The Social Security Administration (SSA) is offering its employees incentives to reduce the agency’s workforce by 7,000 people as part of what the SSA is billing as a “massive reorganization.”
In a memo sent to the agency’s employees on Feb. 27 and since shared with the public, SSA said it will soon restructure the entire organization while prioritizing the reduction of “offices that perform functions not mandated by statute.”
The Feb. 27 memo was followed by a press release the next day where SSA stated that the agency is looking to reduce its staff by 7,000 personnel – or about 12 percent of the current total – and aiming for a target of 50,000 employees. Staffing levels at the agency are already near a 50-year low.
To reach the SSA’s target number, employees are being offered voluntary separation incentives and early retirement options while also being given an option to voluntarily be reassigned to a “mission critical position.” Those interested in being reassigned have been asked to indicate that preference by March 14.
“The agency may reassign employees from non-mission critical positions to mission critical direct service positions (e.g., field offices, teleservice centers, processing centers),” the agency’s memo reads. “Reassignments may be involuntary and may require retraining for new workloads.”
SSA workers interested in early retirement – also coined as an “early out” in the memo – can do so between March 1 and Dec. 31 and must leave by the end of the 2025 calendar year.
“Employees not eligible now or who wish to retire later in the year under early out may do so, but may be subject to restructuring activities,” said SSA. “Employees who are not yet eligible for voluntary early retirement, but who would like to apply later in the calendar year should alert management of their intent to do so and work with their servicing benefits specialists to process their cases as their dates become due.”
Those who retire early – and those who are ineligible for retirement but wish to separate – are being offered voluntary separation incentive payments (VSIP) starting March 14. Employees who took part in the Office of Personnel Management’ deferred resignation program are ineligible for VSIP.
VSIP ranges for eligible employees includes:
- Up to GS 8, $15,000
- GS 9 – 12, $20,000
- GS 13 and up, $25,000
Employees not eligible for VSIP include reemployed annuitants, anyone with a disability that makes them eligible for disability retirement, anyone who has received a student loan repayment benefit in the last 36 months, or anyone who has received or is set to receive a recruitment or relocation incentive within the last 24 months. Those who decide to separate must leave by April 19, according to the memo.
SSA also noted that VSIPs are “limited and available on a first come basis.”
While the agency said it expects to meet its staffing level target through VSIPs, early retirement, and resignation, it said that additional reductions in staff could come from reduction-in-force (RIF) actions which it has asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to approve.
“SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices, which is no longer sustainable,” the agency said about additional organizational changes. “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.”
SSA’s plans to reduce its workforce follows an executive order on Feb. 11 by President Donald Trump which ordered Federal agencies to develop plans for large-scale layoffs while placing an emphasis on cutting positions deemed not related to agency functions that have been authorized by congressional statutes.
Trump had previously said that the SSA benefits “won’t be touched” as part of his efforts to make mass cuts to the Federal government.
