Social Security expands public services, but field offices to remain closed until spring

The Social Security Administration is expanding a vital pandemic service to taxpayers that it had restricted to just one hour a day, allowing drop boxes at its closed field offices to accept sensitive documents and forms for more hours as it eases toward opening some facilities.

The agency is putting the workaround in place while its network of 1,230 local offices remain closed until at least mid-April, apart from a smattering of in-person appointments. Most Social Security employees have been working from home since March 2020, but officials say they are trying to improve assistance to low-income elderly and disabled people who rely on their local Social Security office to navigate one of the government’s most complex systems of subsistence benefits.