Why can't I reach a live person when I call the Social Security Administration?
I often wonder why it is so difficult to speak to a live person when I call the local Social Security office. I either receive a busy signal or I am sent to some kind of message system. Sometimes, when I am in line waiting for my turn, I am suddenly disconnected. The Social Security Administration ("SSA") is a government agency that we all use at some point in our lives. Why is it so hard to talk to someone? What can you do to obtain the information you need? I will address both questions in this post.
Recently the Government Accounting Office ("GAO") published a report on SSA's poor service. You may see the report here: Social Security Administration Field Offices: Reduced Workforce Faces Challenges as Baby Boomers Retire. In preparation for the report, they reviewed SSA's internal data and also visited 21 field offices and two Social Security Card Centers over a two year period from 2005-2007.
Their data combined with SSA data showed that between fiscal years 2002 and 2006, the average waiting time to first contact for all customers increased by 40 percent from 15 to 21 minutes. Nationally, 8 percent of customers - about 3 million people waited more than 1 hour, which included 420,000 customers who waited more than 2 hours for service in fiscal year 2007.
The SSA's data from 2006 also showed that 51 percent of customer calls to 48 randomly selected field offices went unanswered. Because SSA based its results only on customers who were ultimately able to get through to the field offices, the actual percentage of calls that went unanswered may have been higher. In addition, staff at 13 of 21 of the offices that GAO visited characterized their phone service as inadequate, while 2 of these offices did not answer their offices' phones at all.
The GAO believes that the poor performance is directly related to budgetary staff reductions and that the situation is only going to get worse. SSA projects that 44 percent of its workforce will retire by 2016. The first wave of approximately 80 million baby boomers is reaching the age of retirement eligibility, and the SSA estimates that retirement and disability filings will increase the agency's work by approximately1 million annual claims by 2017.
It appears to be a dismal situation. Here are some suggestions that may help you when contacting Social Security.
1. Avoid any human contact with SSA and file online.
When filing an initial claim for disability, I assist my clients by filing online. You may do this by going to the Social Security Administration's website and follow the links that allow you to file online. By filing online, you do not need to speak to anyone and you receive instant confirmation of the filing of your claim. SSA is constantly making improvements to their system and I expect that this will continue.
2. Use the mail.
If I cannot file something online, I will download the forms, complete them with my client and then mail them to a local field office. Again, this has the advantage of never having to deal with a live person You can find the closest field office by using the SSA's office locator.
These are the two Social Security offices located closest to my offices in Benicia and in San Francisco but there are additional field offices in San Francisco not listed in this post.
San Francisco
90 7th Street Annex, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel. (415) 556-4043
Vallejo
106 Plaza Drive, Suite A
Vallejo, CA 94591
Tel. (707) 643-3409
3. Send a fax.
When I need to obtain something from a field office such as a copy of a client's file, I fax them a letter. This works most of the time.
4. Phone or go to the local office.
If the methods above do not work, I will call them and will patiently wait until someone answers the phone. I am sometimes able to obtain a resolution to the problem if someone answers the phone. The odds are not in your favor that your phone call will be answered so you may have to take the extra step and go to the field office. Bring a book.
5. Never give up.
The SSA is a bureaucracy. Unfortunately the people who need help are the least likely to be able to obtain it from the SSA because it is difficult to navigate through the system. There is no way around it. You will succeed if you are persistent and follow all methods above, some at the same time.
