President Donald Trump’s administration has cut jobs weakening Social Security, a poverty-prevention program, and proposed numerous other changes that threaten to dismantle it.
More than one quarter of West Virginians rely on Social Security.
Here’s what some of them, including retirees, former foster kids and people with disabilities told us they’re thinking about and what they stand to lose, from health care to housing to dignity:
A grandfamily
Patty Hoffman, 59, is raising her grandkids. She has concerns she won’t be able to take care of them anymore if she loses her Social Security benefits, but she said for now, she’s in “wait and see” mode.
“I’m not letting it worry me so much, because if I do, I make everybody else pay for it,” she said. “And I’m not doing that. That’s not fair.”
Hoffman, of Philippi, spent years working as a nurse aide, lifting patients, which resulted in severe back pain.
She said it had gotten so bad that she could only sit for an hour and had to crawl through her house. Now she has good days and bad days, but can still only be on her feet for about 15 minutes at a time.
When she applied for disability benefits through Social Security, officials initially said if she could sit, she could work. Her lawyer argued she’d had to lie down in his office.
Without benefits, she wouldn’t be able to buy her grandkids’ clothes or pay bills.
“I’d be worried to death,” she said. “I wanted them to have a better life.”
A former foster kid
A former ward of the state, Sarah Fox was shuffled from home to home and from shelters to psychiatric hospitals as a child, instead of getting help.
As a result, she doesn’t trust easily. She carries the lingering fear that she’s too much or too needy, so she’ll be rejected.
These mental health struggles create hurdles in the workplace and frequent job changes. Job expectations can create fear of rejection.
Even before the Trump administration’s changes to the program, Fox worried about losing the assistance. She said the paperwork and work reviews for Social Security are consistently substantial and daunting.
“I cried and called 988 because I was already overwhelmed with paperwork and they sent me more,” she said, referring to the suicide hotline.
Benefits subsidize her income. But she can’t trust that any help will last.
An 80-year-old retiree
After paying into Social Security for decades, Charlene Campolongo is able to live comfortably, if frugally.
But she is disturbed by the administration saying it’s uncovering fraud and abuse, when she says they’re targeting people rightfully owed benefits.
“They’re saying that there are people that are 130 years old, collecting Social Security,” she said. “Now, does that make any sense to you?”
Trump had said tens of millions of people over 100 years were receiving payments, but news outlets debunked that and computer programmers quickly realized that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team didn’t understand how to read the database.
Campolongo, of Morgantown, worked at sewing factories and stores, then as an aide for people with health problems who required in-home care and as a medical biller.
Now 80, she and her husband receive Social Security benefits and pensions.
“I am concerned about what’s going on with our country,” she said. “We paid into that the whole time we were working. They have no business touching that money.”
A Fairmont protester
A self-described “news junkie,” Barbara Earl, 71, said it’s clear the administration wants to dissolve Social Security, starting with layoffs.
She worked for the state education department as a special education assistant. She retired at age 63 and receives a pension and Social Security retirement benefits.
Her husband initially received disability benefits, following an injury he received working for a mining equipment manufacturer, and he now receives non-disability-related retirement benefits. He receives no pension.
Without the benefits, banks would foreclose on their home and vehicle, and her husband wouldn’t be able to pay for treatment for his diabetes and heart problem.
“And we would be out on the street,” she said.
She thinks federal officials want citizens helpless.
Trump has said he won’t touch Social Security.
Earl believes “their ultimate goal is to get rid of all social programs.”
She said she has written to the state’s federal representatives. Some responded, saying they support Social Security.
But, Earl said, “Every time they’ve voted, they’ve voted to support everything this administration is doing to cut benefits for the working class and poor.”
So, she attends organized protests.
“I am fighting it because I will go down fighting, but it’s just unbelievable that this would even happen in America.”
In an email, Nicolas Gray, spokesperson for Rep. Carol Miller, noted that Miller had voted for the spending bill that gives an enhanced standard income tax deduction to seniors over 65, amounting to a reduction of about $4,000 in their taxes for the next four years. Gray accused Mountain State Spotlight of “falsely telling or even suggesting to people their benefits are being cut when they are indisputably going up.”
Others who reached out to Mountain State Spotlight reported that they have not gotten responses from their representatives.
Spokespersons for West Virginia’s Congressional representatives, Shelley Moore Capito, Jim Justice, Riley Moore and Carol Miller did not respond to questions about why they have not responded to the concerns of other constituents.
“We’re not going to survive this administration,” Earl said.
A former Child Protective Services worker
Cheryl Jones, a former Child Protective Services worker and support worker for people who were homeless, is worried that the Trump administration will do away with Social Security and cut other programs that help the poor and disabled.
Jones, 64 of Saint Albans, worked as a Child Protective Services worker for about 10 years. She left that job about 20 years ago. Before she took early retirement, she had moved to a position helping the homeless.
She was experiencing depression, both because of the lingering burnout and stress of CPS work, and the more recent deaths of her parents.
“My work was suffering,” she said. “My personal life was suffering. And I thought, ‘something has got to give.’”
Her husband’s salary is too low to support the family if she loses her Social Security retiree benefits, and they’re raising their grandson.
“It just makes me mad that they think that they can go in and do whatever they want like it’s their money, and it’s not their money,” she said.