For decades, new parents across the United States have been able to check a box on hospital forms in order to request Social Security numbers for their newborns.
For a brief period this week, that was no longer the case in Maine, where parents were told they would have to visit a Social Security field office thanks to a shocking move by President Donald Trump’s administration.
A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services told HuffPost on Thursday that the Social Security Administration said it had canceled contracts with Maine’s vital statistics program that support Social Security’s electronic “enumeration at birth” program.
“As a result of SSA’s contract termination, effective immediately, Maine hospitals are no longer able to enroll newborns into Social Security at the time of birth so parents will now need to visit their local Social Security office to apply in-person for their child’s Social Security Number,” the Maine DHHS spokesperson said in an email Thursday evening.
No justification was given for the change, which was first reported by the Portland Press Herald. But on Friday morning, the Social Security Administration abruptly changed course and announced the contracts would be reinstated.
“In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent. For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated,” Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek said in a press release.
Dudek did not explain why the contracts had been canceled in the first place, and spokespeople for his agency did not respond to requests for an explanation.
Trump has feuded with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, for refusing to play along with Trump’s directive to disallow transgender athletes in girls’ sports. Mills told Trump she would “see you in court” over the directive during a recent meeting between governors and the president in Washington, D.C. Trump then threatened to withhold all federal funding from Maine.
It’s possible the contracts were canceled at the direction of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” service, which has ripped through the federal government in search of savings. Dudek recently told senior agency staff this week they had to let DOGE run amok.
“DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA,” Dudek told the group, according to notes of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post. “I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions.”
Dudek previously announced the SSA would undergo a “massive” reorganization with significant job cuts. Martin O’Malley, who led the agency under former President Joe Biden, told HuffPost this week the cuts to the agency could cause it to miss benefit payments to millions of people at some point; more than 50 million seniors rely on Social Security’s retirement insurance program.
The Social Security Administration rolled out enumeration at birth in the late 1980s, allowing parents only to check a box on state birth forms at the hospital to get their newborn a Social Security number. The program has been available in all 50 states since 1997, and 99% of babies now get their Social Security numbers that way, according to the Social Security Administration.
Parents typically need Social Security numbers for their children in order to obtain medical coverage, open a bank account or obtain government services. A pamphlet on the Social Security Administration’s website explains the simple process.
“When you complete the application for your baby’s birth certificate, you will be asked whether you want to apply for an SSN for your baby,” the pamphlet says. “If you say ‘yes,’ you will be asked to provide both parents’ SSNs. If you don’t know both parents’ SSNs, you still can apply for your child’s SSN.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has empowered Musk, the world’s richest man, to try to slash federal bureaucracies and fire workers. Musk’s team has targeted government contracts that Musk has described as wasteful.
Musk has admitted making mistakes; the DOGE website has repeatedly posted incorrect information about money saved from canceled contracts. The DOGE “wall of receipts” says it canceled six “enumeration at birth contracts” between the Social Security administration and five states, plus the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. Maine does not appear to be on the list, however.
The DOGE website suggests Musk’s team has been trying to cancel the contracts partially ― only to the extent they result in the collection of race and ethnicity information, which DOGE considers an example of “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion. The form reflecting the termination of an enumeration contract in Arizona, for instance, says, “Partial termination of the Race and Ethnicity (RE) records requirement.” The DOGE site says, “Only the DEI values are included” in the dollar amount saved.
In Maine, the canceled contracts would have also forced funeral directors to report deaths by submitting paper records instead of using an electronic system. The Social Security Administration has contracts with all U.S. states and territories to collect death information through a digital portal. In addition to halting Social Security retirement benefits, the SSA shares the information with other federal agencies to prevent them from making improper payments.
Requiring funeral directors to submit paper records would have been directly contrary to Musk and Trump’s stated goal of stopping the supposedly fraudulent transfer of benefits to bank accounts associated with Social Security number-holders who are deceased.
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“Across all sources, the agency receives nearly 3 million death reports each year, preventing over $50 million in improper payments each month,” Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post last month.
“The Social Security Administration’s abrupt termination of Maine’s ‘Enumeration at Birth’ and ‘Electronic Death Records’ contracts and its subsequent reversal are yet another example of the utter incompetence of this Trump Administration,” Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said in a written statement.
“We still don’t have an explanation from the Administration about why they would terminate these long-standing programs in the first place; and now, with this sudden reversal, what ‘modifications’ they intend to implement, and what their ultimate motivations are behind these changes.”
