Visitors who book an appointment at a Social Security field office now wait about six minutes on average before being seen, while those who walk in without one wait about 26 minutes, according to the Social Security Administration’s latest performance data. The figures cover fiscal year 2026 through July, a period in which nearly 25…

Every January, Social Security mails beneficiaries a Form SSA-1099 reporting exactly how much the agency paid them the previous year, the figure used to work out how much of that money, if any, counts as taxable income. “Effective systems and clear guidance are important to ensuring payments are processed correctly,” Michelle L. Anderson, the Social…

A child had been collecting Supplemental Security Income since 1994 when his father qualified for Social Security retirement benefits in January 2006 — but the father’s application never named the child, and nobody flagged that the boy might also be owed a check on his father’s record. Four months later, in May 2006, the Social…

About 5,921 times over an eight-year stretch, the Social Security Administration paid a benefit into a deceased person’s bank account and never sent the paperwork asking the U.S. Treasury to get the money back. That estimate comes from a new evaluation by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General, which checked how consistently SSA uses…

When a Social Security overpayment traces back to fraud or a knowingly false statement, agency policy is supposed to recover the full amount by withholding a beneficiary’s entire monthly check. A new inspector general audit found that rule went unused in dozens of cases, including one where a $113,716 debt tied to misuse of a…

Social Security refers someone for an administrative sanction — a temporary loss of benefits — when a field office finds they lied or withheld information that affected their eligibility or payment amount. Between June 2017 and May 2022, the agency referred 6,568 people for exactly that penalty. A new inspector general audit found that only…

Some retirees who lose a spouse discover, too late, that Social Security offered a choice nobody explained to them: collect a survivor benefit now while a retirement benefit keeps growing untouched, or file for both at once and lock in a smaller combined check for life. A new inspector general audit found that choice went…

A Social Security number is supposed to follow one person for life, tying every dollar of reported earnings and every future benefit application to a single record. A federal audit released this month found that assumption broke down for 420 babies born between 2021 and 2024, each of whom ended up with two numbers instead…

In October 1992, a wage earner died at age 32, leaving behind a wife who would not apply for survivor benefits for another 24 years. When she finally filed in December 2016, the Social Security employee handling her claim used 1992 — the year her husband died — to calculate her benefit, instead of 2009,…

The Social Security Administration incorrectly recorded 24,219 living beneficiaries as deceased between January 2020 and December 2024, an error that can freeze a monthly check, trigger a bank account closure or block a credit application before anyone involved realizes what went wrong. A newly released audit from the agency’s own Office of the Inspector General…