Este contenido no está disponible en Español.
Interactive Map
Social Security
Updated
| Claire Zippel  y Devin O’Connor

Social Security Service Restrictions Burden Seniors With Long, Unnecessary Travel

A Quarter of Seniors Live More Than an Hourlong Trip From Their Field Office

The Trump Administration and DOGE have implemented new phone service restrictions that the Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates will require people to make over 1.93 million additional trips to understaffed Social Security field offices each year. Even without any traffic, these additional trips will lead to over a million hours wasted on unnecessary travel each year.

Nationally, assuming no traffic, half of all seniors must drive at least 33 minutes for a field office visit, and nearly a quarter of seniors (13.5 million) live more than an hour’s drive roundtrip from their nearest field office.

In 31 States, More Than 25% of Seniors Must Travel Over an Hour to Access Their Nearest Social Security Field Office

Percent of seniors who must drive more than an hour to visit a field office

For more details on the burdens faced by seniors in a particular state, including estimates by Congressional district, click on the state to view a detailed fact sheet.

Note: Travel times are for round-trip travel to the nearest field office.

Sources: OpenTimes travel times database (Snow, Dan. (2024). OpenTimes (Version 0.0.1) [Data set]. https://github.com/dfsnow/opentimes); Social Security Administration; 2023 American Community Survey.

Nationally, it’s estimated that over 6 million seniors don’t drive, and nearly 8 million seniors report a medical condition or disability that makes it difficult to travel outside the home.

States in orange are those where 25% - 39% of seniors would need to drive for at least an hour roundtrip to their closest field office and states in red are those where at least 40% of seniors would need to do so. Drive time to and from the nearest Social Security field office is conservatively measured assuming no traffic, so actual times for seniors to travel will likely be longer (and potentially significantly longer for those requiring the use of public transportation).

Sources and Methodology

The number of seniors who don’t drive or who report a medical condition or disability that makes it difficult to travel outside the home are from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey. To calculate drive times, CBPP analyzed SSA field office location data from the SSA’s geospatial map gallery, OpenTimes travel times database (Snow, Dan. (2024). OpenTimes (Version 0.0.1) [Data set]. https://github.com/dfsnow/opentimes), and data on the geographic distribution of seniors (people aged 65 and over) from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey.

Appendix: State Fact Sheets

Related resources

Más sobre este tema