I mentioned this to a friend who has received SSA payments for several years. He went to log into his online account and showed me the message that read 'they are closed, try again during normal business hours.' "WTH Since when does the Internet even close?" He asked me... I suppose he will try again tomorrow.
This situation is likely going to cause some major situation for many people. For example, US Citizens who legitimately receive SSA payments and primarily live outside the USA. Also my friend speculates there are a percentage of recipients who believe they are entitled to payments and depend on the income, example would be a 60 year old widower whose husband passed at age 74 and assumed the payments that continued to be deposited into their joint account were legit... i don't know how often this actually happens though, i recall my ex-wife thought she would receive her dead father's SSA payments but that was shut down rathee quickly. I'm pretty sure that notion of paying dead people is overblown.
If you receive SSA payments you might want to check this out.
Social Security Administration to require in-person identity checks for new and existing recipients
