Social Security Announces Workforce and Organization Plans
Reading Time: 2 MinutesLast Updated: February 28, 2025
Consistent with recent executive orders issued by the White House, the Social Security Administration will continue to implement efficiencies and reduce costs, with a renewed focus on mission critical work for the American people.
The agency plans to reduce the size of its bloated workforce and organizational structure, with a significant focus on functions and employees who do not directly provide mission critical services. Social Security recently set a staffing target of 50,000, down from the current level of approximately 57,000 employees. Rumor of a 50 percent reduction is false.
Initial steps to reduce the workforce included offering a limited number of employees the opportunity to leave the agency under the Deferred Resignation Program and Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA).
Yesterday, the agency announced to all employees that Social Security would soon implement agency-wide organizational restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions. The announcement includes offering Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) to all employees on a first come first serve basis and expanding VERA to all employees. Both VERA and VSIP require employees to opt in and to separate from the agency by specific dates.
Social Security anticipates that much of the staff reductions needed to reach the target of 50,000 will come from retirement, VSIP, and resignation. Additional reductions will come from reduction-in-force (RIF) actions that could include abolishment of organizations and positions. RIF also can include directed reassignments from one position to another position in the agency. Agencies are required to submit their RIF plans to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by March 13, 2025. No date has been set when a RIF might begin after OPM approves the plan.
SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices, which is no longer sustainable. The agency will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions. The organizational structure at Headquarters also is outdated and inefficient. SSA will now have seven Deputy Commissioner level organizations.
These steps prioritize customer service by streamlining redundant layers of management, reducing non-mission critical work, and potential reassignment of employees to customer service positions. Also supporting this priority is looking for efficiencies and other opportunities to reduce costs across all spending categories, including information technology and contractor spending. SSA is committed to ensure this plan has a positive effect on the delivery of Social Security services.
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Michael
What a god damn joke.
Jo L.
Well said.
Barb a.
Wait a minute, when I have ever tried to get ahold of someone from social security it takes forever, so why would this be better.
Prefer t.
What bothers most of us is that we don’t feel there are too many people at SSA—we feel there are too few. Turning SSA into just an online organization will make citizens suffer the indignities we experience with most online companies: no direct answers to questions, “chats” that can not answer complex questions, and no clear sense of when a problem will be resolved. Worse, for the truly elderly and those that either don’t understand or are not able to use online services, there will not be anyone to help them. Pity the blind, disabled, or poor without the means to have a computer or transportation to drive further to an agency. Don’t fix what is not broken. Finally, where are the reports that were submitted to Congress proving these claims and approved before these measures are taken? These actions don’t make me feel better; they make me feel sad that we no longer have a Constitutional system of governance that is being obeyed. Mr. Musk has no right to do this. His group of people are not representative of America based on the picture of it in the NYTimes. We voted for Congress to do these type of things for us. Also, how much will be saved and how will it be used? Will it go back into improved benefits for citizens? We prepay for Social Security. It should not be butchered at our expense.
Carol F.
I find it very hard to believe you can not update my autopsy bank account number for 3 months.
What happens when you can’t make my benefits deposit?
Elaine S.
This is scary.
Mike S.
What a joke! Comments are being deleted as soon as they’re made if there is anything at all critical of the new leadership or the reduction in force. Free speech is not a violation of your Comment Policy!
Justina
The DOGE boys probably fired all the IT staff.
Asecada
I have no confidence in what’s happening, this administration looks totally inept they’re non-democratic and I honestly just wish they would just f****** go away. I have never seen such a collection of unqualified degenerates in my life. they have destroyed this country
Mike S.
The “tell” in this type of post are words like “bloated workforce,” “outdated” and “inefficient.” It shows the new partisan leadership is adversarial to the agency and staff it’s supposed to be leading. Sadly, it also means the American public can no longer trust the information being provided by this agency or any other federal agency under the leadership of Trump sycophants.
Alan D.
This blog post is embarrassing!
Reading it makes me feel truly sorry for those SSA workers who are being pressured to retire or resign under the threat of being peremptorily fired without just cause.
Dale
I am sorry for them too.
Darla J.
With the already OUTRAGEOUS wait times when needing to speak to someone I do not see how these REDUCTIONS will help anyone!!