Hinson celebrates reopening of Social Security office closed by DOGE cuts she supported

Iowa Republican Rep. Ashey Hinson was a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts to federal government staffing, including at the Social Security Administration. Now Hinson is claiming credit for the reopening of a Social Security field office in Decorah.

The office had been closed since the end of 2025 due to a lack of staffing. DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce were behind the layoffs of more than 8,000 Social Security Administration employees between January 2025 and April 2026, including 32 in Iowa, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

Hinson’s June 10 press release announcing the reopening cited her “relentless advocacy” of reopening the office. “The fact that this office was closed for six months was unacceptable,” Hinson said. “I wasn’t going to take no for an answer on this. Service is now resumed, and I will keep fighting to protect Social Security for all of our Iowa seniors.”

According to a report by KCRG-TV9 in Cedar Rapids, the Decorah office had been closed due to the retirement of its sole remaining staff member in late 2025. The closure, the outlet reported, was part of a national trend of “ghost offices,” Social Security field offices left unable to function for months at a time by staffing shortages.

On the day of his inauguration in January 2025, Trump created DOGE and used it to slash the federal workforce by 271,000 jobs, according to a December analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute think tank. Federal employees were offered early retirement incentives, and many of those who left were not replaced.

Those workforce reductions left Social Security field offices across the country critically understaffed.

According to the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents Social Security Administration field employees, the staff reductions created ghost offices in Decorah and eight other locations. “While some of these locations do not appear on SSA.gov’s official office closure list,” council president Jessica LaPointe told the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means on June 10, ”in practice, these offices function with very limited service capacity.” 

“What they would do is just reduce staffing levels 30%, sometimes 66%, yes, sometimes 100%, there was no one there and it closed,” Alex Lawson, executive director of the nonprofit Social Security Works, told the Bridgeport, Connecticut, radio program “Counterpoint” on June 9. “But those offices that lose two-thirds of their staff when 10,000 baby boomers are entering the system every day, those aren’t functioning anymore.” 

A Social Security Administration spokesperson told the Iowa Independent in an email: “Under this administration, Social Security is delivering better, faster, higher-quality service through technology and process improvements. The data shows just that. Callers to the National 800 Number are being served 75% quicker than under the previous administration. Wait times for visitors to community based field offices have been reduced by 30%, and disability hearing wait times are down by 40%, reaching historic lows. Commissioner [Frank] Bisignano has consistently pledged to have the right level of staffing to ensure SSA operates at peak efficiency, meets customers where they want to be served, and delivers best-in-class customer service.”

KCRG noted in its report that some Decorah residents had driven 90 miles in each direction to get Social Security assistance at other offices during the closure.

“I think that this is exactly what the federal government needs,” Hinson told reporters in February 2025, according to a Des Moines Register report flagged by the organization American Bridge 21st Century. “Taxpayers voted for accountability and transparency.”

She advocated for replicating DOGE at the local level during an April 2025 telephone town hall.

“It is important that we are doing DOGE at every level,” she said in response to a question from a constituent about whether she’s doing anything to address rising property taxes, which fund local school districts in Iowa. “I think it is really, really important — when we think about DOGE happening, it needs to happen at the school-district level, it needs to happen at the county level, and it needs to happen — obviously, it is happening at the federal level.”

Hinson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. 

According to the Des Moines Register, Hinson told the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale in March that DOGE’s cuts are continuing: “It is absolutely critical that we continue that work … that work is ongoing and those process improvements are happening every single day.”