On Monday, September 22 Congressman Pat Ryan held a rally on the Newburgh SUNY Orange campus speaking out against the closure of the Newburgh Social Security office. The Newburgh social security office was closed in July of 2024 and relocated to Middletown that same month. Members of the public were given little to no notice of the office’s closure, prompting confusion and outcry from those affected.

There were 9 speakers, including elected officials, the Deputy County Executive, nonprofit representatives, and a Social Security employee. Representative Ryan spoke first, asserting the bipartisan nature of the issue, and urging the attendees to continue to fight for the office, saying “If we bring voice and if we push back, we have a path forward.” Ryan spoke between every other speaker, introducing them and tying the speeches together.

Both Representatives Ryan and Jacobson invoked the Poughkeepsie Social Security office in calling for people to make their voices heard. The Poughkeepsie Social Security office was closed in January for renovations and was subsequently listed on DOGE’s website under savings due to lease terminations. The listing sparked protest from Poughkeepsie residents and officials. The office reopened on Monday, June 30 with a new lease and a renovated building.

Deborah Danzy of Community Voices Heard, and Shawn Federighi of Independent Living Inc highlighted the barriers that moving the Social Security office created to accessibility. Danzy shared her experience trying to access the Middletown Social Security office from Newburgh, saying “When the office moved, I had to take the shortline bus for $40 to get to Middletown. As I got off the bus there was a large crowd of taxi cabs that were charging 15$-20$ for a ride. Long story short, 65$ round trip to the Social Security Office!”
Many speakers emphasized the lack of desire or ability for seniors to use the Social Security website instead of coming to the offices. Federighi said “There’s a lot of seniors in the area that can’t have internet access, that don’t have internet access, it’s unaffordable for them to have internet access.” Mayor Torrance Harvey and representative Jacobson also highlighted the fear of internet fraud, with Jacobson saying “With all the internet fraud, you can’t expect people to make their most important financial decisions online. We need the Newburgh office to be open so that recipients can be assured that they will receive their hard earned benefits.”

Natasha Pretty-Whitney, a Social Security employee and member of the American Federation of Government employees spoke about the harms that Social Security closures and staff cuts caused for service quality. She said “Our staffing is at an all time low, when I started in this office in 2014 we had about 30 people, we’re down now to 19...That means longer wait times, that means more time on the phone, longer times in the office, now you have to either come in person to change your address and your direct deposit if you can’t do it online.”

Orange County Legislative candidate Gabrielle Hill and Bishop Jeffrey Woody saw the closing of the social security office as part of a pattern in the city. Bishop Woody’s speech harkened back to his childhood when he said Newburgh had “everything that a community would need, could need, and should need”, and said “We’re arriving at a place where more and more services are being deleted with the closure of the Social Security office being a more recent deletion.” Hill referenced this deletion idea, and tied it to more recent events in the city, saying “The bishop, what he said, deletion. There’s three major things that have happened lately, one the closing of our Social Security office, two the MTA with the ferry, and three Ulster County transportation that has serviced Newburgh for over 40 years just cut us off.”

Congressman Ryan closed out the event by calling again for people to make their voices heard, and promising to continue fighting for the Social Security office, saying “We are going to keep pushing, we are going to push on the Federal government to bring access back here, and if they don’t, and this is my commitment, we are gonna work together to figure out how to have at minimum some recurring presence here in the city of Newburgh. If the federal government won’t step up this community will.”