The Social Security Administration (SSA) outlined a series of service improvements in a letter to Congress, reporting faster payments, shorter wait times, and a reduction in the disability claims backlog in fiscal year 2025.
Arrears sent early
In his update, Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano touted the agency’s progress in distributing benefits related to recent legislation. Lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill — the Social Security Fairness Act — in January under Joe Biden’s administration that repealed two provisions that limited retirement benefits for some workers, including teachers, firefighters and police officers, some federal employees and their spouses.
“In July, we announced that we had finalized sending more than 3.1 million payments, totaling more than $17 billion, to eligible Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA) beneficiaries, 5 months ahead of schedule. »
24/7 online access and increased usage
Bisignano also highlighted improvements to the SSA’s online portal. He said he discovered shortly after taking office that the website was routinely offline for more than a full day per week, leaving beneficiaries without immediate access to their information.
He said that prior to his tenure as commissioner, which began in May, the SSA’s online portal, My Social Security had a “scheduled downtime of 29 hours per week, leaving Americans without instant access to information about their benefits.”
“Thanks to the quick actions taken by my leadership team last summer, Americans now have 24/7 access to their Social Security information online,” Bisignano wrote.
Shorter waits on the phone and in the office
The commissioner said the agency has also made progress in customer service, including faster response times and increased use of automated tools.
“Through the use of technology and appropriate allocation of resources, we were able to reduce the year-over-year average response time from 28 minutes in fiscal year 2024 to 15 minutes in fiscal year 2025, while responding to 65 percent more calls than the previous year. Additionally, nearly 90 percent of calls are now resolved via self-service or callbacks practices, methods that Americans frequently use when contacting public and private sector organizations.
Visits to the office found similar improvements, he said.
“Office wait times decreased by nearly 27%, to 22 minutes, compared to 30 minutes at the end of last year. Visitors who had a scheduled appointment waited only about 6 minutes on average to receive assistance. This was made possible by changes to field office phone systems, which now allow almost 30% of calls to be answered instantly using technology, giving our teams more time to focus on customers needing in-person assistance.”
Earlier this year, the SSA’s acting inspector general launched a study into call center wait times and the agency’s broader ability to provide services.
The investigation follows a request from Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who raised concerns about the agency’s performance after a reorganization led by the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) earlier this year. Warren also questioned whether the public was receiving reliable information, noting that Social Security removed several performance indicators from its website this year.
Reducing the disability backlog
The update also addresses one of the SSA’s most pressing issues: the disability claims backlog. The number of pending cases reached a record high in mid-2024, but has since declined significantly.
“The disability claims backlog reached an all-time high in June 2024 with more than 1.26 million claims pending,” Bisignano wrote. “I am proud to announce that we have reduced the backlog this year by more than 25 percent, to 865,000, a level not seen since 2022. We also reduced the average processing time for initial applications by 13 percent, to 209 days, compared to 240 days in January 2025, and maintained historically low levels of pending disability hearings, with average wait times reduced by nearly 60 days since the last financial year.
