Social Security Whistleblower Reveals Response Time of ‘Weeks to Months’ for ‘Simple Requests’ Due to Telework Abuse Under President Biden: Field Worker Denounces ‘I Don’t Know What to Do to Get Things Moving’

Local Social Security Administration (SSA) office staff have been ignoring “simple requests” for months as rampant telework abuse continues under the Biden administration.

An employee of an organization grantee in Sioux City, Iowa, disclosed that the local Social Security field office has completely ignored relief efforts since December.

The whistleblower writes in a disclosure first obtained by DailyMail.com that their department faxed 12 intakes to the SSA office, but as of March 7 “had not received any calls regarding this.”

According to the whistleblower, some of the intakes date from December 2023, which means that some months may remain unanswered.

The whistleblower says their office cannot take more referrals until there is “movement” on the referrals that were faxed months ago.

“I don’t know what to do anymore to get things moving in the right direction,” the aggravated whistleblower wrote in an email to the assistant district manager of the SSA office.

Now Republicans Joni Ernst and Rep. Randy Feenstra are moving the stakes higher up the food chain to the agency’s top watchdog.

There have been “multiple reports” of grantees of the organization in Iowa experiencing “severe delays with their SSA field office,” they state.

“It is alarming that the SSA field office in Sioux City, Iowa, has identified a pattern of completely ignoring the support of organizational grantees,” the lawmakers wrote to Social Security Inspector General Gail Ennis.

Employees at the SSA field office will only be allowed to telework two days a week starting in February, according to a staff guideline.

But the Sioux City SSA field office’s timing for processing simple requests “often takes weeks to months, denying everyone involved access to answers and assistance and causing significant delays to beneficiaries.”

“Additionally, the Sioux City SSA field office is dismissive when confronted with concerns about response times, or fails to provide substantive updates, if a response is provided at all. This is unacceptable,” Ernst and Feenstra say.

According to a recent report, SSA headquarters has the most unused office space of any Biden agency at just 7 percent — meaning 90 percent sits empty every day, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.

“It is long past time for the federal workforce to return to work,” the lawmakers wrote.

The spotlight on the Social Security Administration comes days after Biden’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was blasted for the agency’s work-from-home role.

Another whistleblower at the agency raised issues with the Biden administration’s “impersonal and inefficient” telework policy.

A federal one One employee, who describes himself as a supervisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), told Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, that remote work “negatively impacts productivity, efficiency and collaboration.”

The senator raised whistleblower concerns with Vilsack during a recent hearing, emphasizing that employees are expected to be the “majority of the week” in the office.

But in practice that doesn’t happen.

The whistleblower went on to say that the “vast majority” of USDA employees are working remotely, and that the unused federal office headquarters resembles a “ghost town” with empty hallways and vacant offices.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the USDA was found to be only 11 percent occupied between January and March 2023, and more than 75 percent of available office space across 17 different federal agencies remains vacant.

Vilsack disagreed with that statistic, saying the GAO calculation is “not even close to correct.”

But Ernst says the agency’s estimates were based on “average space use over a three-month period, less than a year ago.”

The biggest problem, according to the whistleblower, is how limited personal interaction “hinder[s]productivity.”

Remote employees “are often unreachable and do not respond to simple email questions for hours,” the whistleblower continues.

“This leads to inefficiencies in completing tasks in a timely manner and delays in clearing documents and reports due to the inability to reach colleagues.”

Furthermore, the lack of in-person work “hinder[s]discussions” about solving problems, generating ideas, and interacting with colleagues.

As a supervisor, the whistleblower says it is an ‘obstacle’ to the ‘simple act’ of gaining trust.

‘Working via email and video conferencing is impersonal and inefficient compared to face-to-face interaction.’

The whistleblower says that returning employees to the office full-time would “restore productivity and efficiency.”

Republicans are trying to hold the government accountable on the issue they say is plaguing the nation.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a new bill that will force the federal workforce back into the office.

The bill led by Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., would require federal agencies to operate their offices at 60 percent capacity or sell the buildings.

Republicans say it’s an insult to taxpayers, as agencies spend about $2 billion annually to operate and maintain more than 27,000 acres of federal office buildings and more than $5 billion annually on leases.

In addition to unused physical office space, employees face productivity issues due to the impersonal nature of remote work.

Unused federal office space wastes an estimated $2.8 million a day, becoming a huge headache for Biden as he tries to get employees back to work in person.

Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients also instructed cabinet heads to ensure their staff return to the office this year.

According to a memo obtained by DailyMail.com, he wrote earlier this year that federal employees must spend at least 50 percent of their work time in the office to achieve the administration’s goals.