for emergency Medicaid services, but the government doesn't keep track of an immigrant's legal status when collecting data on emergency Medicaid usage, making it impossible to tell how many undocumented immigrants have benefited from these services, per a 2024 letter sent to U.S. representatives.) As for the claim that 1 million enrollees are "double-dipping" into Medicaid from two different states, that is both illegal and a legitimate issue, according to a 2022 audit by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General. (See Page 2 under "Federal Requirements" for the law on receiving benefits in two different states.) However, this audit found that the total number of beneficiaries concurrently enrolled in two different states was 327,497 as of August 2020; in August 2019, it was 208,254 (see pages 14 and 15). Thus, the most recent numbers available as of this writing aren't close to 1 million (see the first summary page). It is possible that the number of "double-dippers" has increased to 1 million, but that number isn't publicly available as of this writing. Finally, Snopes could not find any data on the number of people who are enrolled in both Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid. However, in 2016, the federal government did crack down on duplicate enrollments, per a New York Times story; in that report, Judith Solomon, then-vice president of the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said there is not really a benefit to "double-dipping" into both insurance plans. Eligibility for either ACA plans or Medicaid can change based on a person's or family's income level or other factors, meaning Americans often find themselves swapping between the two types of plans. The federal government provides a guide online for ending one form of coverage or the other, as overlap between the two is common; the IRS also provides tax guidance on overlapping coverage. Here's the math: According to the copypasta, 8 million people are fraudulently on Medicaid — 1.4 million of whom are immigrants in the country illegally, 1 million who are double-dipping into Medicaid in multiple states and an additional 1 million on plans under both Medicaid and Obamacare. That totals 3.4 million, meaning there are 4.6 million people unaccounted for. During the May 14 committee hearing, Kennedy said about 4.8 million people cut from Medicaid under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would become ineligible because they aren't employed. "The last category is adults who are able-bodied, who refuse to look for a job, to volunteer, to get a job or to show — to take a part-time job," Kennedy said (at 1:54:25). Multiple Republican lawmakers also cited this number during a May 13 House committee hearing; at least one attributed it to CBO — but if this is a CBO estimate, it has not yet been released publicly. Snopes reached out to several Republican lawmakers who shared the number in the hearing to ask for documented proof and await their reply. CBO would not share its estimate or related documents with Snopes. To summarize, there is no public evidence, aside from Kennedy's claim, that DOGE deserves credit for the alleged discovery of 8 million people fraudulently on Medicaid. The numbers and categories of supposedly fraudulent enrollees from the post come from either Kennedy, who did not provide proof, or estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. While enrollment in multiple states or multiple plans is a legitimate issue, it's unclear if the numbers shared are accurate. Furthermore, the 1.4 million immigrants in the country illegally on Medicaid — as estimated by CBO — are on the program through state funding, not federal. "Affordable Care Act - Return Preparer Best Practices." Internal Revenue Service, 7 Apr. 2016, Accessed 21 May 2025. Broder, Tanya. "Health Care Coverage (Maps)." NILC, 16 Oct. 2024, Accessed 21 May 2025. "CMS Statement on Collaboration with DOGE | CMS." 5 Feb. 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. Congressional Budget Office. Subject: E&c Reconciliation Recommendations. 11 May 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025. DOGE. "DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency." DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency, Accessed 21 May 2025. "Doge 8 Million People on Medicaid - Google Search." 2024, Accessed 21 May 2025. Dorning, Courtney, et al. "DOGE Sets Its Sights on Medicare and Medicaid." NPR, 10 Feb. 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. "Estimated Budgetary Effects of a Bill to Provide for Reconciliation pursuant to Title II of H. Con. Res. 14, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act." Congressional Budget Office, 20 May 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025. "From:DOGE Medicaid - Search / X." 21 May 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. "From:elonmusk Medicaid - Search / X." 21 May 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. Grimm, Christi. " NEARLY ALL STATES MADE CAPITATION PAYMENTS for BENEFICIARIES WHO WERE CONCURRENTLY ENROLLED in a MEDICAID MANAGED CARE PROGRAM in TWO STATES." Sept. 2022, Accessed 21 May 2025. House Appropriations Committee. "Budget Hearing – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services." YouTube, 16 May 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. "Full Committee Markup of Budget Reconciliation Text Part 1." 13 May 2025, Accessed 23 May 2025. MACPAC. "Overview of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid : MACPAC." 31 Mar. 2022, Accessed 21 May 2025. Mathews, Anna Wilde, and Liz Essley Whyte. "DOGE Aides Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems for Fraud." Wall Street Journal, 5 Feb. 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. Musk, Elon. "At This Point, I Am 100% Certain That the Magnitude of the Fraud in Federal Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, Etc) Exceeds the Combined Sum of Every Private Scam You've Ever Heard by FAR. It's Not Even Close." X (Formerly Twitter), 10 Feb. 2025, Accessed 21 May 2025. Pear, Robert. "U.S. Officials Move to End Duplicate Health Care Coverage." The New York Times, 19 Aug. 2016, Accessed 21 May 2025. "Press Room." Accessed 21 May 2025. Snopes Staff. "Copypasta." Snopes, 21 Aug. 2019, Accessed 21 May 2025. Swagel, Phillip. "Re: Emergency Medicaid Services for Certain Non-U.S. Nationals ." 2024, Accessed 21 May 2025. "Take Action When You Have Marketplace Coverage along with Medicaid or CHIP Coverage." Accessed 21 May 2025. USAGov. "How to Get Insurance through the ACA Health Insurance Marketplace | USAGov." 6 Dec. 2023, Accessed 21 May 2025.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
2026 Social Security COLA Predictions: Here's What Experts Are Saying
The 2025 COLA increase of 2.5% for Social Security recipients was one of the lowest since 2021, and so far, signs are pointing to an even lower increase for next year. We're still about five months out before we get an official announcement from the Social Security Administration, so there's plenty of room for that to change -- in either direction. Experts in the field have been making predictions for the 2026 COLA since the beginning of this year, and an initial prediction of a 2.1% bump next year has been followed by a slight shift upward month by month. Whether these expert takes will match the official number remains to be seen -- especially with the economic uncertainty spurred by the Trump administration's tariffs agenda -- but we'll break down the latest for you below. I've been steeping myself in all things Social Security for the past year, writing timely articles that surface the most relevant details for existing and soon-to-be beneficiaries and their families. Even if, like me, you're a long way from retirement, staying up to date with expert takes will keep you informed for when it's time for you or your loved ones to retire. The COLA adjustment will be one of the most important announcements of the year. For more, don't miss the Social Security and SSDI cheat sheet. The cost-of-living adjustment, otherwise known as the COLA or COLA increase, is an annual change in the payment scale made by the Social Security Administration. It's pegged to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, which measures the average changes in prices for consumer goods and services and is updated monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These monthly snapshots in the changes to prices of goods and services allow the SSA to see the overall average and determine the COLA for the following year as a percentage of the current payment levels. For Social Security and Supplemental Security Insurance recipients, the COLA percentage represents how much more you'll receive in monthly benefits in the new year. It takes effect Jan. 1 and stays in effect for the calendar year. The official COLA announcement typically takes place sometime in October. How the COLA is calculated has become a hot topic, given that the model sets the adjustment for the entire year ahead. The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan advocacy group for older adults, last year conducted a study of 3,000 older adults. A key takeaway: 72% of respondents said that Congress should prioritize changing the COLA calculation to an index that's more reflective of the changing expenses for seniors, like the CPI-E. There are multiple government benefits that use the COLA to make adjustments. In addition to Social Security, the adjustment applies to Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to account for inflation when setting benefits. The League provides monthly predictions of what the upcoming COLA will be for the following year, and they were spot on for 2025's, predicting a 2.5% COLA. In January, the League predicted a 2.1% increase for 2026 and has adjusted that upward since then. Its latest prediction, as of April 2025, sits at 2.4%. The prediction comes after the recent executive order by the Trump administration, targeting pharmaceutical companies and pushing for cheaper drug costs. Despite the upward trend over the past few months, the League predicts the 2026 COLA to be the lowest since the 1.3% COLA in 2021. This, of course, is all subject to change, not least because of the economic uncertainty highlighted by the Trump administration's tariffs. For more, don't miss the Social Security and SSDI cheat sheet. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
