REPORT: Social Security Administration Touts "Best Performance" in Agency's History

The Social Security Administration is touting what it calls the best performance in the agency’s history, reporting major improvements in customer service, disability processing, debt recovery, and fraud prevention during fiscal year 2026.

According to SSA’s Fiscal Year 2026 year-end report, released this week, the average wait time on the agency’s national 1-800 number fell to just 5.6 minutes in fiscal year 2026, down from 28 minutes in 2024 — an improvement of nearly 80 percent. Field-office wait times also declined by more than 30 percent, even as SSA served nearly 30 million in-person visitors.

“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, we are protecting and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said in a press release. “SSA’s digital-first strategy is driving transformational improvements and historic results across the agency as we execute on our mission to be a premier service organization. We are delivering better, faster, higher-quality service across all channels while safeguarding the long-term stability of our programs.”

The agency also reported significant progress on disability claims. The backlog of initial disability applications fell from nearly 1.2 million at the end of fiscal year 2024 to 911,000 at the end of fiscal year 2026, a 23 percent reduction. Average processing times for initial disability claims declined by 40 days.

At the same time, SSA says its renewed focus on program integrity and internal controls has produced approximately $16 billion in estimated savings since fiscal year 2024. The agency also recovered roughly $645 million in delinquent program debt after restarting the Treasury Offset Program in March 2025.

SSA additionally completed what it describes as the largest cleanup of the Social Security Number database in its 91-year history. The effort corrected nearly 15 percent of active Social Security records, added 17 million previously missing dates of death, and updated approximately 25 million records that had been missing citizenship information.

Those figures do not necessarily mean 17 million deceased people were improperly receiving Social Security benefits. Rather, they reflect missing death information in records used by SSA and other government agencies to verify identities and prevent improper payments.

Bisignano has credited the gains to a “digital-first” strategy that also eliminated 29 hours of scheduled weekly website downtime and helped drive more than 571 million online transactions during the fiscal year.

For seniors who have long complained about lengthy phone waits, crowded field offices, and bureaucratic delays, the most immediate takeaway is straightforward: according to SSA’s own performance data, getting help from the agency became substantially faster in 2026 while the government simultaneously tightened controls designed to protect taxpayer dollars.