The Social Security Administration is in crisis. After laying off more than 7,000 employees this year, the biggest staffing cut in its 90-year history, the agency is now drowning in a backlog of 6 million pending cases.
Field offices are overwhelmed, callers can’t get through, and elderly and disabled Americans are facing long delays to access basic benefits.
The problems trace back to a wave of changes under President Donald Trump’s second term, when the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, took control and launched a sweeping reorganization.
Regional offices were shut down, thousands of workers were reassigned or pushed out, and strict new identity verification rules were rolled out without clear guidance.
Now, the agency is struggling to keep up.
Staff Cuts and a Digital-First Agenda
At the heart of the chaos are deep staffing cuts. Nearly 12% of the workforce is gone.
The SSA says it wants to modernize, but critics say that’s coming at the expense of human services.
“They’ve created problems and now they are trying to fix problems they created,” one field office worker told The Washington Post. “They offered minimal training and basically threw them in to sink or swim.”
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who also serves as CEO of the IRS, is pushing for a more digital approach.
He says the agency is “serving more Americans than ever before at quicker speeds” thanks to tech improvements.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Bisignano said, “We will continue our digital-first approach to further enhance customer service by introducing new service features and functionality.”
But the shift has left many behind. Many older adults and low-income users can’t navigate online systems like Login.gov, and the agency’s own data shows 25% of callers still aren’t being served.
Cutting In-Person Visits by Half
A new internal operating plan shows that SSA wants to cut field office visits by 50% in fiscal 2026, from over 31 million visits this year to 15 million next year.
This has raised alarms, especially as several rural offices have already closed due to low staffing.
Chris Delaney, a claims specialist and local union president, told Federal News Network, “A lot of people can’t get past the ID verification on Login.gov, and just because they have a cellphone doesn’t mean they’re capable of creating an online account. Having people in the office when they need it is important.”
Union leader Jessica LaPointe, who represents 30,000 SSA workers, warned that the agency wants “to allow AI and the internet to replace a well-trained, well-vetted workforce.”
Long Waits, Missed Payments, and Burned-Out Workers
SSA’s own data shows average call hold times peaked at two and a half hours in March.
Even after extra staff were reassigned to phone duty, wait times for callbacks often still exceed an hour.
Some callers never get through. One SSA worker said she speaks with about 25 people a day but can’t help five or six of them.
One elderly man who had a stroke hadn’t received his Social Security checks in months after switching banks.
Because of new ID rules, he couldn’t change his direct deposit info over the phone. “He was just like, ‘No, no, no,’” the employee said. “I had to sit there on the phone and tell this guy, ‘You have to find someone to come in…’”
Meanwhile, the backlog in processing centers, where more complex claims are handled, has ballooned.
At one point in the fall, it hit 6 million cases. Staff were told to slash it to 2 million by Christmas.
“When they told us that, everybody started laughing,” one processing center worker told The Washington Post. “Because there is just absolutely no way to get it down in that short period of time.”
Pushback From Lawmakers and Advocates
Democrats in Congress have pushed back hard. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said, “We’ve kept up the pressure and held Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Frank Bisignano accountable for the chaos they’ve caused.”
Legal groups have filed lawsuits demanding records about the SSA’s restructuring and alleged service disruptions. And union leaders have criticized the lack of public input around major policy changes.
A January poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center found two-thirds of Americans believe the country is spending too little on Social Security.
For now, the agency is scrambling. Some reassigned workers are being moved again, this time into a new “digital engagement” office.
Others are being recalled to their original roles. SSA says it plans to spend $591 million more on IT this year while cutting payroll by $367 million.
Whether that will actually fix the problems remains to be seen. For now, many Americans are stuck in limbo, waiting for the benefits they’ve earned, and hitting dead ends when they try to ask for help.