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 The organizational structure at Headquarters also is outdated and inefficient.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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Ed
I’m afraid the office near me (about 40 minutes away) will be closed. If you have an issue that requires access to your records then login.gov can’t help. I called the 800 number and was on hold for 2 hours, 2.5 hours, and 3 hours 8 minutes but never talked to anyone. I called the closest office and after a 30 minute wait I talked to a very helpful agent. At least I have the information I need to solve the problem.
Sandra
Everything‘s gonna be all right no need to worry. Everything will work out in the end just be patient and stay calm. God will take care of you.
Tony
This is all the DEI’s fault. Donald’s economic ideas, lol.
DAO
DEI is at fault. Social Security for way too long has hired based on race and sex instead of capability. This has dumbed down staff for positions that are very complex. They need to go back to testing before hiring and in person training.
Pete W.
DEI = diversity, equity, inclusion
It does not mean giving jobs to unqualified people because they are non white.
It means giving jobs to qualified people that otherwise would be given to less qualified whites. Doing so makes America stronger.
Justina
Are you saying only white males are qualified to handle complex jobs? Is that what you mean??
Charles D.
Historically speaking SSA has had as many as 82000 employees at one time. Although restructuring may help, having government facilities that you see and walk into on a local level gives the public a connection with their government. Cutting employees is a small savings compared to potential negative affects for communities
Angela
I’ve worked 45 years and paid into Social Security and I’m five years from retirement, instead of collecting my hard earned social security and living a nice life in retirement, I can plan on adding myself to the homeless population and starving in the streets. Anyone that voted for President Elon Musk and his lackeys, VP Trump and jr. nazi Vance deserves what we are all about to get because this is not going to end well for any of us. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are all on the chopping block. The social security administration has always been understaffed. The US population is 340 million people. You do the math.
Deb S.
I agree with you on all of this! We need more social security workers. Not less! And we all paid into SS with our wages. Musk needs to stop this nonsense. He doesn’t care as he has billions! And he gloats when he cuts jobs. He needs to go – we didn’t elect him and Trump lets him do whatever he wants. And he has our private data – this isn’t right!
S. L.
Glad to share in your pains. Get used to it. There’s another 4 yes to go followed by 8 years of Vance. Hopefully Americans will get off their arses and work instead of laying at home and not in the office.
DAO
I worked at Social Security for 37 years. It desperately needs to be restructured so that employees can be moved into critical mission positions to better serve the public who deserve to receive their benefits correctly and on time.
80% of government work is done by 20% of the employees. This does not serve the public well.
If we allow America to go broke our children and grandchildren will have no country.
Give them a chance to save our country and stop calling names. Listen to Fox once in awhile to get all of the news.
Justina
I was fortunate to work in an agency dept. where we all pitched in to do what needed to be done. No 20-80, by which i assume you mean the Pareto principle. I’ve always thought generalizations like this are pretty suspect.
I agree we need to watch spending. But what we need to watch, in my opinion, is the crypto currency bailout scam and the 4.5 trillion cuts to the wealthy. And the tariffs, inflation….
You call for civility; that’s a 2-way street. Maybe the Whitehouse could start by apologizing to our once upon a time allies Canada and Mexico. And Elizabeth Warren after his juvenile assault at the State of the Union. And President Zelenskyy. If he showed an iota of grace, it might help start the healing in this country.
As far as Fox News, it’s not for me, but you do you.
Oldconservative
So, you’re angry about fraud and corruption being exposed? You’ve been listening to the MSM talking points for too long. Turn off the TV set between your ears. Podcasts ARE the new media.
Justina
Here’s a fact for you, Old. Doge keeps posting info on their site, then deleting it after they are called out for falsehoods. Maybe you need to balance your podcast habit with some other news sources, because you seem unaware they are trying to mislead us.
Terri
I’m sure that also attacking Dept of Education will “help” so much in this insane dumbing down of Amerikkka that’s so blatantly prevalent in red MAGAT states…🙄Unfortunately when FAFO hits us ALL real hard, GOP/DT/Elon etc will be sure to LIE about WHY/blame “Dems” and Magas will STILL be waaay too ignorant to realize it’s actually THEIR fault for putting lifelong lying criminal conman in WH‼️💯😡🚨🆘⚠️
B. H.
I agree. I’ve read that the Head Start program is also on the chopping block which means that bright young minds may not have the opportunity at learning early socialization skills which I believe could definitely contribute towards reducing some of the mass school shootings that America has been experiencing now on a regular basis. Couple that with the school lunch program also being on the cutting room floor means that as these bright young minds attempt to learn and experience new activities, those whose family may not be able to financially provide adequate nutrition for their child as they learn at school, may no longer have the comfort of knowing that at least their child is getting a nutritious lunch at school. Everyone is not looking for a handout but by interweaving these basic support systems within our society it sets the society as a whole up for success and a brighter future.
MAO
I didn’t have head start OR kindergarten. My Mom worked with me reading and numbers. Went to 1 room school, 30+- students 8 grades AND 1 TEACHER. Graduated in the top 10% of my class (of 425). Have been a successful businesswomen for 40 years, IMAGINE THAT! so don’t tell me we need more teachers. We need parents that help their children. and give them good upbringing.
Tony C.
As a Homeless Street Health Worker, I can attest to the understaffing of any Social Security Office. Try and reach a Social Security Worker over the phone and expect to wait 45 minutes or more. Visit an office and you’ll see 3 – 5 workers and twenty windows unoccupied. You will wait one to two hours to be seen, only to be told that you’ll need to make another appointment (3 to 4 weeks out) to order a replacement card. If you have MediCare, Social Security manages your MediCal. If you forget to renew your MediCal benefits annualy, you wait 2 hours, simply to be told you have to come back in 4 – 6 weeks to take care of that issue.
trump and musk are LIARS! They are gutting Social Security’s workforce to make it harder for those of us yet to collect our benefits to do so when needed. ALL for the sake of TAX BREAKS for the millionaires and billionaires – DISGUSTING!
S. L.
Because most workers are sitting at home not in office.
DAO
So misinformed. Social Security plans to put more employees in mission critical positions. This will help customer service.
Better employee training is desperately needed.
Justina
We all know the slash and burn is for him and his rich cronies to enjoy their tax cuts at an estimated cost of $4.5 trillion. How in the world can cutting 7k more employees and offices help those who need answers? And the loss of institutional knowledge means even more delay in answers and costs us even more in training.
You are regurgitating their propaganda.
B. H.
I agree. When I need to go into the social security office I allow half a day for the process. The waiting room is always so crowded with never enough seats for everyone to sit down. Those of us who are able try and make sure that obviously disabled or physically challenged folks get a seat and we rotate in and out leaning on the walls outside. It always takes a half day for the visit/process and obviously none of the ones making these decisions have visited a social security office otherwise they’d know they don’t need to shutter offices. They need to add more offices.
Kendall
Americans will not stand for this !! Everyone knows that SS payments have nothing to do with the deficit. We are coming after all of you . Shame on you !
Rich D.
Well received and appreciated. I see comments stating fear and concerns of overworked and under appreciated workforce but every organization needs to go through a reorganizational alignment and seek to take advantage of technology and efficiencies through improved process and procedures. Comments that phone calls that go unanswered is not necessarily due to staff shortages vs. staff taking advantage of lack of oversight, working from home (distracted) or no metrics indicating a productive level of work effort.
Cheryl G.
👍
Good observation!
Wish everyone would just give this a chance to work itself out. It’s obvious there is a lot of senseless spending in all areas of our government that needs serious reviews and possible restructuring. This will all take time to get it together.
We have become way too complacent.
P A.
You clearly have no working knowledge of the internal working of SSA or its staff. You see a blip on Fox News and make assumptions. You clearly have not critical thinking skills.
Justina
Rich, you use a lot of technobabble and $5 words to justify cuts and blame employees. Typical gop DOGE nonsense: blame the employees.
Jessica
You’re an idiot and a brainwashed lackey of MAGA.
Lillian
Bot?
The bloat is safely tucked inside the well-hidden stashes of the wealthy.
Read the history of our last 100 years. When was our economy thriving?
Hint: not when the wealthy had undeserved tax breaks…
Jean G.
Congratulations. You’ve bought the KoolAid.
MM
Thats actually not true. My work shares a building with our local SSA office and I used to talk the employees regularly. They were allowed 2 remote days a week. I think this was the only reason a lot of them stayed (it’s a benefit). They also had already shut down 2 offices in our region and are the only one left in a 200 mile radius. They have been on a hiring freeze for a long time before trump as well. Employees quit due to being overworked and understaffed and they cannot backfill those positions due to the hiring freeze already in place. Wait times there are always 3 hours plus with lines far out the door. They were very very busy and stressed. Wait times if you call are horrendous. The software they use is closer to DOS than anything else (still green and black screens). This one worries me. I am curious his re-routing positions to customer service works out though.
Kathleen
Your name is Rich.
I don’t mind more efficiency, cutting the fat.
I’m living on under $1,000 with help from some Food stamp state benefits.
My Fat will come from eating cheap foods with chemicals in em because I can’t afford real food. I will be less healthy and need more medical care. More of a burden on my community.
What I mind is ,no taxes for people who are already so rich I can’t imagine. People who are willing to take from children and elders for money they can’t possibly need.
These people are deficient in ways money can’t help
Karlene C.
Agree! I worked a major medical center for 45 years. We went through reorganization- restructuring every 5-6 years, and yes some positions were eliminated- just part of staying fiscally solvent. Way overdue for our government.
Virginia
This information update is so obviously crafted by a heartless, ignorant, and traitorous regime that hopes to make the Republican dream come true to decimate Social Security. No leadership of an understaffed agency would characterize its staff as “bloated,” particularly one that has a mandate as widespread and complex as Social Security. This statement is pure propaganda.
Sharon C.
I am worried that Elon and his cronies now have all my personal information and what they may do with it. I know that the email address SSA has in file has now been over run with Trump spam, and it has just begun. SAD!
PS I hope providing my email doesn’t give me more spam from Trump.