The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Frank Bisignano as commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which has been thrown into agitation after a three -month stretch directed largely by the Efficiency Department of the Government of Elon Musk.
President Trump’s candidate was confirmed by a vote of 53 to 47, which was expected and divided into the party lines.
Mr. Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, will take the helm at a critical situation. A series of recent changes led by Doge, including deep employment cuts and a movement to manipulate confidential databases, have shaken current and previous employees, former commissioners of both parties, beneficiaries and their defenders. They have been alarmed by rapid and apparently casual changes, as well as the deviation of the established protocols that protect the privacy of the beneficiaries and ensure that they continue to receive payments.
The question is if Mr. Bisignano, 65, the former head of the Giant of the FISVer payments, will stabilize the agency, which offers retirement, disability and survivors’ payments to 73 million Americans every month.
Senator Mike Crapo, a Idaho Republican who runs the Finance Committee, urged his colleagues last week to vote in favor of Mr. Bisignano, emphasizing his decades of experience leading large financial institutions and observing his commitment to improve customer service in the agency.
But the Democratic legislators remained unvolved, and continued to raise many of the same concerns about those who interrogated Mr. Bisignano during his confirmation hearing of the Senate of three hours at the end of March: would you give to Dogle calls that could hinder the program, or will it act independently in the best interest of the agency and its beneficiaries?
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts’s Democrat, spoke against her confirmation on Monday, expressing her concern that Mr. Bisignano simply “stepped on the rubber” of Trump’s agenda and Musk. “It will let them continue cutting the threatening services and benefits,” he said from the Senate floor. “That will damage people everywhere, from older people who have their monthly checks at this time, to the parents of children with a disability supported by Social Security, to all Americans who pay the program now for later.”
Mr. Bisignano, who is seen as an expert in changes, has held positions in several of the Wall Street marquee firms, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. He won $ 100 million in 2017, more than 2,000 times the average employee salary in his company at that time, First Data Corporation, which later merged with FISVer.
Despite calling himself “fundamentally a dux person” in an February interview in CNBC, Mr. Bisignano seemed to distance himself from the recent changes in social security administration during his March nomination hearing.
That characterization was challenged at the audience of Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who produced a statement that said he was from a complainant. Mr. Wyden, citing the letter, said Mr. Bisignano had personally intervened to involve the key Doge officials in the agency, including one that was approved in the middle of the night. The Senate Republicans quickly ruled out those concerns, stating that he went to the accusations during the audience and in writing.
“He has stated that he currently does not have a role in the SSA and that it was not part of the decision -making process led by the interim commissioner, Lee Dudek, about operations, personnel or SSA administration,” Senator Crapo said in a statement.
For Mr. Dudek, the appointment limits a chaotic race, which began when Mr. Musk’s Duxt team arrived at the agency.
A former fraud advisor in the average management for the Social Security Administration, Dudek had an unlikely rise to the role of the interim commissioner, supervising an agency of approximately 57,000 employees. Mr. Dudek received the position when Michelle King, the previous interim commissioner, went abruptly after refusing to give Doge representatives access to confidential private data on millions of Americans.
During the short term of Mr. Dudek, the Social Security Administration announced plans to reduce 12 percent, or 7,000 employees, of their staff and issued new policies that were quickly retreated, while the field offices experienced more technological interruptions and an increase in the waiting times of the phone.
In April, the White House began using some of the closely saved data systems of the agency as a tool for the application of immigration, a decision that is probably the most controversial of the Trump administration for the SSA, and moves it away from its mandate as a social security program.
In the last two months, there were several other vertiginous changes. At one point, in response to the order of a judge, Mr. Dudek threatened to close the system used for the entire work of the Social Security Administration, only to go back hours later. He also reduced contracts to the state of Maine in retaliation for a dispute in which he got into his governor with Trump. That movement also returned.
Social Security employees have described the environment as chaotic and morals, which was already tense due to the heavy workloads distributed among a thin, low personnel.
The General Committee of the American Federation of Government employees, and its local unit that represents Social Security workers, said in a statement that “they appreciate Mr. Bisignano’s vote of” directing the agency in the right way “, as long as that means a correction of the January course.”
Alexandra Berzon Contributed reports.
