New SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano: Will Your Benefits Change?

New SSA Commissioner: Frank Bisignano is now the new head of the Social Security Administration after the US Senate voted 53-47 to confirm him. He brings a long background in finance, having worked with big names like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and most recently as CEO of Fiserv.

Many leaders from the Republican side are saying he’s the right person for the job because he understands how to manage big systems and use new technology. But not everyone feels the same. Some Democrats and groups that watch over public benefits are worried about his links to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is now being led by Elon Musk under the Trump administration.

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Some people fear this connection could lead to risks in how personal information is handled or how benefits are given out. During his Senate hearing, Bisignano tried to calm those fears and said, “I am going to do whatever is required to protect the information that is private.” He wants people to know their data is safe.

Fixing Problems and Helping People Faster

Bisignano said one of his first goals is to fix the issue of payment mistakes. Right now, the SSA has an error rate of about 1%. That might not sound like a lot, but he called it “five decimal places too high,” showing how serious he is about making it better. He said he wants to use tools like artificial intelligence to help lower these mistakes and improve the way money is processed.

But he isn’t only focusing on the numbers. He also wants to make things easier for people who contact SSA for help. At the moment, only about 46% of calls to SSA get answered. That’s a problem he says he wants to fix quickly.

His goal is to cut that wait time way down, even saying he hopes to “get that to under a minute.” He believes AI can help SSA workers give better answers faster and more accurately, which could help people who are waiting for answers about their benefits or disability claims.

He also talked about how the SSA sometimes gives people more money than they should and then tries to get it back. He said that while the agency should recover money when needed, it should also treat people with care. He said, “I’m going to make sure that we recover all the money we should recover, but on the other hand we have to be humans in the process, too.”

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DOGE Involvement

Even though Bisignano has made promises to improve things and protect people’s information, not everyone is convinced yet. Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon spoke up about a letter from a whistleblower.

That letter claimed Bisignano had been given private information about SSA before he was officially in charge, including inside updates on how things work and who runs what. Bisignano said that wasn’t true. He told the Senate he had not taken part in any DOGE meetings or discussions about SSA before getting confirmed.