Wait Times For Calls To Social Security Have Been A Problem. A Change Could Make Them Better—Or Worse

2026-02-12 06:32:17

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Social Security Administration has been working to improve caller wait times, even as the staff has been reduced.
But SSA workers say they are already overworked, and changes coming next month could make things worse.

The Social Security Administration has significantly reduced wait times for beneficiaries calling its national 800-number over the past two years. Next month, the agency is making more changes to how it handles help requests that may speed things up—or make things worse for beneficiaries.

Workflow management changes coming on March 7 will transition SSA employees from working only on local claims and cases to handling cases nationwide. The move is an effort to even out the workload for SSA agents. Separately, the agency will also roll out a new system that beneficiaries can use to schedule in-person appointments.

“These tools will strengthen SSA’s ability to provide Americans with expanded opportunities to schedule appointments and improve staff efficiency,” an SSA spokesperson said in an email. “There will be increased availability for Americans to receive the support they need over the phone or in person.”

Why This Matters

Social Security is the largest anti-poverty program in the United States. Many lower-income and senior beneficiaries rely on timely and accurate payments to cover daily essentials like housing, food, and health care, so service delays can quickly translate into financial hardship.

However, there is a chance the moves will instead increase the workload of SSA employees, who have faced a shrinking workforce for years. The number of Social Security beneficiaries continues to rise, while the agency cut 7,000 positions, or about 12.5% of staff in 2025.

“This … may have evened out the workload a little bit,” said Ed Weir, a former manager of a Las Vegas Social Security field office. “But that’s before they cut over 7,000 positions. So all bets are off now.”

New Policies, More Complex Work

Some SSA workers say they will now have to take time to learn different policies beyond their local rules, such as differences in state laws for Supplemental Security Income. Especially as more employees are moving between handling claims and calls to the national number, many say their work will become more complex, creating a higher risk of mistakes.

“Historically, if [beneficiaries] call their local office, they know to call back to the local office. They got at least an idea of where it’s being taken care of,” said Weir. “I think that’s going to be an issue. [Beneficiaries’ claims] are going to get lost in the shuffle.”

Already, Social Security workers say they are overworked and underpaid. In a survey of SSA employees from the Strategic Organizing Center, a campaign organization for unions, 84% said their workloads got worse in 2025. The majority said their service speed and quality had decreased due to the amount of work they have taken on.

But the agency has been whittling down wait times since 2024.

Call Backs Speed Things Up

The average wait time for the national 800 number was about 30 minutes in the federal government’s 2024 fiscal year, which ranges from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to the Social Security Office of the Inspector General. After the SSA transitioned to a new phone system in August 2024, wait times fell by an average of 10 minutes.

Wait times continued to fall during fiscal year 2025, which spanned from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, and the average wait time for beneficiaries that year was cut in half to 14.6 minutes.

The SSA saw the best improvement in wait times in July 2025, when the average wait time was about 7.5 minutes after it shifted more agents to answering the phones.

However, it’s important to note that the average wait times include callers who opt to hang up and get a call back when an agent becomes available. The wait time for those who accept the callback option is zero minutes, significantly reducing the average.

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During the federal government’s fiscal year 2025, those who opted for the callback option waited an average of 111 minutes before receiving a callback from an SSA agent. Those who did not opt for a callback waited on hold for almost an hour on average before speaking to an agent.

“The agency improved performance because it used a new telecommunications platform and staff realignments,” the Office of the Inspector General said in an independent audit of the SSA wait times.

In the first three months of fiscal 2026, the SSA has said it kept phone wait times at an average of nine minutes. That may change in the coming months.

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