Senate Finance Committee Advances Social Security Administrator Nominee

The nomination will head to the Senate for a floor vote.

Frank Bisignano, then the nominee for commissioner of the Social Security Administration, testifies at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 25, 2025 in Washington. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The Senate Finance Committee on April 2 advanced the nomination of Frank Bisignano as administrator of the Social Security Administration (SSA).

The vote was along party lines, 14–13, and the nomination now heads to the Senate for a floor vote. When the confirmation vote will happen is to be determined.

“Mr. Bisignano has more than 30 years of strong, executive leadership experience and knows how to enact his bold vision of delivering better customer service for Social Security beneficiaries,” the committee’s chairman, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), said in a statement.

During Bisignano’s hearing on March 25, points of contention included privatization of Social Security and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been conducting audits and flagging alleged waste, fraud, and abuse at the agency.

Bisignano said he has “never thought about privatizing“ Social Security, saying, ”It’s not a word that anybody’s ever talked to me about.”

The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Ron Wyden (R-Ore.), criticized DOGE’s presence at the agency.

“It is time to bring a halt to the DOGE destruction of Social Security before it goes any further,” he said.

“With these developments, the DOGE crowd is breaking a sacred promise to deliver Americans their earned Social Security benefits, and it is time for every member of this committee to step up and commit to rolling back these disastrous actions and bringing sanity back to Social Security.”

Wyden alleged that Bisignano, between being nominated and his nomination hearing, was pushing for the appointment of DOGE personnel at the SSA and getting “frequent briefings.” Wyden cited a former employee at the agency as being behind the allegation, which Bisignano denied.

During the hearing, Bisignano was asked about protecting the personal data of Social Security recipients, as DOGE has had access to personal databases at the SSA.

“I’m going to do whatever is required to protect the information that is private information, so I don’t know what ‘lock DOGE out’ means, but there’s way more than DOGE that can’t have access to that information,” he said in response to Wyden’s asking if he would, as administrator, “lock DOGE out” of the agency’s databases.

DOGE has argued that the SSA has been rife with issues, such as accounts of people who are of inconceivable ages.

In a March 31 post on X, DOGE said it “has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 9.9 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked deceased. Another ~2 million to go.”

DOGE can only flag issues and not take administrative actions.

A federal judge has temporarily prohibited DOGE from accessing the SSA’s databases that contain Americans’ personal information.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” wrote Judge Ellen Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

“To be sure, rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so.”

Additionally, Bisignano pledged to ensure Social Security recipients get their checks on time and are able to get customer support in a timely manner, as there have been long wait times.

Bisignano previously was the CEO of Fiserv, a financial technology company.