SSA Major Management and Performance Challenges in Fiscal Year 2025

January 08, 2026

The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 (Pub. L. No. 106-531) requires that Federal Inspectors General summarize and assess the most serious management and performance challenges facing Federal agencies and the agencies’ progress in addressing those challenges.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has summarized and assessed the most serious management and performance challenges facing the Social Security Administration (SSA) in the annual report. In Fiscal Year 2025, SSA OIG focused on the following management and performance challenges:

Improve Service Delivery: SSA needs to enhance telephone, online, and frontline office services to improve the customer experience and deliver quality service. To do so, SSA must optimize staffing and address attrition to ensure it can provide the high level of customer service the public expects and deserves and support its efforts to become a digital-first organization.
Protect the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of SSA’s Information Systems and Data: SSA must ensure it secures its information systems and protects its sensitive data.
Modernize Information Technology: SSA must continue modernizing its information technology to accomplish its mission as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Improve Administration of the Disability Programs: SSA needs to improve how timely and accurately it processes disability-related workloads and improves its support for state disability determination services. Additionally, to prevent improper payments, SSA needs to ensure beneficiaries continue meeting disability eligibility factors.
Improve the Prevention, Detection, and Recovery of Improper Payments: SSA must be a responsible steward of the funds entrusted to its care by minimizing the risk of making improper payments and recovering overpayments when they occur.

In Fiscal Year 2025, SSA restructured its workforce and increased its focus on technology advancements. Given SSA’s impact on customer service and technology innovation, SSA OIG removed ‘Manage Human Capital’ as a standalone challenge. Instead, SSA OIG discusses human capital-related issues in each challenge. Further, as some of the challenges are interrelated, progress made in one area could lead to progress in another. For example, future modernization of SSA’s information technology would likely affect both service delivery and prevention of improper payments. In Fiscal Year 2026, SSA OIG will continue focusing on these issues and assessing the environment in which SSA operates.

Read the full report here.