Why doesn't Social Security's phone systems have these features? I'll give you my best guesses on the answers. They don't want to tell you how long you may be on hold because they don't want to admit just how bad their telephone service is. They can't include a call back feature because they lack the personnel to do it. Their system depends on callers getting fed up with the wait and hanging up. If that's not enough, Social Security's system just hangs up on persistent callers. They lack the personnel to handle the calls they're getting. Not now, not later in the day, not tomorrow, not ever. They have no choice but to deprive telephone service to many members of the public one way or another.
Social Security management could just publicly admit to how bad their telephone service is and plead for more budgetary help but they feel ashamed of the situation and do everything they can to hide the problem or downplay it. They act like it's a management problem that they ought to be able to fix instead of a problem inherent in the lack of funding the agency has received. They're aided in their pathetic pretense by the House Social Security Subcommittee. In years past, that Subcommittee would have held hearings that would have exposed the problem and forced the agency to admit how bad things are. Now, it's mostly crickets. The Chairman of that Subcommittee, John Larson, seems largely uninterested in holding hearing on agency operations. I don't understand why he even wants to be the Subcommittee Chair.
By the way, can Social Security say "Your call is important to us. Please hold" with a straight face? It seems to me that the unstated message in Social Security's telephone system is "Your call is unimportant to us. Please hang up and quit bothering us."