Social Security pulls field office staff to handle overwhelmed phone lines

seadoug

seadoug

Senior Member
Location
Texas
The Social Security Administration is surging staff to its customer service phone operations in the latest effort to address a massive influx of calls that has overwhelmed its struggling 1-800 number.
The agency said it is temporarily reassigning about 1,000 customer service representatives from field offices to work on the swamped toll-free phone line, increasing the number of agents by 25 percent. Social Security’s new commissioner, Frank Bisignano, is attempting to reduce phone wait times after customers complained of dropped calls, the website has repeatedly crashed and thousands of workers left the agency.

But Jessica LaPointe, president of Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the move will slow responses to the complex cases that the field office employees handle and be only a temporary bandage for the phone problems. The union said it has heard from workers at several offices that no longer have customer service representatives available due to the change.
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Good luck calling Social Security!
 

It seems like the recent migration to Login.gov or ID.me caused quite a bit of confusion that likely translated into higher call volumes.

I think that I made the change successfully and hope that I’ll never have to contact the Social Security Administration by phone or in person.

One tip is to call early before the folks on the west coast wake up.
 
Yes, it's been awhile, but in April, I held on the phone 2 hours without getting through, trying to get help setting up an online account because Login.gov locked me out.

I finally "dropped in" at the local SS office, 35-40 miles away and someone there used my phone to complete the account set up. That person was trained in those matters, but was very frustrated after trying three times to complete the set up before finally accomplishing it.

Now that I have the account, I make sure to log in every 30 days so I don't get locked out due to inactivity.
 

MACKTEXAS said:
Yes, it's been awhile, but in April, I held on the phone 2 hours without getting through, trying to get help setting up an online account because Login.gov locked me out.

I finally "dropped in" at the local SS office, 35-40 miles away and someone there used my phone to complete the account set up. That person was trained in those matters, but was very frustrated after trying three times to complete the set up before finally accomplishing it.

Now that I have the account, I make sure to log in every 30 days so I don't get locked out due to inactivity.
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Fortunately I started working this a little over a year ago...... maybe longer. After a few hiccups I got it working great.
 
Why am I not surprised? If I ever need to take care of business, there's a SS office close to where I live. But I hope I never have to call about anything or visit. I usually just do other things when I'm left on hold for long periods, which except for Chewy, seems to be common these days.
 

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