Larson and Ways and Means Democrats Lead Call to Restore Customer Service Data Purged from Social Security Website
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Ranking Member John B. Larson (CT-01) and Ways and Means Committee Democrats wrote to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano demanding he restore the customer service performance data the Trump Administration removed from Social Security’s website.
“Removing customer service data from the Social Security Administration’s website is the latest move by this President and his ‘DOGE’ to move toward privatization,” said Larson. “At the same time that they are cutting staff, closing offices, and denying seniors access to services over the phone, the Social Security Administration is scrubbing data from the internet to avoid accountability from Congress and the more than 70 million Americans who receive benefits. My Democratic colleagues and I are demanding transparency and answers. Some of the American people may have been born at night, but not last night. They deserve the truth and nothing less from their government, especially when it comes to their hard-earned benefits.”
“The agency’s removal of comprehensive customer service data calls into question whether this Administration seeks to hide from the public the negative customer service impacts of its staffing cuts,” the Members wrote in their letter. “During your June 25th appearance before the Committee on Ways and Means, you testified that you want to improve customer service performance at the agency. While we appreciate this commitment, particularly after the significant damage done by the Trump Administration over the last several months, it will be difficult for the public to monitor whether you are making good on that goal going forward without the robust performance metrics your agency had previously reported to the public and regularly updated.”
Until June 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) published and regularly updated on its website a variety of customer service metrics, including how long it would likely take for SSA to answer calls or process benefit applications. But early last month, SSA abruptly removed that comprehensive menu of data from its website and replaced it with a new page that provides more limited information on the agency’s performance. For example, it no longer includes the current callback wait time for SSA’s 1-800 number or any information on processing times for benefit claims.
The full letter is available HERE and below.
Dear Commissioner Bisignano:
We write to express our strong concern with the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) recent removal of many key customer service performance metrics from the agency’s website, and to urge you to restore all the metrics as soon as possible so the public can continue to monitor the agency’s performance.
Up until June 2025, SSA published a variety of customer service metrics, including how long it would likely take for SSA to answer calls or process benefit applications. That information was regularly updated on SSA’s webpage and included thirty-four different performance metrics related to 1-800 number performance, processing time for Retirement, Survivor, and Medicare benefits, disability claim processing time, disability decision reconsideration time, and disability hearings decision processing time. This information was critical for beneficiaries and those assisting them to track wait times and monitor the agency’s customer service programs, which are funded with their Social Security contributions.
Early last month SSA abruptly removed that comprehensive menu of data from its website and replaced it with a new webpage that provides much more limited and sometimes misleading information on the agency’s customer service performance. We are concerned that this new menu is far less helpful for our constituents in knowing what to expect when interacting with SSA. For example, the new menu no longer includes any information on current callback wait times—only an “average speed of answer” metric that explicitly excludes callback wait times. The new menu also does not include any information on processing times for retirement claims —a startling omission given that retirees make up the majority of SSA beneficiaries. Additionally, the metrics that are shown seem designed to pressure beneficiaries to use online tools instead of talking to live people, an option that simply doesn’t work for all beneficiaries, especially the very old and people in rural areas with poor Internet access.
We are also concerned that SSA’s new performance webpage limits the public’s ability to judge the effect of the agency’s so-called “reorganization” earlier this year. It will result in around 7,000 staff cuts—about 1 in 8 SSA employees—and we have already heard countless reports from across the country about longer wait times and delays at SSA. The agency’s removal of comprehensive customer service data calls into question whether this Administration seeks to hide from the public the negative customer service impacts of its staffing cuts. During your June 25th appearance before the Committee on Ways and Means, you testified that you want to improve customer service performance at the agency. While we appreciate this commitment, particularly after the significant damage done by the Trump Administration over the last several months, it will be difficult for the public to monitor whether you are making good on that goal going forward without the robust performance metrics your agency had previously reported to the public and regularly updated.
We also note that, following a June 20th Washington Post report on the changes to SSA’s performance website, the agency restored one additional metric to the new site: a chart showing the six-year trend of disability determination processing times. That the agency chose to cherry pick and restore only this metric, and not any of the others that had been removed, only deepens our concern about why your agency continues to keep hidden certain metrics that had previously been publicly available.
The tens of millions of Americans who paid into and rely on Social Security deserve transparency regarding wait times at SSA and other customer service performance metrics. And taxpayers deserve to know whether you are keeping your promise to improve customer service going forward. We therefore urge you to restore to SSA’s performance webpage all the robust public data that the agency had previously reported prior to June 2025, including historical data, and to regularly update that data. We thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to your response.