Social Security workers are struggling to keep up as calls and wait times surge, with beneficiaries reaching out to the agency over concerns about their monthly payments.
Average call wait times at the Social Security Administration have more than doubled since August, the first available month of data from the agency. In February, callers waited an average of 1 hour and 44 minutes to speak to a representative, up from a 50-minute average in August.
Total call volume at the agency jumped 36% during that same time, with less than half of all callers reaching a representative before hanging up.
Experts say wait times at the agency are likely to get worse as staff cuts scale up.
In February, the agency announced plans to eliminate 7,000 workers from its staff, a roughly 12% reduction in force. Sources familiar with the plans told The Associated Press that workforce reductions could be as high as 50% at the Social Security Administration, but the agency has said that claim is false.
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Financial advisors say their clients are feeling the impacts of workforce cuts firsthand.
“My clients have absolutely noticed the longer wait times when trying to call Social Security,” said Brenna Baucum, founder of Collective Wealth Planning in Salem, Oregon. “In some cases, it’s taken hours just to get through to someone — or to be told they’ll need to call back later.”
Ryan Perry, a financial advisor at Falcon Wealth Planning in Ontario, California, said that one of his clients was connected with a representative within 15 minutes of calling. But data shows that’s far from the norm for most callers.
Perry said he encourages his clients to call as soon as the line opens at 8 a.m. Data from the Social Security Administration shows that’s the right move for beneficiaries looking to expedite the call process.
Average wait times at 8 a.m. range from 21 to 25 minutes depending on the day of the week, SSA data shows. On any given day, wait times swell significantly as the day progresses. That’s especially true earlier in the week. At 6 p.m. on Monday is the worst possible time to call Social Security, with an average wait time of 2 hours and 27 minutes, according to data from the agency.
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Faced with rising wait times, financial advisors like Tricia Rosen, founder of Access Financial Planning in Newburyport, Massachusetts, are encouraging their clients to request a callback first thing in the morning.
“It may take several hours, but at least you can go about your day until they call you,” Rosen said.
Nearly three-quarters of all callers take that approach, according to SSA data. In February, callers who requested a callback could expect to wait an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes before talking with a representative, up from 1 hour and 9 minutes since August.
The Social Security Administration has pushed more beneficiaries to use the mySocialSecurity website as call wait times rise, but advisors say that most elderly clients prefer to call or talk to an agent in person.
“Some older clients are open to it,” Baucum said. But “many still feel more confident having someone by their side.”
Baucum said that her clients have felt much more comfortable completing requests on the website while receiving guidance from her.
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“I often say, ‘This process goes a lot more smoothly when we do it together,’ and most clients appreciate that,” she said. “Whether that’s sitting next to them as they create their login or walking through what they’ll need to request, the personal support makes a big difference.”
Still, that approach only works if the website is available to advisors and their clients. The agency’s servers have struggled to accommodate the rise in traffic, with the mySocialSecurity site crashing four times in 10 days this month, The Washington Post reported.
Looking to circumvent long wait times and unstable websites, many advisors say that calling local offices is the best option for beneficiaries.
“I have found that if you call the local Social Security office instead of the national one, the wait times are significantly shorter and the representatives seem more knowledgeable and helpful in general,” Rosen said.
Whether local offices can maintain that level of service is an open question. Due to the significant reduction in staff, some office managers have reportedly taken on receptionist duties, including answering phones at the front desk, according to The Washington Post.
Advisors say that local offices still offer better service than the national 800 number, but a lack of data will make it difficult to measure caller experiences with field offices moving forward. The division responsible for monitoring those call experiences was eliminated through cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
