Casey Calls on Social Security Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner to Step Down

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging Chairman Bob Casey (D-PA) called on Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul and Deputy Commissioner David Black to step down. Senator Casey cited the pair’s efforts to make it more difficult for Americans to access benefits as well as their hostility toward the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) workforce as reasons for new leadership to be installed at the agency.

“Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black were given an opportunity to strengthen Social Security, but they have instead focused their tenures on making it harder for Americans to receive essential benefits and on antagonizing the critical workforce they oversee,” said Chairman Casey. “Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black should step down and make room for new leadership who will be the careful stewards of Social Security Americans deserve.”

Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black were appointed by former President Trump. During their tenure they have advanced a regulatory agenda focused on undermining individuals’ ability to access benefits. This included finalizing a rule that undermines claimants’ due process rights and attempting to finalize a rule that would have forced people receiving disability benefits to re-file enormous amounts of information to re-prove their eligibility for benefits more frequently without reason.

Chairman Casey repeatedly called on SSA’s leadership to abandon these misguided efforts and led the Senate opposition to the proposed rule targeting disability benefits. Saul and Black have also frequently clashed with SSA’s workforce and the unions that represent them, imposing harsh contract terms on workers and undermining employees’ workplace rights in keeping with the former Trump Administration’s anti-federal employee policies. For these reasons, Chairman Casey calls on the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner to relinquish their roles and make room for new leaders to serve the American people.