Social Security plans ‘limited’ rollout of systems to manage its workload

The Social Security Administration is now planning an incremental rollout of new appointment-scheduling and case-management systems before deploying them nationwide.

SSA is planning to launch its Appointment Scheduling Calendar (ASC) and Workload Management (WLM) system in Nevada and Tennessee on April 25, according to updates on its website and in messages to its employees.

For months, SSA has been planning to launch these two major systems. But the agency recently told staff that a nationwide rollout planned for April 13 was “paused until further notice.”

An SSA spokesperson told Federal News Network that the agency is “beginning with a limited deployment of the new technology and procedures to assess the initial impact to customer service, employee processes, and agency operations.”

ASC will replace SSA’s current system for scheduling initial claims appointments, as well as local field office calendars. SSA employees will use the new system to schedule all initial claims appointments and will also allow the public to self-schedule initial claims appointments online.

Starting on April 25, individuals in Tennessee and Nevada who self-schedule through the ASC will be guided through a series of questions on SSA.gov to determine their eligibility. Customers aren’t required to have a “my Social Security” online account to self-schedule an appointment through the ASC. But customers must register through Login.gov or ID.me and consent to electronic messaging.

Kathleen Romig, a former SSA senior advisor, now the director of social security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said people currently must call in advance to make an appointment to apply for benefits, whether they choose to apply in person or by phone.

“Being able to schedule online allows applicants to save time and sidestep these frustrating problems,” Romig said.

A report from SSA’s inspector general’s office last December found that the average wait time to reach an agent over the phone in fiscal 2025 was over 100 minutes when callers accepted a “callback” option from the agency. Without factoring in callback wait times, callers waited an average of 15 minutes.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting on Jan. 12 that the SSA OIG report demonstrated that the agency’s service delivery metrics were improving under his leadership — but said the watchdog audit was likely unnecessary.

“There was an inspector general audit that we agreed to — that I agreed to do — because I think we had to make it clear to everybody what the actual performance of our phone centers were, because there was some concern about reporting, which all proved 100% to be accurate and probably, honestly, a waste of taxpayers’ money,” Bisignano said, according to a transcript of the meeting obtained by Federal News Network.

The IG report found SSA served 68 million callers in fiscal 2025, a 65% increase compared to the prior year. However, about 25 million calls ended without the caller receiving service — either because the caller hung up and did not complete the call, or because the phone system could not connect callers to an employee. The agency’s wait-time metrics don’t include these abandoned calls or callers who received a busy message.

Stephen Evangelista, SSA’s chief of digital services, said during the all-hands meeting that about 30% of 1-800-number calls and about 20% of field office calls are now handled through automation, “reserving only the most complex calls to go to our agents for help.”

“A year ago, that would have sounded impossible. But today that’s a reality,” Evangelista said.  SSA, he added, is looking to automate high-volume needs on its phone lines, common requests like obtaining a replacement Social Security card or scheduling an appointment, “which will help reduce wait times and unnecessary visits.”

A system rollout to address short staffing

Following significant workforce reductions last year, SSA is also centralizing the intake and processing of applications with the launch of the Workload Management (WLM) system.

Romig said the WLM is meant to alleviate the “extreme pressures” on staff caused by the loss of more than 7,000 SSA employees last year and the agency’s reassignment of field office staff to answer incoming calls to its national 1-800 number.

“This resulted in the loss of thousands of field office staff, with very uneven gaps across the nation. But you can’t reorganize your way out of a staff crunch — if there aren’t enough people to get the work done, reshuffling them won’t ultimately help,” Romig said.

Bisignano said these employee reassignments were part of a “strategic asset allocation” focused on “having the right people in the right jobs — and that through these reassignments, the agency reduced field office phone call volume by 30%.

“What’s the capital that we allocate? Technology and human resources. And you’ll watch us move our economics around on both of them to get the best outcome for the American people and for you. So that means we’re one SSA, right? And we should be able to move any talent wherever is the best place. Do it within the requirements, do it within the rules. But there are no siloes,” Bisignano said.

Romig said centralizing workloads could improve efficiency at the agency, “as long as you get the logistical details right.”

“SSA has typically taken and processed applications at the local level, so there are lots of thorny questions that must be answered to get it right,” she said.

SSA employees told Federal News Network in January they’re wary this new system could introduce more complexity to their workloads — as well as more room for error. Employees are used to processing claims submitted locally, but may soon receive claims from other states, some of which have a higher income limit for SSA programs like Supplemental Security Income.

Many states offer a supplement to SSI benefits to help cover living costs for low-income seniors, as well as blind or disabled individuals. Those supplement amounts and eligibility vary state-by-state. Some states let SSA manage these supplements, resulting in one combined check, while other states process their SSI supplements as a separate payment. Other states don’t offer these SSI supplements.

One employee said that once the WLM is rolled out nationwide, “someone who applies in California could be speaking to an SSA rep in Maine.”

An SSA field office employee told Federal News Network that “due to lack of available staffing, in-office wait times are increasing,” despite an overall decrease in visits to the field office.

Data shared with Federal News Network showed that one day this week, wait times at one field office peaked at 2 hours and 23 minutes for individuals who walked in without an appointment.

“I am personally seeing many people leaving the office without service instead of waiting more frequently now than in the past,” the employee said.

Field offices temporarily closed due to staffing shortages

The American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents 25,000 SSA employees, is urging the agency and Congress to address what it calls a “staffing crisis.”

AFGE Council 220 said that workforce shortages have forced some field offices to temporarily close. More than a dozen SSA field offices are temporarily closed, according to its website.

In some cases, these temporary closures are due to facility issues, including fire damage and mold issues. But others are closed because there are no employees available to staff them.

AFGE Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe told Federal News Network that “it is perfectly normal” for SSA to temporarily close an office for health and safety reasons, and that the union encourages the agency to mitigate these problems.

“Those temporary closures, I wouldn’t get too hung up about. It’s the ones that don’t have an end date. Those are the ones that are closed due to chronic understaffing or a facility issue, and that’s where the pressure lies, that those get rectified and open to back up ASAP,” LaPointe said.

According to the union, a station in Decorah, Iowa has been closed since last October, because it was staffed by a single employee who retired last summer, and was staffed by employees on temporary details up until last year’s 43-day government shutdown.

After the shutdown, SSA said it was unable to find “viable candidates” to staff the office, but according to the union, it plans to post an internal vacancy notice for the position.

Another single-employee station in Havre, Montana, closed on April 11 after going through a series of employee details to keep it open. SSA is reviewing job applications and expects to hire a new employee soon to reopen the Havre station.

An SSA spokesperson said the field office closures listed on its website are not permanent.

“The offices are temporarily closed or providing limited service due to planned renovations, required maintenance, or facilities issues that we are actively working to resolve,” the spokesperson said. “SSA’s resident stations are located in rural locations and typically have one or two employees assigned to provide in-person services on a limited basis.”

SSA leadership is looking to cut field office visits by 50% this year, but has repeatedly denied that any field office is marked for permanent closure.

“We had 1,244 field offices at the end of ’24, 1,244 offices at the end of ’25. Guess how many field offices we’re going to have at the end of ’26? 1,244. We’re not going to change that,” Andy Sriubus, the agency’s former chief of field operations, now its chief of strategy and marketing, said during the Jan. 12 all-hands meeting.

Sriubus said SSA has seen 500,000 fewer field office visits so far in fiscal 2026, compared to the same period a year ago.

“It gives us more time to spend the right amount of time on each individual task that we have to do,” he added.

Bisignano told staff that “exactly zero field offices closed” last year, and that “we’re going to always have field offices.”

According to the union, SSA has begun hiring about 750 telephone service representatives and 300 field office workers this year. But AFGE Council 220 is calling on Congress to pass a $3 billion agency supplemental funding for SSA to hire another 3,000-5,000 permanent telephone service representatives and up to 20,000 frontline field office workers and support staff. The union said these hires would eliminate employee reassignments to answer the phones and would allow SSA to begin digging out of backlogs and address benefit processing delays.

“We are encouraged by Commissioner Bisignano’s recognition that SSA’s field offices are essential,” LaPointe said in a statement. “But keeping offices open requires having someone to open them — and right now, we don’t have enough people to do that in every office.”

The union is also calling on SSA to restore telework for its employees. A third-party arbitrator ruled last month that SSA violated its collective bargaining agreement with AFGE when it indefinitely suspended telework, and ordered the agency to restore workplace flexibilities that had been in place before mid-March 2025.

SSA, however, appealed the ruling to the  Federal Labor Relations Authority, which has a majority of Trump appointees. SSA is not obligated to comply with the arbitrator’s decision while the case is under FLRA appeal.

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