The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Friday that it plans to cut approximately 7,000 jobs to align with President Trump’s executive order to reduce the federal workforce.
The planned job cuts are raising concerns about the agency’s staffing, which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to tens of millions of Americans.
“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,” the Social Security Administration said in a news release Friday afternoon.
“Social Security recently set a staffing target of 50,000, down from the current level of approximately 57,000 employees.”
According to advocates, the agency has had long wait times for services for years, and its current staffing is at a 50-year low.
Ahead of the impending broader cuts, a number of senior staff members have left the SSA, including at least five of eight people in the influential role of regional commissioner, according to a staffing memo shared with NPR by a senior SSA official who was not authorized to speak with the press.
“SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices, which is no longer sustainable,” according to a news release issued Friday. “The agency will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions.”
Morale at the agency is extremely low, according to a senior SSA source, with staff members crying in meetings and managers attempting to reassure their employees during a period of great uncertainty.
“The public is going to suffer terribly as a result of this,” the source told NPR. “Local field offices will close, hold times will increase, and people will be sicker, hungry, or die when checks don’t arrive or a disability hearing is delayed just one month too late.”
“Hopefully Congress takes note of the mass resignation of the Regional Commissioners and starts asking questions,” a source told me.
Rich Couture — a spokesman for AFGE SSA General Committee, a union representing roughly 42,000 Social Security workers — told NPR, “AFGE is adamantly opposed to any mass layoffs” of its workers, “whether frontline or support staff.” Front-line workers directly support beneficiaries, the number of whom, he said, increases by 10,000 people daily.
“SSA is at its lowest staffing levels in 50 years while taking care of more Americans than ever,” Couture said in a statement. “We must retain both our frontline workers who directly serve the public and those who provide critical support to the frontlines.” Any cuts will inevitably harm the public and undermine the delivery of Social Security benefits.
Trump has stated that Social Security “won’t be touched” as he continues to make massive cuts to the federal government.
According to the agency’s news release, the planned reorganization will “prioritize customer service.” The statement continued: “SSA is committed to ensure this plan has a positive effect on the delivery of Social Security services.”
The SSA’s announcement on Friday came after the Trump administration issued guidance on Wednesday directing federal agencies to develop plans for large-scale job cuts in accordance with Trump’s executive order on February 11.
New leadership raises new concerns at the SSA
Until now, the Social Security Administration has been largely spared from efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, which are primarily overseen by billionaire Elon Musk. This includes a federal hiring freeze and the recent dismissal of a large number of mostly newer employees.
New leadership at the agency has implemented more targeted changes, such as closing the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity.
On Presidents Day in Washington, D.C., a protester holding a sign that reads “Federal Employees Don’t Work for Kings” rallies in support of federal workers and condemns recent actions by President Trump and Elon Musk.
Any change to Social Security that may affect benefits is typically regarded as a political liability. Social Security remains one of the most popular government programs, and it is how the majority of Americans plan for retirement.
To that end, Trump and Republican congressional leaders have pledged to protect Social Security from planned government spending cuts.
However, over the last week or so, the agency has experienced much of the same chaos and disruption as other federal departments. Changes at the agency have also raised concerns among employees and cybersecurity experts about the security of sensitive records.
Michelle King, the agency’s previous acting commissioner, was recently replaced after clashing with associates of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who sought access to sensitive personal data held by the agency. This is according to a senior SSA official who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity. King did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
King has been replaced by Leland Dudek, who was investigated internally before being promoted, according to an SSA official.
The security of sensitive data is one of the most pressing concerns for SSA employees.
“SSA is extremely risk-averse. “And for good reason,” the SSA official stated. “The data we store is intimate and comprehensive. Every man, woman, and child in the United States (living or dead) has a Social Security number, as well as records of their employment, income, taxes, disability, and civil relationships. And now DOGE has access to everything.”
Elon Musk, who oversees the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, speaks during President Trump’s Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday while wearing a “Tech Support” shirt.
The SSA’s servers are vast, complex, and archaic, processing billions of data points per day and frequently using programming languages that few people understand, according to the source.
Those systems are already under constant attack by digital adversaries from all over the world, posing a constant challenge to those tasked with protecting them.
According to the source, there is no evidence that the engineers working with DOGE have received the required training to protect federal records, let alone specific agency-level training to work in each department’s unique systems.
Lawmakers have already begun to raise concerns about cybersecurity risks associated with DOGE’s access to federal systems, while legal proceedings are still ongoing.
Musk says he’s trying to protect Social Security — but parrots baseless claims
Musk stated on social media that his goal is not to reduce Social Security benefits, but rather to “stop the extreme levels of fraud taking place, so that [SSA] remains solvent and protects the social security checks of honest Americans.”
Musk has not provided evidence for his claim of “extreme levels of fraud.” He has pointed to recipients in the SSA database who are impossibly listed as being more than 100 years old.
However, a 2023 report from the agency’s Office of the Inspector General stated that there were nearly 19 million Social Security number-holders aged 100 and up who did not have information about their deaths in the system, and that “almost none of the 18.9 million numberholders currently receive SSA payments.”
Acting Commissioner Dudek dismissed Musk’s claim as well.
Advocates complain of long-running issues with disability benefits
And now the agency is preparing to significantly reduce its workforce.
Charles Hall, an attorney who has been representing Social Security disability claimants in particular since 1979, says staffing issues at the agency have long been a problem for those seeking benefits.
“Disability claims have been progressively affected by Social Security’s lack of staffing, literally for at least 20 years,” he told reporters. “It certainly has become more and more of an issue.”
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told NPR that the process for obtaining disability benefits, in particular, is “so cumbersome and difficult to navigate” and understaffed that in the last few years, “about 10,000 claimants who appealed for their benefits died waiting for their claim to be resolved.”
According to Hall, technological advancements have yet to keep up with the increased workload. Because disability claims are processed on paper and require a significant amount of labor, technology alone will not solve the problem.
“It requires a lot of manpower,” Hall said. “This is more labor-intensive than expected. … They only think about retirement benefits, which are fairly simple, but the other workloads become quite complicated.”
According to Richtman, if the Trump administration makes significant cuts to the workforce, wait times for assistance from agency staff will only increase. He claimed that because Americans contribute to Social Security through payroll taxes, they are entitled to its benefits.
“It really should be looked at, I think, through a different lens and the rest of, you know, whatever else is happening at the federal government and downsizing,” he told reporters.
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