FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, June 26, 2025

As Seniors Face Highest-Ever Rate of Disconnected Social Security Calls, Senator Hassan Presses Social Security Administration to Restore Public Information on Wait and Processing Times  

The Joint Economic Committee – Minority Found the Agency Removed Critical Information That in March 2025 Showed the Highest Rate on Record of Disconnected Calls Due to High Call Volume 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee, is pushing the Social Security Administration to resume reporting on metrics such as current call wait times, the share of callers who get disconnected, and processing times at field offices on its public dashboard. Recently, the Social Security Administration removed this data from its website, and availability of this information on the public dashboard is critical for seniors and other beneficiaries navigating the benefits process.

A Committee analysis of the removed data found that shortly before the agency removed this data, the “busy rate” that callers were experiencing surged from less than five percent last year to nearly 30 percent in March 2025 – the highest rate on record. This “busy rate” reflects the percentage of callers who get automatically disconnected before they can talk to a Social Security employee because the call volume is too high.  

“Social Security is a lifeline for many seniors across the country, helping them to buy groceries, pay their bills, and afford other necessities. I write today with serious concerns regarding changes to the performance metrics that the Social Security Administration (SSA) shares through its public dashboard. According to recent reporting from the Washington Post and independent analysis by the Joint Economic Committee – Minority staff, SSA has stopped publicly reporting metrics on outcomes such as current call wait times, callback wait times, and processing times at individual field offices,” wrote Joint Economic Committee Ranking Member Hassan. “Changes to the performance dashboard are particularly alarming given that they have occurred in the wake of other changes by DOGE that appear to have undermined SSA’s ability to serve seniors and other beneficiaries effectively.”

The Committee downloaded the following graph of the record-high “busy rate” directly from the Social Security Administration’s public dashboard before the agency removed this information: 

Ranking Member Hassan has been speaking out against President Trump’s attacks on Social Security. In May, she sent a letter to the Administration pressing for answers about constituents who were experiencing delays in receiving their Social Security benefits. Earlier this year, she participated in a town hall with Granite State seniors to hear about their concerns, particularly on Social Security. Senator Hassan has also urged the Social Security Administration to stop any plans to close the Littleton, New Hampshire Social Security Office.   

Click here or see below for text of the letter to Social Security Commissioner Bisignano: 

Dear Mr. Bisignano:  

Social Security is a lifeline for many seniors across the country, helping them to buy groceries, pay their bills, and afford other necessities. I write today with serious concerns regarding changes to the performance metrics that the Social Security Administration (SSA) shares through its public dashboard. According to recent reporting from the Washington Post and independent analysis by the Joint Economic Committee – Minority staff, SSA has stopped publicly reporting metrics on outcomes such as current call wait times, callback wait times, and processing times at individual field offices. Unlike the previous dashboard, the new version also lacks historical data, as well as general processing times for retirement, survivor, disability, and Medicare benefits. These data and other metrics provide critical insight into the performance of your agency and served as guideposts for seniors and other beneficiaries navigating the benefits process. Removing this information may also obscure the impact of deep staffing and resource cuts — driven by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — on SSA’s ability to deliver for seniors. For these reasons, I urge you to immediately restore all previous metrics to the SSA performance dashboard. 

Changes to the performance dashboard are particularly alarming given that they have occurred in the wake of other changes by DOGE that appear to have undermined SSA’s ability to serve seniors and other beneficiaries effectively. For instance, despite a record surge in seniors claiming benefits this year — and record call volume to the SSA phone hotline in the first quarter of 2025 — DOGE drove the elimination of at least 7,000 jobs at SSA, leading to major reductions at field offices and IT departments. According to the Washington Post, these reductions, along with spending freezes and technical changes by DOGE, have slowed claims processing, crashed the SSA website regularly, and led to shortages of basic supplies that SSA staff need to do their work. As a result, beneficiaries have faced service disruptions, error messages, and unprecedented failures in tools to schedule and manage appointments at field offices throughout the country. Seniors make these appointments to receive in-person assistance and attend hearings on benefit decisions. In addition, reporting on emails among SSA employees also suggests that scammers have taken advantage of chaos at the agency to collect sensitive personal information from seniors.  

SSA’s previously public performance metrics are essential to understanding the impact of these and other DOGE actions. Through a spokesperson, SSA has stated that it is “updating our performance metrics to better reflect the real experiences of the people we serve and highlight the fastest ways our customers can get service.” Yet removing performance metrics from public view hinders efforts to assess SSA’s delivery of essential benefits to seniors, incentivize high performance among SSA staff, and hold agency officials accountable for delays that seniors experience. One Social Security employee, speaking anonymously, has shared her suspicion that missing data might indicate an attempt to hide increasing call times and service delays. SSA, for example, no longer reports the “busy rate” that measures the percentage of callers to the SSA phone hotline who are disconnected by the automated system before reaching a customer service agent. Data on this metric was available as recently as April 25, 2025, and showed that the busy rate rose from zero percent in November 2024 to 28.4 percent in March 2025 — the highest monthly rate on record in the then-publicly available data. In addition, the website no longer includes information for seniors on processing times at any of the 1,200 local Social Security field offices. 

In recent months, SSA has shown a willingness to reverse course on some of its destructive proposals, including cuts to phone services and cumbersome verification procedures, that would have undermined responsiveness and accessibility for seniors. Given the concerns described above, I urge you to restore all previous performance metrics to the SSA dashboard and retain all historical performance data. Please also provide responses to the following requests:    

1. Why and how did SSA decide to remove metrics from the performance dashboard? Please describe the role of DOGE representatives, if any, in directing or implementing these changes. 
2. Please describe how SSA has used metrics from the performance dashboard to guide agency operations and how this usage has changed since January 2025.  
3. Has SSA deleted or made any substantial changes to internal datasets related to the performance dashboard? Please describe the changes or deletions, if any, and the rationale behind these alterations.   
4. Please describe any terminations or reassignments since January 2025 for SSA employees supporting the performance dashboard, including the titles and roles of affected employees, their average tenure at SSA, and their new positions at SSA, if any.   
5. Please provide data as of 5:00 pm on the date of this letter regarding: 
1. Current call wait time; 
2. Current callback wait time; 
3. Current number of callers waiting on hold; and 
4. Current number of callers waiting for callback. 
6. For Fiscal Year 2023 through June 2025, please provide data for each fiscal year and month regarding:
1. Total customers served; 
2. Answer rate;
3. Average daily call volume; 
4. Average call wait time; 
5. Average callback time; 
6. Average speed of answer; 
7. Percentage of callers that reach a representative; 
8. Average service time; 
9. Agent busy rate; and 
10. Percentage of calls handled by callback. 
7. For Fiscal Year 2023 through June 2025, please provide data for each category of information the performance dashboard previously presented regarding: 
1. Processing time for retirement, survivor, and Medicare benefits; 
2. Performance on retirement, survivor, and Medicare enrollment timelines for New Hampshire field offices; 
3. Disability determination processing time; 
4. Disability decision reconsideration time; and 
5. Disability hearings decision processing time. 

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