Trump Social Security Efforts Have Customer Service Calls Wait Times in the Hours….

This is NOT gonna earn Trump Good poll numb ers , nor is gonna help Republcan lawmakers votes…

The Trump administration has said it is improving Social Security customer service and dramatically cutting wait times to build on a phone experience that callers have complained about even before Trump. But the agency’s public reporting doesn’t count the time people wait for callbacks from humans, and nearly three dozen callers who spoke with The Washington Post or let a reporter join their calls said their experiences have not matched the agency’s claims.

The average wait time for a callback peaked at about 2½ hours from January to March, according to internal agency data obtained by The Post. The average time dropped to about an hour since July, when the agency added more field office workers to the 1-800 number, even as the agency has sought to reduce its workforce by thousands….

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Once callers get their estimated wait time, they might get offered a callback. The agency says 19.3 million calls were handled by callbacks this year, up from 6.8 million the previous year when the option was first introduced.

One Social Security worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the feature appeared helpful at first but has since deteriorated because of understaffing. Many of those she has called back don’t answer the phone because it has been hours or even weeks since their initial call, she said.

“I’ve had people answer the phone and say, ‘I called you guys a week ago. I just walked up to my local office because you guys never called me back,’” the employee said.

Mackey said the agency has reduced the proportion of calls handled by callback in recent months, from 81 percent in May to 65 percent in September.

“This is attributed to the positive impact technology and improved processes have had on significantly decreasing overall wait times,” Mackey said.

Shelley McLean, a 68-year-old technical writer from Brookhaven, New York, had been waiting for months for $31,000 that Social Security owed her in attorney fees as part of a disability case. She called on a Friday in August to check on it and was told her hold time would be 110 minutes.

McLean ended up getting a callback about 200 minutes later, after she already had personal plans and couldn’t answer the phone….

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It’s like I just don’t care anymore,

you know, in fact I’m about to cry

as I say this.

I just can’t deal with it anymore.

Just, I’m ready to just give up on

so many things, and I just gave

up on Social Security.

More…

Note….

The bosses won’t admit it….

But they need to rehire more humans to answer calls…..