President Trump’s nominee to run the Social Safety Administration, Frank Bisignano, confronted questions on customer support, misguided funds and considerations about potential pursuits in privatizing the company throughout a Senate affirmation listening to on Tuesday. 

Some Senators additionally tried to nail down Bisignano’s stance on efforts by the Elon Musk-helmed Division of Authorities Effectivity‘s (DOGE) efforts to chop prices on the company by firing employees and shutting places of work. Additionally they requested him level clean if he’d block DOGE employees from accessing People’ personally identifiable info. 

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, pointed to a March 24 assertion from a former senior SSA worker who claims that Bisignano has already been coordinating with DOGE regardless of not but being confirmed as commissioner. The assertion additionally alleges that Bisignano mentioned hiring DOGE staff with SSA personnel.

“Whereas Mr. Bisignano was the unconfirmed nominee to steer the Social Safety Administration, he ceaselessly spoke with senior SSA executives and was personally briefed on key SSA operations, personnel and administration selections,” the letter from the previous SSA worker claimed. 

Beneath questioning by Wyden, Bisignano mentioned throughout the listening to that he had not, between the time he was nominated in December and Tuesday, March 25, been concerned in discussions with DOGE.

The Social Safety Administration delivers greater than $1.6 trillion yearly in advantages to 70 million seniors, disabled individuals and youngsters, with the month-to-month profit checks offering a significant supply of retirement revenue to many older People. On the identical time, Social Safety is going through a possible monetary crunch, with this system set to chop advantages beginning in 2035 as a result of its spending is outpacing revenue.

Here is what Bisignano mentioned throughout the listening to.  

Who’s Frank Bisignano? 

Bisignano has served because the chief govt of Fiserv, a monetary expertise firm, since July 2020. Beneath his management, Fiserv’s inventory value has greater than doubled, whereas the corporate reported income of $20.5 billion for the yr ended Dec. 31 2024, up from roughly $15 billion in 2020. 

Previous to serving as CEO of Fiserv, he was the chairman and CEO of First Knowledge Corp., and oversaw the merger of First Knowledge and Fiserv in 2019. Earlier in his profession, Bisignano labored as co-chief working officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and had additionally beforehand held senior positions at Citigroup.

What does Bisignano say about Social Safety? 

In an interview with CNBC in February, Bisignano mentioned he views Social Safety as each a expertise and companies group, whereas pledging to not make any modifications that have an effect on the extent of advantages. 

“The target is not to the touch advantages,” Bisignano instructed CNBC. “The target is there may be going to be fraud, waste and abuse in there,” including that he views himself as “essentially a DOGE particular person.”

Throughout Tuesday’s listening to, the chief additionally mentioned he plans to make use of synthetic intelligence to determine and weed out fraud, waste or abuse inside the system. He repeatedly referred to the present 1% funds error price, which he mentioned he believes is “5 decimal locations too excessive.” He added that he plans to “concentrate on what we have to do to drive the 1% error price down.” 

Bisignano mentioned a part of that effort will begin with what he described as an unhappy workforce on the company. 

“My goal is to return in and inspire the workforce we’ve got … to have the ability to get our job proper the primary time for the American public,” Bisignano mentioned in response to questioning.

Mr. Trump and Musk have claimed on social media and in press briefings that people who find themselves nicely over 100 years previous are improperly and routinely drawing advantages from Social Safety, a declare that has been refuted by the appearing Social Safety Administration commissioner. 

This system additionally robotically stops funds to people who find themselves older than 115 years previous, an company rule that has been in impact since September 2015.

On defending People’ knowledge

A key concern amongst some Social Safety recipients and lawmakers is the potential publicity of tens of millions of People’ private knowledge after DOGE staff accessed the company’s programs. Bisignano claimed he’s dedicated to defending that knowledge.

When Sen. Wyden requested Bisignano if he would “lock DOGE out of databases” that employees have accessed, the nominee mentioned that personally identifiable info “won’t be uncovered.”

“I’m going to do no matter is required to guard the knowledge,” he mentioned.

On privatization and company cuts

Bisignano repeatedly mentioned he had not thought of privatizing the company, responding to a suggestion from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, that the Trump administration’s goal is to discredit the system after which ship in “tech bros and personal fairness of us” to “save” it.

Bisignano didn’t explicitly decide to opposing such a scheme, however relatively answered that “my job is to make sure claims are processed within the method they need to be.”

“I’ve solely been given one order, which is to run the company in the fitting style,” Mr. Bisignano mentioned. 

Concerning customer support enhancements, Bisignano confused the significance of assembly beneficiaries the place they’re, corresponding to by offering customer support through telephone in addition to in particular person and on-line. He additionally touted his firm’s expertise dealing with 400 million telephone calls per yr, in comparison with the estimated 80 million calls that SSA fields yearly.