Social Security's customer service worsens amid 'dire' underfunding

Customer service at Social Security isn't just slow. According to the program's own leadership, it's become a "crisis."

Martin O'Malley, the Social Security Administration's new commissioner, described the dysfunction in written testimony to Congress in March. On the program's 1-800 number, callers are put on hold for 38 minutes or more. For Americans applying for disability benefits, the average wait time for a decision is almost eight months.

All of this, O'Malley said, is the result of chronic understaffing. By the end of 2024, Social Security will have 7 million more beneficiaries but 7,000 fewer full-time employees than it had in 2015 — its smallest staff in 27 years.

"As a result of this historic underfunding and understaffing, Social Security faces a service delivery crisis," O'Malley told Congress. "The situation is dire, and the public we serve is paying the price as they attempt to access the benefits that they have already worked their whole lives to earn."

Mary Johnson, a retired Social Security analyst, says these delays have a long history.

"They've had a black eye for customer service for as long as I can remember," she said.

And Johnson has witnessed the problem firsthand. In 2020, her 64-year-old neighbor suffered a stroke and was left disabled. Unable to work, he applied for disability benefits. It took the Social Security Administration seven months to process his application — and by Johnson's standards, that was fast.

"I was surprised at how quickly they heard back," she said. "I've read reports where there were 12- to 13-month backlogs. … People would die before they got their disability benefits."

Though Social Security benefits are not threatened by budget cuts — their funding is legally nonnegotiable — Congress does decide how much money goes to the program's operating costs. And as a share of benefit outlays, O'Malley testified, that budget has shrunk by 20% over the past 10 years — from 1.26% in 2015 to 0.94% in 2024.

"SSA's budget is far more dire than I thought," said O'Malley, who became commissioner in December 2023. "Years of underfunding have decimated our staffing levels and therefore also our ability to serve the public."

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Added to this is a new obstacle: the increasingly frequent threats of a government shutdown. Over the past six months, as Congress repeatedly verged on allowing federal funding to lapse, a series of stopgap spending bills have left Social Security's budget frozen in place. In response, the SSA has stopped all new hiring, leaving its staff to dwindle through attrition.

"They have been chronically understaffed since the dawn of time, and that has only gotten worse with these sorts of budget fights," Johnson said. "It's like a cut in disguise. It keeps the previous budget, but it doesn't increase to [meet] the current needs."

For retirees, the result is longer wait times on the phone, backlogs of applications and months-long delays to receiving benefits.

How can financial advisors help clients navigate this mess? For those about to retire, one tip is to apply for Social Security a few months early — but that doesn't mean filing at a younger age. For example, if a senior wants to file for Social Security at age 70, they could submit their application at age 69 and nine months and note in the application that they wish to start benefits at 70.

"They can actually apply for it sooner and set their target retirement age as their effective date," Johnson said. "You may be waiting several months before the benefits actually start. So for planners, it's not unheard of to start three months ahead of time."

For calling the Social Security Administration, some advisors recommend a similarly time-conscious approach.

"We've done a few things to help clients," said Robert Allan, co-founder of Welon Partners in Montgomery, Alabama. "One is to have a staff member 'get in line' with the Social Security office and just call the client and merge them in once we get through to a live human."

READ MORE: Why wait? 4 reasons to file for Social Security early

Another trick is to skip the national 1-800 number and go regional instead.

"I have found that the best way to reach someone at Social Security is to contact the local office," said Hank Fox, a CFP at Blue Bell Private Wealth Management in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. "My calls usually are answered quickly, and I can speak with an agent without an extended wait time, often within one minute."

But sooner or later, Johnson said, the people who need to solve this problem are in Congress.

"We have a dysfunctional government right now," she said. "They need to go ahead and budget for the Social Security Administration's staff."