O’Malley resigns as SSA commissioner

Martin O’Malley, commissioner of the Social Security Administration, will leave his position at the end of this month.

O’Malley announced his resignation on Monday while sharing his plans to seek a nomination for chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“We must connect our party to the most important place in America – the kitchen table of every family’s home,” O’Malley wrote in a post on X announcing his resignation.

The New York Times first reported O’Malley’s planned resignation, effective November 29.

O’Malley held the top position at SSA for just under a year. President Joe Biden nominated O’Malley as SSA commissioner in July 2023, and the Senate confirmed him to the role in December 2023. Before leading SSA, O’Malley served as governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore. He also unsuccessfully ran for Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

During O’Malley’s tenure at SSA, he focused largely on improving 1-800 wait times and initial disability determinations, as well as eradicating Social Security underpayments and overpayments.

Earlier this year, SSA launched a “Security Stat” initiative aimed at addressing customer experience challenges for the agency using data-driven decision making. In recent months, O’Malley has held regular “Security Stat” meetings to review performance data and identify actions to make progress toward better customer service.

However, O’Malley has also warned that without more resources and support, the SSA workforce will struggle to cope with rising employee workloads as the agency faces record numbers of grantees and historically low staffing levels.

“We have now reduced 800 wait times by 50%,” O’Malley told Senate lawmakers in September. “For the first time in recent history, we have processed more cases in initial disability determinations each week for 12 weeks in a row than were filed at the front end of that process. And we have reduced the backlog of appellate hearings to its lowest level in 30 years. But make no mistake: these recent gains will be short-lived without your immediate attention and support.”

O’Malley will testify before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday about the state of the SSA budget. At that hearing — which he said will be the first in a decade before the Appropriations Committee — O’Malley is expected to tell lawmakers that the agency’s lowest staffing levels in 50 years have caused “severe damage” to the way SSA serves citizens.

“The result of the growing gap between record customer numbers and 50-year lows in staffing levels is this: the customer service that Americans have already paid for has fallen to crisis-level lows,” he stated in his written testimony. . “We can restore the excellent customer service you and your constituents expect and demand from Social Security – but only if you do your part in Congress. The President’s FY 2025 budget funding level would be a huge step in the right direction to provide the American people with a level of customer service they have already paid for but have been consistently denied in recent years.”

In his first few months at the Social Security Administration, O’Malley also traveled to various SSA offices across the country to meet with agency workers on what he described as a “listening tour.”

And in 2024, SSA employee outcomes in agency engagement, satisfaction and leadership all trended positively for the first time in years in the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results.

The agency received a 70% response rate to the 2024 FEVS, thanks in part to an agency-wide marketing campaign. O’Malley led the campaign to encourage more employees to complete the survey.

In another recent update, SSA announced on November 13 that the agency is moving away from walk-in clients at field offices and focusing on primarily scheduled appointments. Beginning in January 2025, SSA will require most customers to make an appointment before visiting a field office.

The agency said it will make some exceptions for walk-ins for those who cannot or do not want to make an appointment, or who otherwise need special attention. This includes, for example, members of vulnerable population groups, such as military personnel and people with terminal illnesses.

By 2024, almost 400 social security field offices will have switched to appointment-based services.

“These offices have seen significant improvements in wait times thanks to more efficient and helpful visitor experiences and an increase in the number of customers who can conduct their business online,” SSA wrote in a Nov. 13 announcement. “As a reminder, many of our services can be provided by appointment over the phone and do not require a customer to walk into an office for service.”

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