Social Security Customer Service Challenges: Causes, Impacts, and Solutions

The Social Security Administration (SSA), which serves more than 70 million beneficiaries and delivers vital services to millions more every year, is experiencing a customer service crisis. Significant declines in SSA’s inflation-adjusted budget, combined with complex administrative burdens and the need to update information technology (IT) systems, has led to long wait times for basic services and large backlogs of disability insurance claims.

Because of current trends, people waiting for SSA to make a disability determination are experiencing significant economic and health hardships, including more bankruptcies, evictions, foreclosures, and greater health risks from delayed access to health insurance and a stable monthly income. In addition, such long wait times are shown to reduce new applications.

This report explores the causes of SSA’s service challenges, examines their impacts on people utilizing these services, and highlights ways to improve SSA performance.

Overview

When SSA’s administrative funding is insufficient to fully process all claims, the shortage disproportionately affects people applying for disability benefits. By contrast, retirement claims generally face no backlog, even as claimants do experience customer service delays.

The largest share of SSA’s administrative budget, roughly half, is devoted to administering disability benefits. When disability claims increase even modestly, or funding for administrative expenses is tight— two trends occurring now—the impacts are quickly seen in administering the disability program, leading to increases in the time it takes for a decision on an initial disability claim.

While backlogs in disability claims occur at every stage of the determination process, backlogs at the initial determination stage are usually the first indicator of a problem and are the focus of this paper; they are currently at historic highs.

The data on wait times and backlogs, reviewed in detail in the report, show that SSA’s customers have tolerated substantial delays for many years. With recent wait times averaging more than seven months for an initial disability determination and over a half hour to reach a service representative on the phone, SSA’s already stressed customer service operation is showing signs of severe hardship.  Some performance issues, such as those found within the toll-free system, are likely to see some improvement with the resolution of technical problems. However, current trends in disability applications suggest that without significant new resources in the short term, disability backlogs and wait times will increase and customer service will continue to erode more generally, affecting retirees and others.

This paper includes detailed discussions of the following:

Factors affecting SSA performance and customer service

• funding for SSA administrative expenses
• ongoing impacts of COVID-related disruptions on SSA operations
• changes in the volume of initial disability claims

Budget options for stabilizing disability claims processing

• regular discretionary appropriations
• mandatory funding
• discretionary cap adjustments
• emergency funding
• advance appropriations

Program improvements

• redesign the disability determination process
• improve and simplify SSI
• invest in IT

Conclusion

Backlogs and lengthy wait times for a decision on a disability claim, whether under the SSDI or SSI program, can cause serious harm to the millions of people with disabilities who apply for benefits every year, especially because disability applicants often experience sharp declines in health and finances both prior to applying for benefits and while awaiting a decision. Further, the impact of inadequate funding for SSA raises important concerns about equity and benefits access because applicants for disability benefits are less likely to have graduated high school and are more likely to be older, Black, living in the South, and in poverty.

A combination of additional funding, process changes, and program improvements are needed to reduce historically high backlogs and wait times, and to stabilize performance levels in the long term.