Social Security Administration Reports FY 2026 Results: 800-Number Waits Down 80%, Online Transactions Top 571 Million
Washington — The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on November 2 released its progress and accomplishments for fiscal year 2026. Under Commissioner Frank Bisignano, SSA said it advanced a digital-first strategy: wait times on the National 800 Number fell 80 percent since fiscal 2024, with a zero percent busy rate maintained over the last six months, while average field office wait times fell 30 percent compared with fiscal 2024 as offices served nearly 30 million visitors.
Online, SSA eliminated 29 hours of scheduled weekly downtime for personal my Social Security accounts, making them available 24/7 and adding more than 10 million logins over the past year. The agency completed more than 571 million online transactions, a 30 percent increase from fiscal 2024, and registered my Social Security account holders surpassed 105 million, a 20 percent increase that SSA says makes it the nation's largest digital financial services provider.
On backlogs and records, SSA said it reduced processing times and backlogs for initial disability claims and shortened the annual average wait for a hearing. It completed the largest Social Security number database cleanup in agency history, correcting nearly 15 percent of active SSN records, adding 17 million missing dates of death, and updating approximately 25 million records with missing citizenship information.
On stewardship, SSA said it has recovered approximately $645 million in delinquent programmatic debts since resuming the Treasury Offset Program in March 2025, implemented a record number of audit recommendations to bring open recommendations to a 40-year low, and generated approximately $16 billion in estimated savings. Collectively, SSA said, the service improvements saved the public 200 million hours of waiting.
The annual summary was issued November 2 as a Dear Colleague letter signed by Nick Perrine, SSA's chief communications officer, alongside an SSA press release. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefit more than 76 million Americans; SSA announced last month that benefits will rise 3.6 percent in 2027.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国社会保障管理局总部大楼群（马里兰州 Woodlawn）。Coolcaesar 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Headquarters of the U.S. Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, Maryland. Photo by Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
