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 The organizational structure at Headquarters also is outdated and inefficient.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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Ruby D.
Having worked for the government for 22 years, spending three of those years in the DC area, I know how bloated the federal government is and how much can be eliminated. I often saw people walk around looking like they were busy at work when all the were doing was trying to ‘look’ busy. Every company hires and fires, most at will. Having worked in the private sector, I know employees even need to mesh with the company culture. The difference is, in the private sector the company pays for the fraud, waste and abuse. In the federal positions, YOU/WE pay for it.
Justina
Were you looking busy while watching them look busy? Honestly, this sounds judgmental as hell. How do you KNOW they were wasting time? Not your call, Ruby, unless you were the person assigned to watching people that day.
CL
If you mess with the delivery of social security benefits to the millions of American seniors and disabled, you will regret at the next election.
Catherine T.
Last time I called for assistance I had to wait an hour to speak to a real person. I hope the wait time under this plan will be reduced to less than 15 minutes. Also I used to easily log in for information about my account. Now I can’t!! The new login is VERY CLUNKY!!! Please fix this.
Greg
When will you stop paying the millions of dead people that pres Trump and Mr Musk said you are doing. Will we get an update on this and will these criminals be prosecuted? Once the payments to the millions of dead people are stopped and clawed back will that make the system solvent fo a longer time?
Justina
This has been debunked over and over. Why don’t we make the top earners pay more instead of stopping deductions at a certain threshold?
Penny M.
What a shame that Seniors are being added to the list of hard-working Americans whose lives will be negatively impacted by the Musk/Trump regime.
It already takes weeks to get anything sorted out with the SSA. Eliminating 10% of the workforce will only make things worse.
I extend my most heartfelt condolences to the long-time employees who will be forced out (and probably have their own benefits reduced as a result.)
The Mid-Terms can’t come soon enough.
Kay S.
I want to know what the “mission critical work” SSA work definition is, please.
I’d also like to know the planned locations for the four Regions. Why do we expect to have seven Deputy Commissioner levels? Are the Commissioner levels within the Regions or are the Regions within the Commissioner levels?
Diane B.
The SSA workforce is absolutely NOT bloated. The current number of employees is the same as it was 50 years ago with a huge increase in the number of Baby Boomers receiving their EARNED BENEFITS. This RIF will decimate customer service which was already subject to extremely ling wait time. This blog is nothing but propaganda designed to hide the destruction of our government agencies that millions of people depend upon.
Just stop the bullshit. We can see it for what it is.
Darrell W.
My heart goes out to the dedicated Social Security public servants and their families affected by the “staff reductions.” I salute them for their service and hope they will be able to quickly find new jobs in places where their talent and service are valued and where they do not have to live in fear of the next round of cuts and reorganizations. This action may be commonplace in private corporations, where profit is the only important motive. Agencies like Social Security are here solely to help and serve the American people and the size of the organizations and number of employees needed should be carefully considered before implementing arbitrary cuts that result in eliminating the best talent and employees with valuable legacy knowledge that takes years to replace.
Vanessa R.
I am glad President Trump is getting rid of some staff because you go into a SSA office they just tell you to call the office or go online the staff does not want to help you.
Susan L.
The language in this blog post sounds like it was written by a DOGE staff member. “Bloated”? If people lose the ability to talk to someone directly in a nearby office, there will be a lot of frustration. Phone-only service is often inadequate, as demonstrated when offices began offering that service as the pandemic limitations eased.