Correct.
Then I’m at a loss as to what to try next.
Worst-case scenario would be to create a new email address at a different domain than the one you’re currently using. Then use that new address to create an account at login . gov. Yes, it would be a PITA, but lots of people (including me) have multiple email addresses.
Yeah, I know, it’s a mystery.
Which is why I’m going to try to give it another go to get someone at SSA to help me. IF I can get a live human being I have hopes of getting it done because, as I’ve said, all the actual people I’ve spoken to have been extremely helpful.
And yes, I do have multiple e-mail addresses.
So how exactly do specific persons’ sign in difficulties respond to the OP? How is this NOT an extended hijack?
I think everything Satan’s administration is doing has the end goal of destroying Social Security. Republicans have opposed it since it was instituted but they know that to attack it in the open is political suicide. So over the years they’ve been cutting the funding for administering the system and they have weaponized the internet to tell lies about the system and make people lose faith in it. Now the attacks have increased and they’re trying to make it more difficult to navigate the system- making more reasons to require in person visits while simultaneously closing more offices to make visits more difficult, decreasing phone support, making it harder to log into accounts. The point is to make people think less positively about SS and thus more willing to se it gone. I think at some point the trust fund is going to be taken out of T-bills and put into something that’s going to crash like crypto. A few of the elite will make out like bandits and the great unwashed will see their financial security imperiled. Sadly, those whose faces are eaten will be those who voted for the leopards.
Dear God… 
If I don’t care, why should you? I’m not a strict constructionist where hijacks are concerned in the threads I start. I wanted a discussion about Social Security with both closely-related and tangentially-related comments firmly in the OKAY zone.
The question being addressed re signing in seems to be, “have trump & co made any changes to the way people sign in to their SS accounts.” Highly relevant and on topic.
It seems entirely on topic to me and useful and helpful.
It’s true that just because something is easy for one person doesn’t mean it’s easy for everybody. But it’s also true that certain tasks have always been difficult for certain people - how did people apply for Social Security in 1980 or 1990? I don’t know for sure, but my guess is everyone had to show up at an office in person. ( I know I had to show up in person to get a duplicate card back then) Which was probably just as difficult for the people who had to take off from work or take care of a toddler or pick a toddler up then as it is for people with those issues now. I’m sure that there were people back then who lived a 2 hour drive from the closest office, just like now.
I’m not at all saying we should go back to that, but somehow, things that were common not so long ago are insurmountable problems now. It’s not that receiving benefits has been made dependent on staying on the phone for hours - it’s that you have to apply for your benefits and the choice of doing it entirely over the phone is being eliminated. So if you can’t do it online for some reason , you can either call for an appointment or take your chances and just show up in person. ( and changing that might actually make it easier to get to get through on the phone- I can’t imagine applying and verifying identity over the phone takes only 5 or 10 minutes.)
I certainly didn’t in 2016. Which is a lot more relevant.
Relevant to what ? Not to my point that certain tasks have always been more difficult for certain people but somehow people managed in the past.
I bet it could all be done (slowly) via snail mail at any time in the programs existence.
Some people managed some things at great cost to themselves and/or to others in their lives. Some people didn’t manage. Some of those died and/or seriously impacted the lives of others whose fault the mess wasn’t.
Why is this a good thing? Why is it an excuse for making things harder for many people to manage now?
Sometimes it’s unavoidable for a given thing to be difficult for some to manage. That’s a reason and an excuse. But when it is avoidable, why not avoid it? It’s hard for GreatGranma to get up the stairs; why not give her the downstairs bedroom if there is one? If you’ve already got a downstairs bathroom, why lock the door and tell her she can’t use it, just because her greatgranma had to hike to the outhouse or empty her own chamberpot?
I didn’t say it was a good thing or that it should be made harder - but we are never going to make it so that everything is easy for everyone no matter what their personal circumstances are. And things have a cost , monetary or not. I would like people to not have to stay on the phone for hours to have a question answered or to make an appointment - but the cost of that may well be that some other people can’t complete their entire application process or change their direct deposit over the phone. Because that’s really what’s changing - people won’t be able to complete their application including identity verification entirely over the phone and they won’t be able to change direct deposit information over the phone . Two things that I never would have imagined could be done entirely over the phone - I would think at the very least they would have wanted the direct deposit information in writing ( like every other direct deposit I have set up or changed) if for no other reason than if it’s in writing and there’s a mistake it’s clear who made it.
So why not by mail, since it ought to be in writing?
Hid problem post
How exactly am I supposed to read your mind to ascertain whether you care or not?
When I and another poster upthread engaged someone discussing whether funds were stolen from SSA, a mod told me specifically to stop, claiming it was somehow inappropriate as a “rehashing” of some prior conversation. Not sure why that was not equally relevant to your (apparently imprecisely worded) OP as someone’s internet preferences or sign-in difficulties..
In the past I have perceived mods being somewhat aggressive in declaring hijacks - without always saying whether or not they were acting at the OP’s request. I’ve not understood that - but when I questioned that in ATMB, I was accused of complaining. And I personally have previously perceived mods’ actions WRT hijacks inconsistent.
But, I do not wish to discuss mod actions outside of ATMB. In these comments, I am solely responding towards your “Dear God” and rolled eyes directed at me - which I perceive as having been unnecessarily personal.
Please point me to where anyone has described a change in their sign-in issues since Trump took office. Or has suggested any specific action taken to make signing in and telephone communication more difficult since 1/20/25.
Instead, I see people talking about what may have happened several months past, since last September, etc. Make no mistake - SSA has ALWAYS sucked WRT the ease and clarity of their information - both to the general public and employees. However, IMO it is somewhat misleading to suggest that someone’s current difficulty signing in or time spent on hold reflects something the Trump admin has done. I think that sort of ignorant speculation ought to be avoided in P&E.
I’ll leave you to your unfocussed discussion which is apparently aimed at people’s gripes with SSA’s telephone/online/in person access, and trying to imagine scenarios in which someone might possibly be more than inconvenienced by SSA requirements. Not sure that sort of griping needs to be in P&E, but again - not my call.
Maybe you can do it by mail- I don’t know.
Moderating:
Make it so
You are instructed to no longer post in this thread. This is pushing “attacking the poster” and “junior modding” and “complaining about moderation outside of ATMB” and ranting in general in an off-topic way.
I will hide your rant after this.
No warning, but it probably should be one.
I didn’t get a social security number until around 1980 (because it wasn’t required at birth in those days). Yes, mom and I went down to the local SSA office in person. There were a bunch of such offices in those days, some large and some small, and if I recall the wait was shorter than it was at the DMV when I got my driver’s license. Back then the need for physical office locations, hours that people could access them, and people to staff them was unquestioned because there was no viable alternative.
NOW the expectation is that there should be a phone option AND an on-line option (which will be pushed as the preference) as well as in-person… with the latter people less desirable for the penny-pinchers because it requires paying real people.
I got one in the mid 70s when I was a young teen. I’m almost positive that I did it on my own at the bank where I had a savings account. This was in West Los Angeles so I couldn’t have been that far from a SS office but it probably wasn’t within walking distance which the bank was. My memory could certainly be off.
ETA: I just called my sister who got hers no more than a year or two after me. She doesn’t remember either but she said she doesn’t think it was a special trip to a social security office.
It’s entirely plausible that banks were allowed to issue such things.
Remember when the cards said “no to be used for identification purposes”? It is to laugh!