With Social Security Customer Service in Crisis, AARP Urges Fixes

“We’re encouraged that the Social Security Administration is listening to AARP members and millions of Americans around the country about the impact customer service changes would have on their lives," LeaMond said in a statement April 8. “SSA's announcement that they are considering alternative means of identity verification for phone services is a good step, but more clarity is needed about how this will work for older Americans.”

Nearly 69 million Americans currently receive benefits from SSA, and 183 million workers pay into the program. For most older Americans, Social Security is their largest source of income. Nearly 1 in 5 beneficiaries rely on timely payments for almost all their income.

Decline in customer service is “deeply alarming”

For most of last year, the SSA maintained a busy rate of 0 percent, according to the agency’s data. That means almost no callers received a pre-recorded message saying that the office’s lines were too busy and were then disconnected. But in March, nearly 1 in 3 callers received that message and their calls were dropped, AARP noted in its April 7 letter. Consumers who did have their calls connected often waited up to two and a half hours or more for a call back.

AARP members and others have also reported that the SSA’s website is crashing repeatedly, our letter states. Five outages occurred in March alone, including a full outage on March 31.

“This rapid decline in performance is deeply alarming,” LeaMond wrote.

The customer service troubles came after the SSA announced plans in late February for a “massive” restructuring of its operations, including a workforce reduction target of 12 percent — from 57,000 to 50,000 employees — and the permanent closure of 6 of 10 regional offices, which oversee local field offices. Multiple field offices are also closed, according to the SSA’s website, however, the agency said in a March 27 statement that these closures are mainly temporary.

In mid-March, the SSA then announced cuts to phone services, saying beneficiaries and those applying for Social Security will no longer be permitted to confirm their identity over the phone and will instead be required to do so online or in person at a local field office. The SSA said the move aimed to curb fraud by criminals who use illicitly obtained personal information to contact Social Security and hijack beneficiaries’ payments.

Facing backlash, the SSA delayed implementation of the phone service cuts by two weeks, to April 14. The agency also changed the policy to allow individuals applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Medicare to complete their claim by phone “because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a person’s identity,” Dudek said in a statement. Individuals “in extreme dire-need situations, such as terminal cases or prisoner pre-release scenarios” will also be exempt from the change, Dudek said.

But the SSA’s accommodations were not enough, AARP argued, and the cuts to phone services that were to go ahead would “only exacerbate the ongoing customer service crisis,” LeaMond wrote. More than 10 million people applied for retirement, family, survivor and disability benefits from the SSA in 2023, the most recent data available. 

“If SSA is intent on moving ahead with substantial changes to the way it verifies the identities of its customers, it should be done through more established processes, soliciting input from the public, and with a clear communications strategy and a reasonable timeline for compliance,” LeaMond wrote. 

AARP, which advocates for more than 100 million Americans ages 50 and older, has adopted an “all-hands-on-deck approach” these past few weeks to protect Social Security, said AARP’s John Hishta, senior vice president of campaigns. We’ve engaged with the SSA leadership, worked to educate lawmakers and the public on the importance of Social Security to older Americans, and highlighted the toll customer service cuts could have.

We’ve also encouraged our members to join our fight — and they have: AARP activists have sent more than two million messages to Congress this year voicing their concerns about recent SSA changes.