The Social Security Administration is considering whether to put more of its in-person services on hold, as employees working without pay during the longest government shutdown can no longer afford the cost of coming into the office.

SSA’s Chief of Field Operations Andy Sriubas told managers on a call Thursday afternoon that the agency may need to stop issuing replacement Social Security cards, if the shutdown continues, given concerns about short staffing.

Several managers also told Sriubas, in a recording of the call obtained by Federal News Network, that some field office employees working without pay are asking to be furloughed, because they can no longer cover commuting costs.

Many federal employees have missed two full paychecks during the shutdown, and received one partial paycheck.

“If this goes into next week, I asked folks to start thinking about what are the workloads … we’re just not doing that, going forward, until the shutdown ends,” Sriubas said.

Depending on when Congress reaches a deal to end the shutdown, it’s possible that SSA employees receive a partial paycheck before receiving the rest of their retroactive pay.

Replacement Social Security cards are one of the biggest reasons individuals show up at Social Security offices. Last year, about 7.7 million people requested replacement cards. The agency stopped issuing replacement Social Security cards in previous shutdowns.

Much of SSA’s workforce is considered “excepted” and continues working without pay during a shutdown. But Sriubas said the agency may need to scale back some shutdown-exempt services if the shutdown lasts much longer.

“Just because it’s an excepted workload doesn’t mean we have to do it. So we can decide not to do it,” he told managers.

SSA was planning to launch its new appointment scheduling system in January. But Sriubas said the rollout has been pushed back by about six weeks because of the shutdown.

An SSA spokesperson told Federal News Network that “Social Security Administration continues to serve our nation’s seniors and most vulnerable populations during the Democrat shutdown.”

“We recognize this is a stressful and challenging time for SSA employees who are currently working without pay because the Democrats won’t reopen the government,” the spokesperson said.

Senate Democrats on Friday proposed voting for a continuing resolution to end the shutdown, in exchange for a one-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) called the plan a “nonstarter.”

‘They won’t be able to afford to work at the agency’

One manager said during the call that employees can no longer afford commuting costs, including filling up their cars to drive to work. Others are asking to be furloughed, so that they can take second jobs to pay their bills.

“Pretty soon, they won’t be able to afford to work at the agency,” the manager said.

SSA required all employees to work fully on-site beginning in March, because of President Donald Trump’s return-to-office orders for the federal workforce. But there is still a possibility, at times, for employees to get approval for “episodic telework,” a shorter-term option when unexpected personal circumstances arise.

Sriubas said teleworking five days a week is still prohibited, and that managers can furlough staff for the remainder of the shutdown, so that they don’t have to spend any money to come into the office.

“That’s, unfortunately, the only option we have,” he said.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 42,000 SSA employees nationwide, is calling on SSA to allow more routine telework during the shutdown.

If enough SSA employees request furlough status, some offices may need to be temporarily closed.

SSA closed two of its 1,250 field offices on Monday due to limited staffing. An agency spokesperson said one of the offices reopened for normal operations on Tuesday. Sriubas told managers that more offices may be at risk of temporary closures, if the shutdown drags on.

“I understand that that’s going to happen, and nobody wants to close an office. You guys are all captains of your ship, and everybody wants to make sure that that’s never going to happen. But I also understand that people have to live their lives, and they have limited means to do that when you’re now missing your second full paycheck,” he said. “So if putting people on furlough is the only thing you can do, if it’s the best thing for the employee, that’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Some managers said employees are frustrated, because they want to keep working during the shutdown, but are financially squeezed and unable to telework.

“We do have employees that have been embarrassed to come to me and say that they can’t afford to come to work, and they want to telework instead of being furloughed, and I understand that’s not an option,” another manager said. “There really are people that are struggling with the decision between finding a way to get to work, and wanting to work, and our only option is being furloughed.”

Other managers said employees are scared to go on furlough, because the Trump administration has floated the possibility that furloughed staff will not receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

“I have employees that are skeptical and kind of scared, to be truthful, to use furlough because they’re not comfortable or confident that once the shutdown is over, that they’re going to be compensated if they were on a furlough status,” a third manager said.

Sriubas acknowledged the administration has created uncertainty around back pay for furloughed employees, but said it would be “political suicide for either the Republican or the Democrat party to suggest that they wouldn’t support paying the people that were on furlough during this whole process.”

“Rumors in the press are just simply that — rumors in the press. In the past, everybody has gotten paid, and it is expected that most likely everybody will get paid who’s on furlough. But, you don’t know, it’s not 100% and I appreciate people are nervous to go on furlough because of that — because that risk that they wouldn’t get paid,” he said.

During the shutdown, SSA has paused work on some mandated work with benchmarks set by Congress. That includes continuing disability reviews (CDRs) and redetermination for Supplemental Security Income (RZs).

The former involves SSA reviewing the medical records of those receiving disability benefits, and determining whether they are still disabled. The latter involves the agency reviewing non-medical factors — like income and resources — to determine if individuals should remain on disability benefits.

Congress mandated SSA to complete 2.4 million redeterminations for Supplemental Security Income and 400,000 continuing disability reviews last year. Sriubas said SSA will work on resetting its workload targets once the shutdown ends.

“I fully appreciate that we’re not going to be able to deliver what we thought we were going to deliver when we looked like we had a 12-month year to be able to go do that stuff,” he said.

A fourth manager said during the call that it is “hard to keep morale going,” and that employees know that “as soon as the shutdown is over, we’re going to hit them hard” with a backlog of casework.

“It’s very frustrating when we have to keep those staff motivated — and we need them for the long haul. Not just for this fiscal year, the next fiscal year,” the manager said.

Sriubas said the agency will offer overtime to employees to dig out from the backlog. SSA managers were also told during the call that once the shutdown ends, the agency will work with the Interior Department — which handles payroll for a wide swath of the federal workforce — to ensure excepted employees receive retroactive pay “as quickly as possible.”

The post Social Security considers pausing more work, as shutdown takes a toll on employees first appeared on Federal News Network.