By Alex Moore
Social Security is one of the U.S. government services Americans are most likely to interact with at some point in their lives. This makes the quality of that service paramount, and historically, the results have often left seniors wanting more, with long wait times, difficult processes, and mistakes such as overpaying or underpaying beneficiaries.
However, it appears that the Social Security Administration (SSA) might finally be on the right track when it comes to customer service. When the agency released figures claiming it had slashed its average speed to answer incoming phone calls and substantially reduced its field office waiting times last July, many were skeptical, including this publication. Senator Elizabeth Warren even formally requested that SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano audit the numbers due to her doubts.
The SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), an internal function responsible for policing waste, fraud, and abuse within the agency, released the findings of that audit in December 2025. The results should make every American senior smile.
The audit found that SSA did achieve the customer service improvements it publicly reported. Phone waiting times did, in fact, fall from 30 minutes in January 2025 to 7 minutes by September 2025, even as the agency handled 65 percent more calls than in the 2024 fiscal year. Abandoned calls—those where seniors wait so long they give up and hang up—also fell dramatically, from 3.4 million in January 2025 to 911,000 (a 73.3% decrease) in September 2025. Nearly a million abandoned calls still isn’t ideal, but that’s real improvement.
“The results of the audit come as no surprise to anyone following the historic progress we are making at the agency,” said Commissioner Bisignano in a press release accompanying the audit findings. “We are serving more Americans at significantly faster speeds than ever before.”
So, what’s the difference between the results in 2025 and previous efforts to strengthen customer service at SSA? It’s not as if previous administrations and agency leadership haven’t tried. Apparently, it starts with technology. SSA recently adopted a new telecommunications platform for its public service, helping the agency find real-time ways to help callers, identify customer service reps in need of additional training, and automate processes so callers don’t need to wait to speak to another person to fulfill the objectives of their call when it isn’t necessary. It has also leaned into artificial intelligence, launching an online chatbot to help Americans with 74 frequently asked questions about Social Security benefits.
Long story short, this is a piece of welcome news. Here at TSCL, we spend a lot of energy holding government accountable when Social Security and Medicare benefits don’t work as advertised, and it’s nice, for once, to be able to say we see things trending in the right direction.