Social Security has stopped publicly reporting its processing times for benefits, the 1-800 number’s current call wait time and numerous other performance metrics, which customers and advocates have used to track the agency’s struggling customer service programs.
The agency removed a menu of live phone and claims data from its website earlier this month, according to Internet Archive records. It put up a new page this week that offers a far more limited view of the agency’s customer service performance.
The website also now urges customers to use an online portal for services rather than calling the main phone line or visiting a field office — two options that many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills rely on for help.
The spokesperson also provided a statement from Bisignano that said his “top priority is to turn the Social Security Administration into a model of excellence — one that operates at peak efficiency.”
The spokesperson said Bisignano aims to make Social Security a “digital-first” agency, and the agency wants to encourage customers to use the online portal so staff can focus on more complex cases.
Among the performance metrics now withheld was a “live data” section with current call wait time, callback wait time, number of callers waiting on hold and the number of callers waiting on callback.
The new website now shows only the percentage of calls and number of calls handled through automation, the average speed to answer and the total number of customers served. That data is only available for the fiscal year through the last month that data is available. And while the previous dashboard allowed users to click on data points and see trends over time, the new page does not show historical data.
Lambert here: Seems like Bisiguano is following CDC’s playbook for Covid data.
One Social Security employee, who works in a claims processing center and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said she suspects the erased webpages indicate an attempt to hide exploding call times and service backlogs piling up under the second Trump administration.
She noted that, in her experience under Trump so far, it is taking at least double the time to process a claim than it did under Biden. She sits near colleagues who handle international calls, she said, and often overhears co-workers tell callers that actions will take 15 to 30 business days to process. She attributed the slowdown to mismanagement driven in part by DOGE, which slashed the agency’s staff, hampered its ability to spend and drove down efficiency by enacting massive staff reorganizations.
“Them removing that type of data off the website about processing times doesn’t surprise me, because we’re so behind on things being processed,” the employee said. “It’s really a mess right now, everything is so far backed up.”
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