Maine parents will get babies’ Social Security numbers in hospital after all

SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The acting head of the Social Security Administration on Friday rescinded and apologized for an order that would have required Maine parents to register their newborns for Social Security numbers at a federal office rather than the hospital.

The order drew widespread condemnation from medical organizations and public officials who described it as unnecessary and punitive. The practice of allowing parents to register a newborn for a Social Security number at a hospital or other birthing site, called the Enumeration at Birth program, has been common for decades.

Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek said he recently directed Social Security employees to end an Enumeration at Birth contract for Maine. He said he will “admit my mistakes and make them right” by reinstating the contract.

“In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent,” Dudek said in a statement.

The confusion over Social Security in Maine is the latest example of a bumpy cutback rollout amid President Trump’s bid to shrink the size of government. The Trump administration halted its firings of hundreds of federal employees who worked on nuclear weapons programs last month. It also moved to rehire medical device, food safety and other workers lost to mass firings at the Food and Drug Administration. Planned tariffs on key trading partners have been similarly chaotic.

Dudek did not immediately provide a reason for terminating the Enumeration at Birth contract. Nancy Altman, executive director of the Social Security Works advocacy group said despite the agency’s reversal, “the damage has been done.”

“Without those contracts, SSA did not automatically know who was born in Maine — or who died,” Altman said. “This will create huge headaches for families, as well as Social Security’s rapidly shrinking workforce, to fix.”

The confusion came as Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is targeting federal agencies for layoffs and cutbacks. Some of those cutbacks have affected the Enumeration at Birth program.

The DOGE website shows the cancellation of contracts related to Enumeration at Birth in five states and the Northern Mariana Islands. The five states listed are Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico and Rhode Island. Maine is not listed.

Limited information is provided about the canceled contracts, but they appear to concern the collection of race and ethnicity records. Dudek’s statement said the Enumeration at Birth program was “in place for every state” as of Friday.

The plan to scrap Enumeration at Birth in Maine also arrived at a time when state officials are sparring with the federal government. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and Trump exchanged words last month during a meeting of governors in which Trump vowed to pull federal funding from the state over the issue of the inclusion of transgender athletes in high school sports.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later told Mills that the state was in violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal assistance. The conflict remains unresolved.

Whittle and Hussein write for the Associated Press.