From a press release:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is announcing that over 100 million Americans have created personal my Social Security accounts. This marks a major milestone in the agency’s digital-first transformation to increase accessibility, expand service, and improve the overall customer experience for the public. …
From Fortune:
For all the talk about Social Security being in crisis, what hasn’t been stressed enough is the leadership crisis. From December of 2023 to until the current leader’s Senate confirmation of May 6, a parade of four commissioners and acting commissioners cycled through the position. These chiefs departed fast in part because they got frequent hammerings in Congress over the agency’s poor phone and face-to-face service to beneficiaries.
Enter Frank Bisignano. The Jamie Dimon protegee had a storied career in banking, and was appointed to lead SSA last spring (he has since added the job of IRS CEO to his resume, which you can read about here.)
But the changes he has quickly enacted at SSA—drawing heavily on his time in the private sector—are real, and they’re impressing even the Administration’s fiercest critics. …
No matter what your political party, few could argue that an agency in need of efficiency finally has a leader at the top who is moving the needle.
From Money.com:
It seemed too good to be true. A $60,000 deposit from the Social SecurityAdministration landed in a woman's bank account with no explanation, as if she had won the lottery without buying a ticket.
But is this a real windfall, or has she been caught up in a grand mistake? And more importantly, what should she do with the money? …
The woman who received the money is unemployed and receives Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), her 22-year-old child explained in the post. About three months prior, the mother's monthly SSDI payment doubled. The family was already waiting for an explanation of that increase before the $60,000 deposit arrived. …
"They said that every six months they were supposed to review her account and adjust if needed but never did that in the 23 years she was on disability," the post reads, adding that the representative also mentioned a back payment for an issue related to dependents. …
This highlights a long-standing problem at Social Security — the money usually arrives well before the explanation of the money. Sometimes no award certificate ever arrives.
The Social Security Administration is shifting more employees to its phone line, a move that employees say risks adding to backlogs and processing times for the public as employees who typically handle those workloads are reassigned to take calls.
Employees who receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency's finances unit will be answering SSA’s phone line after only hours of training. The reshuffling comes after SSA pushed out over 7,400 employees last year, according to newly released government data. That total eclipsed the Trump administration’s intended target of shedding 7,000 SSA workers, a target it announced a year ago.
That loss of workers included 1,387 contact representatives at the SSA, which is now fielding applications for replacements at several locations around the country. …
Reassigned employees said it made little sense to answer calls for individuals awaiting information about the status of their claims and benefits while removing the people responsible for processing those claims and benefits.
“Why are we being forced away from the backlog of appeals and cases and forced onto the phones to take calls from people wondering what the status of their claim is and where their back benefits are?” one reassigned employee asked. “We are the workers who process the claims they are waiting for.” …
The Internal Revenue Service is asking seasoned employees without any direct tax experience to perform entry-level tasks of answering phones and processing tax returns, a step impacted staff call unprecedented as the agency scrambles to prepare for filing season.
The reassigned workers, who are being detailed out on an involuntary basis, are coming from the IRS human resources and, potentially, the IT departments. Some employees reported that supervisors first asked for anyone who had experience in the front-line fields to consider the roles, but they ultimately chose many individuals with no prior experience working directly on tax issues.
The details come as IRS has dramatically slashed its workforce, cutting more than 20,000 employees—or more than 20% of total staff—in the last year. The divisions seeking internal staffing support have seen similarly significant losses to their workforces and have struggled to rebuild in time for filing season, according to a new report from the IRS inspector general. …
… GAO [Government Accountability Office]tracked SSA telework from July 2019 through May 2025 and found a sharp cliff after the White House memo [limiting telework] Telework hours fell from 35% of total hours in January through March 2025 to 13% in April through May 2025, a telework hours drop that matched the new posture. That speed matters because SSA employees had built their lives and budgets around flexibility.
Agency leaders told GAO that telework acted as a recruitment lever during a tight labor market. In a fiscal year 2023 new hire survey, more than half of new employees said telework ranked as a very important factor in applying and accepting the job. Managers also described candidates who expected hybrid schedules as a baseline benefit, especially in high-traffic metro areas.
Retention signals flashed even before the decree. GAO reports that around 37% of SSA respondents to the 2024 employee viewpoint survey planned to leave within a year. Among those planning an exit, almost half said telework or remote options in their unit shaped that decision. Frontline staff singled out newer hires and retirement-eligible experts as the most ready to move, since both groups value lighter commutes and focused work time. GAO then warned about skills gaps in mission critical roles, right as SSA pursued a 50,000 employee target announced in a February 2025 agency workforce plan aimed at cutting costs. …
Trump’s administration framed the return push around supervision and fairness, echoing language from the January 2025 guidance memo. GAO’s SSA findings show the hidden trade: Forcing the same schedule on every job drains the very talent that the public relies on for timely benefits decisions. A smarter approach uses job-based eligibility, transparent metrics and targeted onsite time for training, mentoring and complex customer work. Agencies that build that system keep their best people longer, save money and deliver service with steadier staffing. …
As has been the case for quite a few years, the Social Security Administration hired an outside auditor, Ernst & Young this time, to audit its books and operations. The report is not a ringing endorsement of agency operations, although the problems didn’t just start a year ago. Implementation of the audit recommendations is out of the question due to lack of funding.
