Democrats on congressional panels who heard from Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano on June 10, 2026, were skeptical that he would provide a full picture of the delays some Americans face when trying to apply for benefits or inquiring about a problem they are having with the program. (Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – The head of the Social Security Administration testified before Congress on Wednesday that customer service has improved dramatically over the past year, but declined to offer ways to address the program’s dire financial situation.
Commissioner Frank Bisignano instead left it up to lawmakers who must make changes to the safety net program for tens of millions of Americans before it becomes insolvent in six years.
Bisignano’s statement came just a day after Social Security administrators announced the statement their annual report The Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be “depleted” in the fourth quarter of 2032, earlier than previously expected. Once this happens, benefits will automatically drop by 22% and gradually decline from there.
“I always thought my job was to make it work as well as possible so that all of you have a range of options and choices to decide how this great American program, which, as you know, basically some people call the greatest insurance program of all, others might call it the greatest pension program of all, is going to work. Anyway, the idea is to make it work well so that you all can make the decisions,” Bisignano said.
Republicans on the Social Security Subcommittee and the Labor and Welfare Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, which held the meeting two-hour hearingwere satisfied with the statistics that Bisignano published about its social security administration.
But Democrats on the panel were skeptical that he provided a complete picture of the delays some Americans face when trying to apply for benefits or inquiring about a problem with the program.
Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, ranking member on the Labor and Human Services Subcommittee, said the Social Security Administration’s “statements on customer service do not always appear to reflect the reality Americans are experiencing.”
“Press releases claiming dramatic improvements in SSA customer service, particularly the 800 number, contradict reports from AARP and our constituents,” Davis said. “Across the country, people report standing in long lines at Social Security offices or being turned away and asked to make appointments only to find that no appointments are available.
“Similarly, it seems misleading to claim zero call wait times for seniors who have waited hours or days for a call back, or to praise short call wait times for people whose problems go unresolved.”
Debate about statistics
Bisignano testified that he delivered “the best overall performance ever at the Social Security Administration.”
“More than 99% of our field offices are open and open to the public, with the average wait time reduced to 20 minutes, a 30% improvement. No field offices are closed due to staffing shortages,” he said. “We now answer 90% of calls on our 800 number and have reduced the average wait time to five minutes, a 75% improvement.”
Bisignano added that “web transactions” were up 37% and account openings were up 21%.
California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu said she found the statistics provided by Bisignano to be “extremely misleading,” in part because the government categorizes anyone who requests a callback instead of waiting on hold as having a zero-minute wait time.
“The American people deserve accurate information about how long they will likely have to wait when trying to get help for their benefits,” she said.
Chu then shared the story of a woman who tried to schedule an in-person appointment to apply for survivor benefits after her husband died in July, but didn’t get an appointment until October.
“When she finally got an appointment, she had to wait at least four months,” she said.
Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford pressed Bisignano on the wait times at the Las Vegas field office for obstruction hearings, which he said would take nearly a year.
“My office continues to hear from seniors, people with disabilities and working families who are not getting answers and are unable to access the benefits they are entitled to,” Horsford said. “Last year you promised improvements. Today, Las Vegas applicants with disabilities face a nearly 11-month wait.”
Horsford then asked if Bisignano would “designate a senior SSA contact to work directly with me and my office on unresolved voter cases.”
Bisignano said he would send the head of the disability division to see Horsford in his office.
Social Security solvency
While the subcommittees and Bisignano barely scratched the surface of Social Security’s financial problems during the hearing, a separate event hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget addressed those problems.
Karen Glenn, senior actuary at the Social Security Administration, said during her presentation on the topic Trustees report that addressing the program’s budgetary problems was “a simple mathematical problem” but “a difficult political problem.”
“We can either increase planned revenues by about a third, reduce planned services by about a quarter, or a combination of both,” she said. “So it sounds simple, but in practice it’s not that easy.”
Glenn said one of the purposes of the annual report to Congress is to “provide information to assess solvency and the changes needed to address these deficits.”
“The trustees have consistently maintained that Congress should act sooner rather than later,” she said. “We almost don’t have time for that anymore. Basically we’re stuck with the latter.”
Mark Sarney, director of Social Security policy at CRFB, said he doesn’t think Congress will be able to boost the annual deficit to avoid a decline in benefits because “we’re likely to have debt problems well before 2032.”
That presents lawmakers in the House and Senate with elaborate decisions they will have to make over the next few years.
“Hopefully there will be more and more calls in Congress to actually get serious and do something,” Sarney said. “Because if you allow the cut, that’s about 1% of the economy suddenly no longer being issued in checks, which may be less important in some parts of the country, but in others where most of the population depends on Social Security, that’s going to be a hammer blow to people’s lives and the economy. And nobody wants that.”
