Sponsors (130)
The bill protects in-person access for vulnerable Americans and increases local notice, hearings, appeals, and congressional oversight of SSA office changes, but it does so by imposing moratoriums and procedural requirements that raise costs, preserve inefficient offices, and limit agency flexibility.
Seniors and people with disabilities keep local in-person access to Social Security services during the moratorium because offices/stations cannot be closed or reduced below the January 20, 2025 baseline.
Local communities (including rural areas) and affected individuals gain greater transparency, advance notice, multiple public hearings, a formal administrative appeals path, and congressional review with required cost‑benefit and access‑burden analyses before any future office closures or consolidations.
Taxpayers and Social Security beneficiaries may face higher SSA operating costs because the moratorium and numeric floor limit the agency's ability to close or consolidate underused offices and pursue cost-saving changes.
Keeping a larger network of low‑use physical offices could divert resources from digital and alternative service improvements, slowing long‑term modernization and reducing overall service efficiency.
Extensive procedural requirements (120‑day notices, multiple hearings, reports, mandatory appeals and a 30‑day replacement access timeline) will constrain SSA managerial flexibility, slow or block reorganizations, and create planning and staffing complications for federal employees.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prevents SSA from closing or consolidating field/hearing/resident offices and adds strict notice, hearing, reporting, and baseline-office rules for any future reductions.
Prevents the Social Security Administration from closing or consolidating field offices, hearing offices, or resident stations or from imposing new limitations on public access when the law takes effect, with limited emergency exceptions. Requires a report to congressional tax/benefits committees (not earlier than Jan 21, 2029) and keeps a temporary moratorium until 180 days after that report; it also adds strict notice, public hearing, reporting, and administrative-appeal steps that must be met before any future closures or consolidations and preserves the total number of offices at or above the count on January 20, 2025.
Introduced March 5, 2025 by John B. Larson · Last progress March 5, 2025