More than 7,100 employees have left the Social Security Administration since last year, cutting the agency’s workforce by more than 13% and marking the largest staff reduction in its history. The departures have come as the agency consolidates offices, expands artificial intelligence tools and pushes more services online.
The cuts are landing hardest on people trying to get disability benefits, where advocates say phone lines are overloaded, paperwork goes missing and appointments are harder to secure. A Kansas City-based paralegal said cases were getting stuck in purgatory because there are not enough workers to handle them or answer the phone to explain what is happening.
SSA says the system is moving faster, not slower. The agency said callers to its national 800 number were being served 80% more quickly than under the Biden administration, field-office wait times were down 30% and disability hearing waits were down 40%. It also said service is improving through technology and process changes.
But researchers who interviewed 52 benefits representatives at 32 nonprofit organizations, groups that collectively help more than 8,000 people a year, found a different picture. They said vulnerable benefit recipients were facing longer delays, mounting confusion and more barriers even though eligibility rules had not changed. Several advocates said experienced workers who once helped untangle difficult cases had left, while others described AI chatbots that could not answer basic questions.
The staffing loss sits inside a broader overhaul that has unsettled the agency’s public-facing service. Social Security officials said in March 2025 that people would no longer be able to apply for benefits by phone, then reversed that policy a month later. In June 2025, the agency removed key customer service metrics from its website, including phone wait times and disability claim processing times. It also closed six of its 10 regional offices.
That leaves the biggest unanswered question as the workload keeps shifting: how many disability applicants are now stuck in the queue, and how much of the backlog is being masked by the agency’s own service metrics? The answer will determine whether the staffing cuts are a temporary strain or a lasting break in how the Social Security system works.
