Baldwin, Senators Investigate Social Security Agencys Customer Service Chaos & Disruption of Services

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and her Senate colleagues are launching a new investigation into the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) ongoing customer service crisis reaching new extremes. The Senators are raising concerns that SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s staffing cuts and staff reassignments have left the agency unable to fully serve the nearly 75 million Americans who rely on the program.

“(Staff) reassignments are band-aid solutions to patch over ongoing service problems that have plagued the agency under your leadership,” wrote Baldwin and the Senators, highlighting ongoing staffing shortages and field office closures.

“Your forced staff reassignments are harming Social Security beneficiaries, endangering the accuracy of claims, and wasting taxpayer dollars. When SSA pulls employees away from already understaffed field offices or from processing backlogs in claims, customer service and the timely delivery of benefits suffer,” continued the Senators.

Staff cuts have left the agency with an average of only one field office representative per nearly 4,000 beneficiaries – a ratio that is 12 percent higher than it was before the cuts. With over 100,000 people visiting their local SSA office every day, these staffing reductions translate to declining customer service. According to a recent survey of SSA employees, nearly two-thirds reported that “service quality had declined in the past 12 months” and 70 percent reported “service speed had declined.”

Over the last year, the Trump administration has slashed SSA’s workforce by over 7,000 employees, causing some rural field offices to close. At the same time, SSA is short-staffing field offices in an effort to eliminate 15 million in-person field office visits, forcing seniors and people with disabilities to wait even longer for an appointment or wait hours on the phone to speak with a live agent.

Instead of fixing those problems, Bisignano has attempted to cover up the mess by reassigning employees and seeking technological shortcuts to paper over staff shortages. Some of those reassignments include pulling expert employees away from SSA’s “disability adjudication, financial and management, field office services, risk and quality, digital services and chief information officer units” to help answer SSA’s national phone line.

Reassigned employees are reportedly now only receiving three hours of training before starting on the SSA help line, despite the agency claiming they would receive eight hours of training. Employees familiar with handling the phone line say that eight hours of training is “insufficient due to the complexity of issues that can arise on a call.” The impacts of this lack of training are already becoming apparent — with literal life and death consequences. Newly reassigned employees have reported that they are receiving alarming guidance on handling callers expressing suicidal thoughts, including reminding callers “that suicide is only one option.”

Bisignano’s past responses to Congress about staff reassignments and field office wait times failed to provide details on the number of employees reassigned or clarify the length of their reassignments. He has also failed to answer the senators’ metric-specific questions on the initial results of reassignments.

The Senators asked Bisignano to provide information about the ongoing staff reassignments and customer service problems at SSA by March 27, 2026.

As Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS), Senator Baldwin has been a leader in the Senate in holding SSA accountable under the Trump Administration. In February of 2025, Senator Baldwin demanded answers from then Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek on DOGE’s access to Americans’ sensitive Social Security information. In March of 2025, Senator Baldwin pressed the Trump Administration on their plans to slash the SSA workforce and called on the administration to reverse course on their plan to instate in-person verification that would put up roadblocks for seniors to access their benefits. In July of 2025, Senator Baldwin demanded that the SSA stop using the agency email to peddle lies about the Republican reconciliation bill.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) led the letter and it was also signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL),Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The full text of the letter is available here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.