Disastrous Service For Widows

      From 19th News:

Kathy Quitno-Bolt was still numb when she started calling Social Security days after her husband’s sudden death in July. Steve, her partner of 25 years and husband of 13, died four days after being diagnosed with lung cancer — just enough time for their daughter to arrive and say goodbye.

When she finally got through to someone, they told her they wouldn’t have an appointment to begin her application for survivor benefits until October. 

Her head started spinning. Did she have enough saved to make it through then?

Survivor benefits could have stabilized Quitno-Bolt’s life when it felt like everything she knew was falling apart. But like many people across the country, she was facing significant delays at the Social Security Administration (SSA).  …

Among those facing the longest delays are people claiming survivor benefits after the loss of a spouse and those applying on behalf of children who lost a parent. These groups are entitled to monthly payments that vary depending on the earnings of the worker who died and the age of the surviving spouse. There’s no online application for survivor benefits; they are at the mercy of the phones and the appointment calendar, which in the past year has become a logistical nightmare that has a disproportionate impact on women and children.  …

After her first appointment in October, Quitno-Bolt submitted her documents, including her husband’s death certificate and their marriage license, to her local office thinking that was the end. But she heard nothing back for weeks. In November, she found out SSA had denied her benefits, saying she didn’t turn in her documents even though she had already received them back from the agency.  …

For the past four months now, she’s called the agency almost weekly trying to sort through what went wrong. Typically, she waits on hold for 70 to 90 minutes. At one point, she was told her application was closed without a denial or approval. More recently, she was told her second application was being processed. She’s still in limbo. 

“It’s been a mess, and I can’t even think anymore because I’m so worried about everything,” said Quitno-Bolt, 57, who is disabled and can’t work. Her husband, a factory worker, was the breadwinner. A GoFundMe set up by her daughter helped her scrape by, but she said the last of her savings will run out this month.  …

SSA Wants Kiosks

      From a contracting notice posted by Social Security:

This is a Request for Information. The agency wants to deploy secure, accessible self-service kiosks nationwide to further modernize service delivery and improve customer experience. These kiosks will empower customers to complete routine transactions independently, reduce lobby congestion, and offer flexible service options. The Self-Service Kiosks will supplement existing check-in systems and integrate with SSA’s network and infrastructure, with robust accessibility features. This initiative enhances, not replaces, in-person service.

     My recollection is that this was tried before and made little progress. 

A Lot Worse

 

    The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) has produced a report on customer service at Social Security since DOGE entered the picture. Not surprisingly, they report significant deterioration in service.

“They Should Be Helping Us”

       From The Columbian:

For the past several weeks, Sandra Graber has been desperately trying to help her friend, a 79-year-old Vancouver [Washington] resident, recover Social Security payments that didn’t arrive in December and January.

Her friend can’t go online to resolve the issue because she doesn’t own a computer.

Many senior citizens across Clark County and the United States are grappling with recent changes to Social Security and the increasing role that digital technology plays in their day-to-day lives.

Graber — a Cornelius, Ore., resident — didn’t want her friend named because she has early-onset dementia. Graber serves as her agent under power of attorney. She recently took her to the Social Security Administration office in Vancouver, where they were told that they could either wait in line for several hours or make an appointment for two months out. 

“They should be helping us. We’re paying them to help us,” Graber said. “And saying, ‘We’re short staffed; we just can’t get to it,’ that’s inexcusable. I’m sure there’s other people out there that are having the same problem that we’re having, and I feel sorry for them.” …

Graber, however, remains frustrated that the system hasn’t provided a viable way for people such as her friend who can’t go online and can’t easily confirm their identity in person or via phone call due to medical issues to access their benefits.

“There are people out there with different problems,” Graber said. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.” …

Sound Familiar?

      From Government Executive:

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.  …

Doing Less With Less

      The Strategic Organizing Center, which I’m unfamiliar with, has issued a report on the state of service at the Social Security Administration. It’s a discouraging read. Staffing is down and it’s far from uniform. Some states and areas within states have lost far more than others. I’d give you some excerpts but it seems to be set up to block copying. Read the original.

Live View Of Social Security Employee At Work

 

An Agency Response

      Social Security has a response to the “fake news” Washington Post article about the deterioration of service at the agency published by the Daily Caller, a far right wing publication. (The Daily Caller was the best you could do?)  It amounts to saying that if you just rely on what is presented in Social Security’s press releases, you have to admit that things are getting better and better. “Who are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?”

SSA Responds To Post Article

      Newsweek has an article on Social Security’s response to the story in the Washington Post on the deterioration of service at Social Security. Maybe they gave Newsweek a more substantive response that’s poorly reported but what I’m reading is no more than bluster. Why are they responding to Newsweek anyway? Everybody else rolled their eyes at the agency’s response?

Washington Post On The Deterioration Of Service At Social Security

      From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration — the sprawling federal agency that delivers retirement, disability and survivor benefits to 74 million Americans — began the second Trump administration with a hostile takeover.
It ends the year in turmoil. A diminished workforce has struggled to respond to up to 6 million pending cases in its processing centers and 12 million transactions in its field offices — record backlogs that have delayed basic services to millions of customers, according to internal agency documents and dozens of interviews.
Long-strained customer services at Social Security have become worse by many key measures since President Donald Trump began his second term, agency data and interviews show, as thousands of employees were fired or quit and hasty policy changes and reassignments left inexperienced staff to handle the aftermath. …

At the start of September, one benefits authorizer in a processing center was called into an all-staff meeting with her colleagues, she said. There, management explained that the backlog at the time — 6 million cases — was unacceptable and that everyone would have to work overtime in an attempt to drive it down to 2 million by Christmas.

“When they told us that, everybody started laughing,” she said. “Because there is just absolutely no way to get it down in that short period of time.”  …

     There is so much more to this piece. Read it all.  It’s just the start as people start realizing there’s so much more to Social Security than answering the phones — not that the phones are answered well.

30+ Day Wait For In-Office Appointments

      From CU-Citizen Access:

Getting an appointment at Champaign’s [Illinois] social security district office continues to take 30 days or more, but some recipients report that once they are at the office their needs are processed quickly.

Yet the wait can be frustrating and difficult.

Kiesha Jones, a Champaign resident, said she waited an hour and a half for her initial appointment at Champaign’s Social Security Office.

“They were like, we’re only taking appointments, you’ve got to call this number. I called the number and I couldn’t get through,” she said. “Once I got through, they made an appointment about 37 days out.” … 

Despite her experience, a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration said in a December email to CU-CitizenAccess that most claim appointments for disability benefits are scheduled within a month.

“The Champaign, Illinois office currently schedules the vast majority of T2 disability, SSI Blind and Disabled, and aged claim appointments within 30 days of request,” the spokesperson said.  …

Some People Just Won’t Get Service

      From Biometric Update.com:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is remaking itself around a digital identity system that tens of millions of its beneficiaries cannot use – while simultaneously dismantling the in-person safety valve that has long allowed people to navigate the system when digital verification fails. …

But that digital system is built on identity-proofing mechanisms that millions of Social Security beneficiaries cannot satisfy. To access many of SSA’s online services – including creating a my Social Security account, resetting credentials, obtaining replacement documents, checking claims, or managing benefits – individuals must authenticate their identity using commercial data sources.

Those identity checks can include credit histories, mobile carrier records, address histories, and financial account data. They generate “soft inquiries” on credit files and hinge on the existence of a stable and verifiable financial footprint.

The problem is straightforward: millions of Social Security beneficiaries do not have the data these systems require. …

Numerous disability claimants operate with inconsistent documentation due to frequent address changes, medical crises, or disruptions tied to long periods out of the workforce. For these beneficiaries, digital identity verification is not simply difficult. It is often impossible.

Under SSA’s new operational model, that impossibility now carries far-reaching consequences. When digital verification fails, the fallback is a field office – but the agency is cutting field office traffic by 50 percent and reducing staffing across local offices. …

This dynamic recasts SSA’s modernization not as a technological upgrade but as the construction of a two-tiered system – one for beneficiaries with strong credit files, stable addresses, broadband access, and technological competence – and another for those without such resources, who will increasingly face longer waits, reduced access, and the escalating possibility of being unable to access benefits at all. …

Really? How Will You Achieve This Result?

      From NEXTGOV/FCW:

… The Social Security Administration wants to halve the number of people that go to its field offices in the 2026 fiscal year. 

More than 31 million people visited SSA field offices over the last fiscal year. Now, the agency aims to have 50% fewer visits — or no more than 15 million total — in fiscal 2026, which began in October, according to internal planning documents viewed by Nextgov/FCW. …

     I’d call this wishful thinking at best. 

Frank Bisignano Exhibiting The Candor And Integrity For Which He’s Known

From a letter to Congress from Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano:

… After just my first six months on the job, I am pleased to report we are delivering a dramatically better customer experience at SSA. … 

     In other news concerning the Commissioner, the Ranking Member of the House Social Security Subcommittee has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Bisignano’s conduct at his former employer, Fiserv. The SEC shouldn’t need a referral from Congressmen to investigate this one but in the Trump Administration no Trump appointee need fear any sort of federal investigation.

Terrible Service

From the Washington Post: 

Hours-long wait times. Endless looping music. Useless robot messages. 

Millions of seniors and disabled people call Social Security’s 1-800 number every month. What they experience is often maddening. … 

The Trump administration has said it is improving Social Security customer service and dramatically cutting wait times to build on a phone experience that callers have complained about even before Trump. But the agency’s public reporting doesn’t count the time people wait for callbacks from humans, and nearly three dozen callers who spoke with The Washington Post or let a reporter join their calls said their experiences have not matched the agency’s claims. … 

 In response to this story’s findings, SSA spokesman Barton Mackey said that “there have been significant advancements in customer service” over the past five months. “Cherry-picked instances may meet the goal of a preconceived, negative narrative, but they do not accurately reflect the experiences a vast majority of Americans have when interacting with SSA,” he said in a statement. … 

Once callers get their estimated wait time, they might get offered a callback. The agency says 19.3 million calls were handled by callbacks this year, up from 6.8 million the previous year when the option was first introduced.## One Social Security worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the feature appeared helpful at first but has since deteriorated because of understaffing. Many of those she has called back don’t answer the phone because it has been hours or even weeks since their initial call, she said. ...

     The article gives many concrete examples of the difficulties that callers face. 

Lawsuit Over Service Breakdowns

      From Fedscoop:

A nonprofit legal group is calling on the Social Security Administration to release records on recent internal changes and “customer service breakdowns,” alleging it has caused widespread service disruptions for millions of Americans under the Trump administration. 

In a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Maryland on Monday, Democracy Forward said SSA did not respond to multiple records requests for details on the agency’s workforce reductions, cuts to phone services and the elimination of customer service metrics on the agency website that took place this year. 

These changes, according to Democracy Forward, prompted longer wait times, payment delays and “confusion for beneficiaries in vulnerable situations,” the lawsuit stated. The group said it filed various Freedom of Information Act requests over the summer regarding these incidents, but SSA did not hand over determinations or release the records.  …

Probably Not Good News For The Commissioner

      From Government Executive:

When a member of the public has an issue accessing a federal benefit or service, they often contact their member of Congress for help. That assistance is called constituent casework. 

If an agency receives a lot of requests from lawmakers on behalf of their constituents about a specific issue, or if there are multiple constituent cases coming from the same area, that could be a signal to officials that there’s a problem. 

 But actually using this data to pinpoint systemic problems with agency operations is difficult because there’s no database to collect such information from across Capitol Hill offices. The House of Representatives, however, could soon change that. 

 House Digital Services, a tech team within the chamber’s support office, has been working since 2024 on Case Compass, which is a dashboard that will display anonymous constituent casework data from across participating Capitol Hill offices. On Sept. 9, the House unveiled a framework to aggregate such information. …

     The Commissioner probably isn’t interested in seeing a database tracking increases in complaints about his agency 

"A Lot Of Us Are Medicated"

     The New York Times has a long piece on service delivery problems at the Social Security Administration. Below are some excerpts. Note that I haven't included excerpts talking about the experiences of actual people although those are quite interesting.

... Frontline workers, whose morale had already been low for years, say they are asked on a daily basis to do more with less.

“In my 24 years, I have never seen it so bad to the point that a lot of us are medicated,” said one Social Security technical expert who works in a field office in the Midwest and takes an anti-anxiety medication daily. She asked not to be identified because she didn’t want to jeopardize her position and scheduled early retirement. “We openly talk about it,” she said. “We joke about it, because what else can you do?”

The agency’s recent effort to reduce wait times for callers to the national 800 number has worsened their plight. ...

 “There is a tipping point, where you can’t do more unless you are going to cut corners and not do the work properly,” said Heather Hughes, a local union president in Raleigh, N.C. “We don’t want to do that. We know these are people and these are people’s lives and livelihoods.” ...

“The process to get a digital S.S.N. into the phone is one of my No. 1 priorities,” Andy Sriubas, who was recently appointed to lead the agency’s vast field operations, said on an internal call with agency staffers also reviewed by The Times. Mr. Sriubas was most recently an executive at Outfront Media, a billboard company, but said he worked with Mr. Bisignano at JPMorgan during the financial crisis. ...

Preliminary findings from a study by a group of academic researchers to be released in October said that access to services — while never easy — had worsened since early 2025, especially for that population.

“Respondents overwhelmingly reported that compounding administrative breakdowns — loss of staff with specialized knowledge, rapidly changing policies, significantly worse processing delays, more frequent errors with emails and faxes routinely lost — have made even basic tasks impossible,” said Katie Savin, the lead author and assistant professor at California State University, Sacramento. The results are “devastating consequences to claimants who’ve experienced hunger, eviction, and loss of health care as a result.” ...

Commissioner Bisignano has said the average wait time on the national 800 number had already been reduced to single digits during his first 100 days, down from 30 minutes last year.

But the metric being cited is actually the “average speed of answer,” which doesn’t include the time customers wait for a callback, an option the vast majority of callers use and that took roughly an hour, on average, in August. That statistic is no longer on the website, but it reflected improvements in July and August, just as more field workers were asked to work the phones.

Call wait times have been removed from the agency website, but internal agency logs reviewed by The Times show many callers are still lingering.

On Sept. 3, for example, the only time callers had a single-digit wait time was at 8 a.m. Later, by 5 p.m., the average wait had stretched to an hour and 18 minutes, and the longest a caller waited that day was more than three hours, according to internal agency data. ...

Major Frustration

 

    An email from a legal assistant at my law firm to others in the firm:

Is anyone else feeling the major frustration of attempting to get tasks done and not getting very far because the DO’s new phone system?

After waiting on hold for anywhere between 50-90 mins on a regular basis, I often get hung up on or the “this isn’t our jurisdiction” response and cannot get any assistance.

Also experiencing some frustration with the cases that are filed online as now Baltimore is “helping” but really just dropping the ball on these as well.

Is there anything that can be done other than getting in touch with our useless congressperson?

    No one had a response other than to say basically, "Yeah, I'm facing the same situation." 

A Poll

 

online polls