KY Social Security offices lost 9% of staff in 2025. Has it affected services?
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- Kentucky Social Security staff fell 9.4% from 2024 to 2025.
- SSA moved to more online services and adopted a new telephone platform.
- Advocates say call backs and services slowed due to staffing cuts
A January report from a national think tank shows Kentucky’s Social Security offices have lost 9.4% of staff as part of a broader trimming of more than 6,600 employees from the agency across the country.
An analysis from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy institute, looked at government employment data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for Social Security offices from fiscal year 2024 to November 2025. Federal government fiscal years are from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
In fiscal year 2024, there were 726 Kentucky employees. By November 2025, the number dropped to 658, federal data shows. There are 26 Social Security offices in Kentucky.
Two of those offices were originally slated by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, for closure in early 2025. One, an already-closed hearing office in Hazard, remains shuttered. But DOGE reversed the closure of an office in Campbellsville and closures of other Social Security offices throughout the country.
The Center for American Progress report shows overall staffing at the agency down by 11% nationwide in fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024.
The reduction in staffing is part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to slash the federal workforce and reduce spending in some government agencies.
Still, Kentucky’s staffing levels are better than other states. The Center for American Progress report found 33 states with staffing declines of more than 10%.
More than 1 million people in Kentucky receive Social Security benefits, including retirees, people with disabilities, and survivors, according to Social Security data.
“In Kentucky, fewer experienced SSA staff means longer wait times, fewer appointments, and more barriers for older adults and people with disabilities trying to get the help they’ve earned,” said Molly Weston Williamson, author of the report for the Center on American Progress.
A spokesperson for the Social Security Administration said Commissioner Frank Bisignano “has consistently pledged to have the right level of staffing to ensure SSA operates at peak efficiency.”
Agency officials said the agency is getting faster at responding to the public.
“Today, SSA is serving more people at quicker speeds, whether it’s on the phone, in-person, or online. The average wait time for visitors at field offices decreased by nearly 30 percent from FY 2024 to FY 2025, and those with an appointment waited on average just six minutes to be helped. Technology improvements allowed 90 percent of calls to now be resolved via self-service or convenient callbacks,” the spokesperson said.
A Dec. 22 Social Security Inspector General’s report showed improvements in wait times for callbacks and other services by the end of 2025.
Average speed of answer, the amount of time a constituent waits for an answer, was 13 minutes in October 2024, peaked at 30 minutes in January 2025 and was reduced to seven minutes in November, the report found.
That was an improvement over 2024 when average speed of answer was as high as 42 minutes in November 2023, the report found.
The report also found that due to cuts to staff for the 1-800-number for Social Security, more than 1,000 field office employees were being used to answer those 1-800 calls. The agency has also changed what types of data it shares publicly, the OIG report found. That’s largely due to changes in the phone system and constant change-over in the commissioner position, the report found.
Wait times, services still too slow, staff and advocates say
A recent survey of Social Security employees showed widespread concerns about customer service quality despite the OIG report.
The Strategic Organizing Center, a group that works with unions, conducted an online survey of 821 current Social Security workers in December and January. The survey found 65% of employees said service quality declined over the past year, and 70% said service speed declined.
Advocates for the elderly and the disabled said they are encouraged some service metrics for Social Security services have improved, but reports of delays and problems accessing Social Security still linger.
“Wait times for callbacks remain over an hour, and more than a quarter of callers are not being served - by getting disconnected or never receiving a callback, for instance,” said Jenn Jones, national AARP Vice President of Finance Security. “AARP will continue to work with SSA and Congress to ensure the agency keeps improving its service and delivers timely and accurate information to the tens of millions of older adults relying on Social Security.”
Kentucky AARP officials said they also continue to hear about sluggish and inadequate customer service.
“It’s encouraging that SSA has reportedly improved customer service with overall shorter phone wait times, though more work needs to be done,” said Scott Wegenast, AARP Kentucky communications manager.
“We’ve continued to hear from our members who are experiencing longer-than-necessary wait times. One woman from Lexington recently reported she had to wait two hours to make an appointment by phone and then got cut off. Another woman from Nicholasville reported to AARP that she called to try to make an appointment and was told she had to wait 120 minutes.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
