Press Release: 3/17/2026
Warren, Senators Investigate Social Security Agency’s Customer Service Chaos Reaching “New Extremes”
Trump’s Social Security head has disrupted Social Security staffing, services
Nearly two-thirds of Social Security employees report customer service has declined in the past year
“Your forced staff reassignments are harming Social Security beneficiaries, endangering the accuracy of claims, and wasting taxpayer dollars.”
Washington, D.C. — Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Special Committee on Aging Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ranking Member of the Committee on Finance Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched a new investigation into the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) ongoing customer service crisis reaching new extremes, the latest from Senate Democrats’ Social Security War Room. In a new letter to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the senators raised concerns that his staffing cuts and staff reassignments have left the agency unable to “fully serve” the nearly 75 million Americans who rely on the program.
“[Staff] reassignments are band-aid solutions to patch over ongoing service problems that have plagued the agency under your leadership,” wrote the senators, highlighting ongoing staffing shortages and field office closures.
Staff cuts have left the agency with an average of only one field office representative per nearly 4,000 beneficiaries – a ratio that is 12 percent higher than it was before the cuts. With over 100,000 people visiting their local SSA office every day, these staffing reductions translate to declining customer service. According to a recent survey of SSA employees, nearly two-thirds reported that “service quality had declined in the past 12 months” and 70 percent reported “service speed had declined.”
Over the last year, the Trump administration has slashed SSA’s workforce by over 7,000 employees, causing some rural field offices to close. At the same time, SSA is short-staffing field offices in an effort to eliminate 15 million in-person field office visits, forcing seniors and people with disabilities to wait even longer for an appointment or wait hours on the phone to speak with a live agent.
Instead of fixing those problems, Bisignano has attempted to cover up the mess by reassigning employees and seeking technological shortcuts to paper over staff shortages. Some of those reassignments include pulling expert employees away from SSA’s “disability adjudication, financial and management, field office services, risk and quality, digital services and chief information officer units” to help answer SSA’s national phone line.
“This entire process of firing and pushing out call service staff, re-assigning other employees to serve as call center staff, and now rehiring a whole new set of inexperienced call service staff…is a costly, wasteful process that only adds to the customer service chaos,” wrote the senators.
Reassigned employees are reportedly now only receiving three hours of training before starting on the SSA help line, despite the agency claiming they would receive eight hours of training. Employees familiar with handling the phone line say that eight hours of training is “insufficient due to the complexity of issues that can arise on a call.” The impacts of this lack of training are already becoming apparent — with literal life and death consequences. Newly reassigned employees have reported that they are receiving alarming guidance on handling callers expressing suicidal thoughts, including reminding callers “that suicide is only one option.”
Bisignano’s past responses to Congress about staff reassignments and field office wait times failed to provide details on the number of employees reassigned or clarify the length of their reassignments. He has also failed to answer the senators’ metric-specific questions on the initial results of reassignments.
“Your forced staff reassignments are harming Social Security beneficiaries, endangering the accuracy of claims, and wasting taxpayer dollars. When SSA pulls employees away from already understaffed field offices or from processing backlogs in claims, customer service and the timely delivery of benefits suffer,” wrote the senators.
The senators asked Bisignano to provide information about the ongoing staff reassignments and customer service problems at SSA by March 27, 2026.
Senate Democrats’ Social Security War Room coordinates Democrats’ fight to defend Social Security, encourages grassroots engagement by providing opportunities for Americans to share what Social Security means to them, and educates Senate staff, the American public, and stakeholders about Republicans’ agenda and their continued cuts to Americans’ Social Security services and benefits.