(p. B1) Few government agencies touch the lives of more Americans than the Social Security Administration — the agency pays $1.4 trillion in benefits to more than 71 million people every year.
But Social Security has been grappling with a customer service mess that threatens to grow worse before it gets better. The problems include long wait times on the agency’s toll-free phone line, a large backlog in disability applications and a growing problem with overpayments to low-income beneficiaries.
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Training new workers typically takes more than a year because Social Security rules are so complex.
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The waiting time on S.S.A.’s phone line, which is crucial for people with questions about benefits or those applying for benefits, averages 36 minutes. Average wait times have fluctuated over the past decade, but in 2013 the average wait time was 10 minutes. The agency recently began using a modernized toll-free phone system, but noted that more trained employees will be needed to reduce wait times.
There is a backlog of more than one million people waiting an average of seven months for initial decisions on disability benefit applications — a process that has been slowed by staffing issues at the agency and in state governments, which receive S.S.A. funding to determine applicants’ eligibility at the local level.
The agency also is under fire over overpayments of benefits that have led the agency to claw back billions of dollars, with some people receiving notices that they owe tens of thousands to the S.S.A.
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Earlier this year [2023], the Social Security Administration placed last in a ranking of the best places to work in the federal government — . . . .
For the full commentary, see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 2, 2023, and has the title “When You Call Social Security, Expect to Wait Even Longer.” In a couple of places where the online version is slightly longer than the print version, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)