The letter was made public by Sen. Elizabeth Warren this week.
The inspector general’s office for the Social Security Administration (SSA) indicated in a newly released letter that it has initiated an audit into the agency’s metrics on wait times.
Michelle Anderson, the acting inspector general of the agency, responded to a question from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that the investigation was opened last month, according to the letter dated Aug. 21. The letter was made public by Warren’s office in a news release issued on Wednesday.
“SSA OIG expectation is we will be able to obtain the necessary information in an expedited manner to address the issues you raised in your letter and complete this audit before the end of the calendar year,” Anderson wrote in her letter to Warren. She also said she spoke with agency Commissioner Frank Bisignano about questions raised by Warren.
Anderson further said that after meetings “between our staffs,” she signed off on an audit of the agency’s telephone metrics. The investigation will look into the accuracy of the SSA’s service metrics as well as the “extent of performance changes during Fiscal Year 2025, including the factors that may have contributed to those changes,” she said.
Bisignano, who took over the agency in May after he was confirmed by the Senate, has said that he would improve the agency’s customer service, telephone wait times, and improve on organizational structure at the agency.
In statements released on the SSA’s website, the agency has said that it has made improvements in wait times and efficiency since the changes were initiated.
However, Warren said in her statement this week that an investigation in June “found that wait times averaged nearly an hour and 45 minutes, with maximum wait times exceeding three hours” and attempted to refute statements made by the agency.
The “SSA continues to report that wait times are eight minutes — a number incompatible with SSA’s own public data, the results of Senator Warren’s investigation, and other independent reporting,” added Warren’s office.
Last month, Bisignano sent a letter to Warren that disputed allegations she made about wait times and said that the SSA is currently undergoing “a customer service turnaround after four years of long wait times and record backlogs” under the Biden administration.
Bisignano further said that Warren did not express any interest in what he said were longer wait times or customer service issues under the previous administration and that his “focus is improving customer service in an agency that, despite the efforts of its dedicated public servants, has struggled for many years.”
