Social Security wait times were already long under Biden. They're even longer under Trump.

USA Today

06-05-2025

Social Security wait times were already long under Biden. They're even longer under Trump. Hold times at Social Security's 1-800 number averaged 60 minutes last year, during the Biden administration. Under Trump, they top 90 mins.
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Retirement worries grow as seniors face Trump tariffs, stock selloff
Retired educator and part-time yoga instructor Vicki Knight says she feels stretched thin. "I'm semi-retired." The Marietta, Georgia, resident says her Social Security income is not enough to live on and that a recent stock market selloff fueled by tariff uncertainty has complicated her plans.
Anticipating changes might come with a new administration, Sarah Anderson, 68, wanted to get on the Social Security rolls before President Donald Trump was sworn in.
She applied in early January and then waited to be approved. And waited. After 45 days, she tried calling the 1-800 number over and over, holding for hours and never getting a real person on the phone to answer questions about what was slowing down her application.
The Social Security Administration, which provides benefits to about 73 million Americans every year, already had historically low staff levels when Trump took office in January. That meant wait times to reach employees by phone, email or in person were already high when the Trump administration began to slash staff amidst efforts to downsize government.
Then 3,000 of the agency's 57,000 employees took a buyout, new identification rules were added to applications and a policy was floated to limit phone support.
Now, there are "profound" delays for anyone trying to connect with the agency, said Jessica LaPointe, the union council president for AFGE council 220, which represents Social Security workers.
'Our lobbies are flooded," LaPointe told USA TODAY. Walk-ins are no longer welcome and at many field offices people have to join a wait list even to make an appointment.
"People are being turned away and told to come back when they have an appointment," she said, adding that with full calendars, "they don't know when they're going to be served."
LaPointe is worried the delays will make Americans lose trust in an agency that "touches every American life from cradle to grave.'
And agency leaders say they aim to eliminate at least 7,000 more positions.
When asked for an interview to discuss customer service delays and long wait times, a spokesperson provided a statement from Acting Commissioner of Social Security Lee Dudek, blaming former President Joe Biden, the agency's prior work-from-home policy and "advancing radical DEI and gender ideology over improving service for all Americans."
"The result was long wait times for customer service, unconscionable delays for benefit decisions, and insufficient stewardship of Americans' hard-earned benefits," Dudek said in the statement. "With our dedicated employees now leading the way, SSA will deliver on President Trump's promise to protect Social Security by providing the high-quality service and stewardship that the American people expect and deserve."
Hold times on the 1-800 number averaged 1 hour under the Biden administration and are now up to 90 minutes per call, Social Security Administration data shows. The wait times when USA TODAY placed calls to the 1-800 number over the past week ranged from 90 minutes to 150 minutes. Several times the line disconnected without reaching a live person.
Widespread impact of buyouts
The buyouts affected the main office located outside Baltimore as well as in local offices across the country. According to Social Security Administration data, 40 field offices had more than 25% of employees take a buyout.
The most affected of the more than 1,200 field offices are Wisconsin Rapids, Wisc., which lost 58% of staff, Nevada, Mo., which lost 57%, Alexandria, Minn., which lost 50%, and Clinton, S.C., which lost 42%.
A second round of buyouts was offered April 28 to regional office employees who work in operations and in the office of Disability Adjudication, according to an email sent to staff. They were given less than 48 hours to accept the offer.
LaPointe said the buyouts were offered to all staff, not based on what was needed at each office, leaving some places scrambling to provide basic services.
"When the agency and the administration decided that they were going to cut 7,000 people from our workforce in the name of efficiency it caused a lot of inefficiencies within the Social Security Administration," she said.
ID requirements and website
Some of the long lines in person have been caused by confusion over the new identification rules. LaPointe said employees weren't notified about the changes before the public was and weren't prepared for the influx.
'We had lines around the corner, out the door, just taking people's ID to make them feel better that their benefits weren't going to stop,' LaPointe said.
The change, announced in late March, requires both applicants and beneficiaries to provide proof of identity in person if they are unable to access their "My Social Security' account, which requires online identity verification. At the time, Dudek estimated that between 75,000 and 85,000 more Americans would need to visit Social Security offices each week
For two weeks in March, internal systems and parts of the "My Social Security' website crashed repeatedly because they could not keep up with the surge of people logging in and employees checking files.
'It caused just such a stressful, chaotic, confusing time that was completely self inflicted and preventable and avoidable," LaPointe said.
Closing offices
DOGE contributed to the panic when it included more than 47 of Social Security's 1,200 field office locations among nearly 800 federal real estate leases that it plans to cancel. Social Security has repeatedly stressed there is no active plan to close field offices, but a draft plan for service delivery the Social Security Administration had to provide the White House that was obtained in April by news outlet Government Executive includes 'field office consolidation' as a goal for next year.
The agency has already closed six of its 10 regional offices, which deal with more complex cases and appeals, and include managers who can sign off on decisions made at the field office level.
"It's gutted our system staff. Our systems are collapsing,' LaPointe said. "And there's a non-responsive regional office because of all the cuts."
Some seemingly mundane issues have become catastrophic, because of the lack of decision-makers, she said.
'We have offices that are having to drive to surrounding offices to see if they have any printer paper," LaPointe said. "They can't print out benefit determinations for the American people because they ran out of paper."
Problems likely to build over time
Greg Bachinski, who retired from the Greenfield, Wisc. office on April 19 after 50 years with the agency, said the impacts of the buyout will become more clear in the coming months. Over the past 10 years, Social Security has dropped from 70,000 to 57,000 employees and losing another 7,000 in a matter of months will be noticeable, he said.
"There's been a general decline in the number of people handling the work, and a gigantic increase in the number of people who need to be taken care of and that's been going on for years," he said. The recent staff cuts will likely speed up the decline, he said, though it may take a while for the full effects to become visible.
The requirement for in-person meetings has led to the appointment wait lists, he said.
"If you came in today, you wouldn't get an appointment because they can't make appointments far enough in the future," he said. "So you would be told, 'okay, you're on the list, so to speak and then we'll contact you when appointments are open, and then notify you of your appointment date.' So it may be quite a quite a bit into the future."
As staff leave, work and phone calls are being passed from office to office, he said. So, a recipient may call their local office but end up speaking with someone on the other side of the state. That's adding to the workload as well because the employee is less likely to be familiar with the case and may have to wait for the local office to transmit documents and information.
"It's kind of cumbersome and I think ultimately, kind of a wasteful system to have all this work being passed around," he said.
Turned away by security
Fed up with not being able to reach some one by phone Anderson went to her local Social Security office in Bellevue, Wash. where she was turned away by security who told her she needed an appointment to even enter. The security officer gave her the same 1-800 number to call.
At the Seattle office, Anderson was allowed to take a number and wait in the crowded lobby to make an appointment. She said the people around her were desperate. Some appeared homeless, others told the security guard at the entrance that they had come multiple times that week to make an appointment, but their number was never called.
"I left because I shouldn't have taken a number ahead of those people," she said. "I don't want to use up the precious resources for people that really are desperate."
Suddenly a check arrived one day in March even though she had never spoken to an actual person.
In Chandler, Arizona, Louisa Pedraza, 64, is still waiting to hear if the disability benefits she applied for last year have been approved. The former 9-11 call center operator is counting on the money to help offset the $300-a-month increase in her health insurance.
Pedraza got a letter in early January saying her benefits should be approved within 30 days.
"I thought, okay, by the end of January, you know, things should be rolling, and maybe by February I can start getting my check And all of a sudden, after the inauguration, everything went silent," she said.
According to Social Security's 1-800 automated system, average wait time for approval of disability benefits is 200 to 230 days, which is on par with the Biden years.
Pedraza dreads the idea of waiting hours on the phone for a real person. Her disability, which impacts her ankles and feet, makes it difficult to wait in a lobby for a long time, she said. She just checks the website over and over hoping to see the status of her application has changed.
"I have no confidence that I know this is coming, or that this is going to resolve," she said.
How are changes from the Trump administration affecting you? Let us know by email at [e-mail] or on Signal at sarahdwire.71.