The Social Security Administration (SSA) reassigned approximately 1,000 customer service representatives from field offices to bolster its national hotline, aiming to reduce wait times for millions of callers.
Jessica LaPointe, president of Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said the SSA’s reallocation is a temporary solution.
“The 1-800 number — they do offer a critical role at the agency, but it’s triage, whereas customer service representatives actually clear work for the agency,” LaPointe told The Washington Post. “So it’s just going to create a vicious cycle of work not getting cleared, people calling for status on work that’s sitting because the claims specialists now are going to have to pick up the slack of the customer service representatives that are redeployed to the tele-service centers.”
Newsweek reached out to SSA and LaPointe for comment.
Why It Matters
The SSA said an average of 69 million people will receive a Social Security benefit each month in 2025, totaling about $1.6 trillion in benefits paid during the year.
The restructuring comes after thousands of workers left the agency under Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cost-saving initiatives, The Washington Post reported.
Calls to the SSA topped 8.6 million per month on average between January and June, compared to a monthly average of about 6.6 million from January to June 2024, according to statistics obtained by the outlet.
Wait times for callers averaged 93 minutes for the first five months of the Trump administration, compared to an average of 75 minutes for the last three full months of the Biden administration.
What to Know
In a press release on Monday, the SSA said it had achieved “significant progress” in ongoing efforts to improve customer service.
“My top priority is to transform SSA into a model of excellence—an organization that operates at peak efficiency and delivers outstanding service to every American,” SSA Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said in a statement.
The transition will increase the number of phone agents by about 25 percent.
AFGE told The Washington Post that it has heard from workers at several offices that no longer have customer service representatives available following the reassignment.
SSA spokesperson Stephen McGraw told the outlet that the reassignment impacts 4 percent of field staff, and it is not clear how long it will last.
Kathleen Romig, a former Social Security official who now works at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), estimated that there are 1,480 beneficiaries for each staff member. In 1967, the last time the agency had this few employees, there were 480 beneficiaries for each staff member.
The SSA previously reassigned more than 2,000 workers to public-facing roles in April.
Earlier this year, CBPP researchers estimated nearly 2 million additional in-person visits are now required annually due to staffing cuts and revised SSA protocols.
What People Are Saying
SSA spokesperson Stephen McGraw, in comments to The Washington Post: “Beyond enhancing service on the 800 Number, this initiative supports the agency’s broader customer service strategy by enabling more flexible, real-time allocation of staff to meet the most pressing service demands.”
Kathleen Romig, a former Social Security official who now works at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in comments to The Washington Post: “You start running the agency with not enough people to go around, then the only way you can get on top of a problem is to play musical chairs like this.”
What Happens Next
The SSA said it is working to provide employees with the resources they need to improve performance across all operations.
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