The agency hemorrhaged jobs in 2025, creating what advocates have described as a crisis of customer service. Since, it’s been taking weeks or months before some people can even get an appointment to receive their benefits, according to accounts by numerous advocates, attorneys and experts.
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.
Women with one or more children make up 92 percent of those seeking young survivors benefits. About 95 percent of those seeking “aged widows benefits,” for those over the age of 60, are also women. Because women tend to live longer and face pay disparities, they are more likely to rely on their spouse’s Social Security benefits.
An estimated 1.3 million children receive survivor benefits, and 1 in 10 children live in families that rely on Social Security payments to pay for bills, rent, food and other needs. When there are delays in timely benefits, children are among the ones who feel it the most.
A year ago, as a part of Elon Musks’ so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce, the agency made its largest-ever personnel cuts: 7,200 positions were eliminated, many of them frontline customer service workers who helped connect people to their benefits. Another 1,500 positions have been cut this fiscal year so far. SSA was already at a 50-year staffing low when 2025 began, but those cuts were the largest-ever in the agency’s history. Its workforce is down nearly 15 percent from 2024.
Jessica LaPointe, union council president for the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents Social Security workers, said the core issue is that there still needs to be a worker to process every claim.
“We are an agency of intake and that’s about it,” LaPointe said. “So it creates this bottleneck of service. That’s where — the social safety net — people start to fall through the cracks because it’s taking too long to get their benefits. They’re going homeless, they’re going bankrupt, they’re not getting their health insurance started in time, so they’re going into debt, or they’re not taking their medications timely. People are dying just waiting for this money to come in. It’s really sad what that causes on the back end when the agency isn’t staffed properly.”
The loss of staff means that at any given time there are about 1,500 benefit applications pending per worker, LaPointe said, according to data provided to the union by SSA’s Workload Support Unit, the group that processes online applications.
A survey of more than 800 Social Security workers completed in January found that 84 percent felt their workloads had gotten worse in the past year. About 70 percent reported they’re serving the public at slower speeds, and 65 percent said the quality of service has deteriorated. The loss of not only customer service staff but also experienced staff at an agency like the Social Security Administration where the claims process is complicated means mistakes can arise or people can quit the process altogether because the waits are too long.
There is some evidence Social Security is making changes to improve service, said LaPointe, the union president. The agency reportedly plans to hire at least 700 customer service representatives this year and increase its workforce by about 1,000 people, according to reporting in the Washington Post.
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