As anyone familiar with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its communications is well aware, the agency continues to highlight its transformations, especially in customer service – proclaiming them in a positive light and expressing how its efforts are bettering those in need of SSA’s services. In addition to these customer service-related communications, SSA has kept up with updating its current performance metrics, despite the agency modifying which metrics are made public and many of them pertaining to online usage.

Now officially halfway through 2026, the Olinsky Law Group team is taking the opportunity to review SSA’s performance metrics, offering a critical insight.

When calling attention to their efforts favorably, SSA often supports these claims of improvement by referring to changes in performance data. These performance changes include both increases and decreases, such as an increase in online transactions and a decrease in the average speed of answer. Now although these changes do appear promising, the team has observed data points experiencing total increases that can be viewed more as causes for concern than as improvements.

Increases in Total Quantity

Pending Hearings:

The long wait times associated with applying for disability benefits is a frequent challenge for claimants, especially when they progress to the hearing level. According to SSA’s performance, an improvement they’ve shared is how the average processing time of disability hearings has actually decreased steadily since 2025, specifically decreasing by 20 days over the past year. However, regarding their hearing data, something to note is that the total quantity of current pending hearings has significantly increased. Since May 2025, the total number has increased by over 85,000 with a current total of more than 360,000 hearings pending. With the number of hearings pending continuing to increase, this becomes a cause for concern regarding the long wait times of the process and whether SSA will be able to lower the average processing time further.

Customer Service Requests:

Obtaining effective assistance from SSA is another challenge claimants and disability representatives often face. Although the agency continues to positively shine light on their customer service efforts, a second overall increase the team viewed includes the total number of customer service requests. Compared to YTD 2025, the total number of customer service requests has increased by 4 million. Breaking this down even further, these customer requests include both online and phone-based interactions, as the total number of callers, callbacks and MySSA accounts created have all increased over the year. In the eyes of SSA, these increases are seen as improvements and indicate that more people are looking to use their services yet does not fully represent its customer service success rate.

Key Takeaways:

Both data points have shown an increase in total, and while SSA continues to portray its operations as effective and beneficial, these increases still present potential problems for the agency, and as a result, claimants and their representatives.

The observed increases in customer requests for both phone and online metrics reflect a notable change in more people seeking assistance, which SSA recognizes as an improvement. However, customer service satisfaction remains unclear and although SSA is seeing more customer requests, their performance metrics do not fully capture whether those requests are being successfully resolved and more importantly, how customers feel about their experience. As a result, the state of customer service satisfaction may become an issue if the total number of individuals needing assistance is increasing and the success rate data remains unmeasured and unrevealed.

Regarding hearings pending, SSA has highlighted their goal to lower the average processing time to 270 days. Although that goal has been seemingly achieved, a large increase in the total number of hearings pending over the year becomes another critical factor that could affect the ongoing long wait times which claimants and representatives already face. With the total number increasing, it will be interesting to see how the average processing time for hearings is affected and if the number of hearings pending continues to rise.

Final Thoughts:

At the end of June, SSA released another announcement pertaining to customer service, highlighting how their service is the best it’s ever been. After taking a closer look at the current state of their performance figures, it is evident that although the reported metrics do reflect favorable changes to an extent, the overall increases outlined above present potential concerns. Between total customer service requests and the quantity of hearings pending increasing, it remains to be seen how the long wait times, specifically at the hearing level, continue to unfold and whether customer service satisfaction is measured and progresses.