Social Security Administration: Better Planning Needed to Improve Service Delivery

GAO Testimony by Barbara D. Bovbjerg, managing director, education, workforce, and income security, before the Subcommittee on Social Security, House Committee on Ways and Means

While SSA is managing increasing workloads resulting from growing retirement and disability claims, it still faces the challenge of providing quality service. SSA’s management of increased workloads came at a cost—the accuracy rate for SSI overpayments fell to the lowest level in 30 years, and some customer service continues to decline. These problems may become more severe as workloads continue to grow from the nation’s baby boom generation, waves of SSA’s most experienced staff retire, and the current level of field office staffing stays flat. Such challenges make it essential for SSA to develop a plan to manage its increasing workload. Whether SSA will need more resources or an altered field office infrastructure, or both, is unclear. We still believe that a detailed service delivery plan should make this clear, and if additional resources are needed to achieve agencywide goals, SSA should identify the resources required to meet long-term service delivery needs.
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