A new Inspector General report found significant differences between how long the Social Security Administration claims people wait on its phone lines and how long they actually do so. The cause of this discrepancy? The agency counts callers who immediately request a callback as having a wait time of zero. In reality, they waited one hour and 51 minutes for SSA to call them back. Among callers who did not take the callback option and waited to speak to an employee, they waited an average of 59 minutes. By claiming that the callback customers wait zero minutes, the SSA’s math says that the average wait time is 15.9 minutes. One cause for the wait times is the decreased staff and increased calls; as of June, staffing was down 13 percent in field offices compared to October 2024. Three percent of callers just get a busy signal, and 25 percent of calls — 21.3 million calls — are just abandoned, hanging up when stuck on hold.
Natalie Alms, Next Gov
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