Social Security has long been the centerpiece of federal entitlement spending, sending $1.6 trillion in retirement checks to retirees, their survivors, and disabled Americans in 2025, but the same program has also perennially lost hundreds of billions of tax dollars to multiple forms of waste, fraud, and inefficiency.

The result was a constant flow of news reports about dead people getting Social Security checks, disability aid going to perfectly healthy individuals, elderly applicants dying before their applications were processed, and countless other varieties of waste, fraud, incompetence, and abuse.

Frequently at the center of such problems is the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program that provides financial assistance to 8.3 million disabled American workers and their dependents. Fixing SSI was one of SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s top priorities when the Senate confirmed him in May 2025.

Despite criticism from liberal academics, nonprofit advocates, and attorneys specializing in disability litigation, Bisignano’s efforts are producing dramatically positive improvements in service delivery and management efficiency, according to a SSA spokesman who asked not to be named:

• “In September of last year, Commissioner Bisignano created a new SSI Improvement Team to make SSI processing more efficient and help recipients comply with program requirements. This team reviewed more than 170 recommendations and [has] identified policy improvements that SSA is implementing quickly.
• “By September 2025, SSA fully implemented the Payroll Information Exchange (PIE) and began running monthly verification of payroll data, for those who provided authorization, to reduce the reporting burden for recipients.
• “Expanded the use of Access to Financial Institution (AFI) data to identify assets that may affect SSI eligibility. Since excess resources are a major cause of improper payments, identifying them early allows us to make accurate payments, avoid large overpayments, and get benefits to those who need them.
• “By encouraging customers to upload documents to their personal online account through my Social Security, SSA reduced the effort and time it takes beneficiaries to get documents to SSA, allowing the team to process claims quicker.
• “For SSI recipients who are in an institution, SSA created a ‘decision tree’ for processing important forms that allow care facilities and hospitals to manage SSI payments if the resident is unable.”

Bisignano’s previous work in the financial management industry led to his being CEO and Chairman of the Board of Fiserv, the world’s largest financial services company. His record of success in that industry made him a logical choice to head SSA, but he brought personal knowledge of and experience with the importance of SSI to millions of Americans.

“Supplemental Security Income is a lifeline for millions of Americans. Growing up in a multigenerational household, I know this firsthand. When my grandfather lost his vision, Social Security played a vital role in supporting our family. Through a digital-first transformation, I am committed to strengthening payment accuracy, streamlining program processes, and delivering benefits to those who need them,” Bisignano told The Washington Stand.

Even so, earlier this month, a massive report entitled “A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025” was jointly published by two major advocacy groups, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). The report’s authors included Assistant Professor Matthew Borus of Binghamton University; Katie Savin, assistant professor in the School of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento; and Callie Freitag, an assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We identified five major areas to which respondents attributed worsening disability benefits access: (a) changes to the phone system, (b) field offices’ appointment and walk-in policies, (c) staff cuts and reassignments, (d) increased processing times and denials, and (e) increased over-payments and payment center,” the report’s authors claimed.

To illustrate the problems the authors claimed to have documented, the report quoted anonymous sources asserting, for example, that “administrative burdens in disability benefit access were disproportionately borne by people with limited technological literacy and Internet access, those with psychiatric, cognitive or communication disabilities, people with unstable housing and members of mixed-status immigrant families.”

Similarly, the report said, “respondents described the erosion of accountability mechanisms within SSA, resulting in part from the consolidating of regional offices, which greatly diminished advocates ability to resolve errors when routine problem-solving failed.” And, according to the report, “respondents commonly described SSA staff arbitrarily departing from national policy and inventing their own rules, undermining SSA’s rules-based system.”

But SSA’s spokesman roundly rejected such assertions, contending that “Commissioner Bisignano is transforming the way SSA processes disability claims to reduce delays and give a decision to Americans who desperately need one. Contrary to the biased report that is based on cherry-picked instances rather than comprehensive data, Americans with disabilities are benefiting because of streamlined processes for disability claims, smarter technology, and stronger federal-state partnerships.”

The spokesman continued, “SSA has reduced the pending initial claims backlog by over 30% and the average processing time at the hearing level to the lowest time in the last two decades. The Commissioner is committed to serving Americans wherever they want to be served — online, on the phone, or in a field office. SSA regularly hears from and implements feedback from advocates, field office staff, and beneficiaries.”

As evidence of the results of Bisignano’s efforts, the spokesman pointed out that a backlog of disability adjudication pending cases that exceeded 1.27 million in June 2024 has now been reduced by 30%, while the Average Processing Time (APT) for initial claims is 45 days faster than it was in January 2025, and 2.3 million initial claim clearances last year, a 10% improvement over 2024.

In addition, the spokesman said SSA’s average processing time in cases involving Administrative Law Judge hearings has been cut to 265 days, the shortest period compiled by the agency in two decades.

A spokesman for the report did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Stand.