Ever since President Joe Biden was sworn into office January 20, 2021 Social Security advocates have been clamoring for Biden to oust Andrew Saul from the Social Security commissioner’s office because Saul was appointed by Donald Trump and they claim has policies that have harmed beneficiaries and Social Security employees. It has been almost four months since Biden took over and the advocates are continuing to call for the removal of Saul.
On May 5, 2021 Ralph De Julius, a spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Central Committee, the union which represents more than 40,000 Social Security employees, penned a guest editorial in The Baltimore Sun, again stating his case to remove Saul as commissioner and to remove David Black, a deputy commissioner at the agency, both who are Trump appointees. In the editorial, De Julius used the words of Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Social Security subcommittee chair on the Senate Finance Committee to highlight his opposition to Saul.
During a committee hearing Brown called for Saul’s removal as well and said, “We must acknowledge how difficult an SSI application is, you basically need to have a law degree to successfully apply, here’s what I’ve observed of this: the Social Security Administration under Commissioner Saul spent a lot of time and regulatory energy making it harder for people to qualify for and retain these benefits, and he’s continued that even after the switch over in the White House.”
De Julius echoed Brown again later in the editor when Brown called on both Saul and Black to resign. “We need leadership that believes in the promise of Social Security, not leadership that has actively worked to dismantle it. Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black should resign,” Brown said.
Biden has not mentioned that he is considering changes at Social Security, but it is clear that four months after first calling for Saul and Black to be removed that critics of Social Security’s leadership do not plan to quiet down any time soon.
