Pros
Not a whole lot of pros. Pay is okay if you live in a LCOL city. Job security is also a plus. Steady paycheck.
Cons
Where to even start. Micromanaged daily. Constant emails from management asking "what's going on with this case" while constantly being told to stop working on your cases to assist in answering phones or working a reception window. Management does not help at ALL. They love to just hide in their offices all day just laughing and giggling during their own personal meetings about insane topics that is irrelevant to the mission. All managers have their own "pet projects" which cause MORE issues for staff doing the work. They think they are being "innovative" but are really just getting in the way. So so SO much random workloads to track with very little time to actually work on your tasks. Honestly, an unfathomable workload, and that's an understatement. SSA is still using systems coded in COBAL, from the 70s. Agency is a joke and managers literally do not care about you or respect you. You'll get yelled at all day by claimants for stuff that isn't your fault or they yell and cry that the form they sent in 2 days ago should already be processed by now. Give me a break, SSA is so understaffed it's unreal. People are leaving the agency in droves and the "best" solutions management can come up with is "lets help them write their resumes and practice their interview skills!" Pure delusion. When it comes to giving yearly reviews, NEVER expect to get anything more than "meets expectations." No matter how hard you work, you will never get a top score as they don't want to give out too many raises or (gosh forbid) boost employee morale.