Mar 25, 2009

Walkaways At Field Offices

From the statement of Rick Warsinskey, District Office Manager, Cleveland, Ohio; and Immediate Past President, National Council of Social Security Management Associations, Inc. to the House Ways and Means Committee:

SSA Field Offices are also seeing a significant increase in the number of people who leave without receiving service. In fact, this calendar year to date we are averaging nearly 80,000 people a week, or 8.4%, that leave our offices without receiving service. Many Field Offices have a much higher percentage. Examples of these Field Offices are:

  • Memphis South, TN: 10.5%
  • Seattle Downtown, WA: 12.8%
  • Charleston, SC: 14.0%
  • Mobile, AL: 14.1%
  • Houston Northeast, TX: 14.8%
  • Chicago East, IL: 15.2%
  • Austin, Texas: 16.0%
  • Norfolk, VA: 16.8%
  • Oakland, CA: 19.8%
  • Brooklyn Flatbush, NY: 20.1%
  • Clearwater, FL: 21.7%
  • Baltimore NE, MD: 27.0%
  • North Las Vegas, NV: 33.7%

I have not heard anything from Commissioner Astrue that begins to respond to the problems that Social Security field offices have in handling their foot traffic -- and their problems handling telephone calls are much worse. Certainly, more than half of all telephone calls to Social Security field offices go unanswered. No one knows how much more than half. It may be 80% or more. I cannot believe that anyone familiar with Social Security field offices could think that the internet is going to solve this problem, but I do not know what other plan Commissioner Astrue has.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If "no one knows how many more than half", then how can you be certain that "more than half of all telephone calls ... go unanswered"