Nominee Frank Bisignano faced questions from lawmakers about his plans to step up beneficiary services and data privacy — and his involvement in what Democrats characterized as a “back door” way to cut benefits.
Bisignano, who is currently the CEO of the financial technology company Fiserv, was tapped by President Donald Trump back in December for the Social Security commissioner role. On Tuesday, Senate Finance Committee members had a chance to ask Bisignano about his take on — and possible involvement in — cuts at the agency thus far by the Department of Government Efficiency and his intentions for the future.
Right out of the gate, Ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) questioned Bisignano about his involvement in “discussions about DOGE or any of the operations, personnel, or management decisions with those working at Social Security.” While Bisignano denied any such discussions, Wyden pointed to a whistleblower statement from a former senior official at the Social Security Administration. According to the whistleblower, Bisignano “insisted on personally approving several key DOGE hires at the agency, among other things, and getting frequent briefings,” said Wyden.
Democrats were also focused on the SSA’s new policy requiring some beneficiaries to visit local Social Security offices to verify their identity. Ostensibly put in place to combat fraud, lawmakers said with recent staffing cuts at the SSA and planned office closures, the policy amounted to a benefits cut.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laid out a scenario where a beneficiary must drive hours to a Social Security office and wait in line on multiple days over a three-month period to have his identity verified — ultimately missing $5,000 in benefits checks “which by law, he will never get back.” While an act of Congress is needed to cut benefits, Warren pointed to understaffing and office closures as a “back door” way to make the cuts.
Bisignano, however, countered that one of his goals as commissioner is to “meet beneficiaries where they want to be met, whether in person, in field offices, on the web or on the phone.” He committed to “have the right staffing to get the job done” — including delivering benefits that people are entitled to. “I’m going to hold you to that,” said Warren.
Meanwhile, Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) drilled down on DOGE leader Elon Musk’s recent comments referring to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and calls to cut up to $700 billion from Social Security and Medicare. “That could mean cutting a third of these programs,” said Hassan. “You’d either have to take away benefits for one third of the people currently receiving them or cut the payments that they’re getting by one third,” posited Hassan. “Which is it?”
Among Democrats’ other concerns were data privacy. Bisignano was unwilling to commit to “lock[ing] DOGE out of Social Security databases,” but he assured lawmakers that personally identifiable information “will not be exposed” under his watch. “I’ve spent my career protecting PII in the largest institutions,” Bisignano noted.
Bisignano also repeatedly emphasized that as commissioner, he would work to increase efficiency and drive down error rates. On efficiency, he said “waiting 20 minutes-plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear.”
He plans to “significantly improve the length of the disability claim process” as well. That was of particular concern for Senator James Lankford (R-OK), who noted the current disability determinations process “can be two to three years long.” Bisignano promised to “engineer it from front to back” to determine why the process is so slow.
Bisignano also indicated he may be looking into the substance of disability determinations. “A person who, maybe 30 years ago, was determined to be disabled and wasn’t highly motivated by the system to be able to work — today we could do something different,” he said.
And Bisignano promised to “be more accurate in payments” and bring down the 1% error rate, which he called “five decimal places too high.”
“I think I’m the first commissioner that’s actually been a technologist and operator, understands payments, has run call centers, has done settlements, understood how to deal in crises,” Bisignano told lawmakers. “I come with a depth of experience and how to make systems work for the people inside the agency and for our users.”
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