WASHINGTON ― The Social Security Administration is planning a massive reorganization that will involve “significant workforce reductions,” it told employees Thursday.
Ahead of the restructuring, part of billionaire Elon Musk’s broader shakeup of the entire federal government, the agency is offering buyouts to many of its employees.
“Through these massive reorganizations, offices that perform functions not mandated by statute may be prioritized for reduction-in-force actions that could include abolishment of organizations and positions, directed reassignments, and reductions in staffing,” the agency said in a staff-wide email it also posted on its website.
Federal courts have thrown up roadblocks to the Trump administration’s efforts to trim the federal workforce, with a judge on Thursday saying the administration’s recent mass firings of probationary employees were illegal.
The Social Security Administration runs one of the federal government’s most popular programs ― retirement benefits for 50 million older Americans ― on a shoestring budget, with administrative costs totaling just half a percent of agency expenditures. Even though cutting staff doesn’t cut benefits, the reorganization will be controversial.
In response to reports that cuts were coming to the SSA, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said earlier on Thursday that “the Trump administration is putting Social Security benefits at risk by firing the staff who help beneficiaries and closing down the offices that serve communities across the country.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed not to cut Social Security benefits, but he and Musk, a senior White House adviser who is also the world’s richest man, have falsely claimed the Social Security Administration issues fraudulent benefit checks to millions of dead people.
In its email, the SSA said it might reassign employees “from non-mission critical positions to mission critical direct service positions,” such as answering phones and staffing field offices.
“Reassignments may be involuntary and may require retraining for new workloads,” the agency said. In the meantime, staff will be eligible for “voluntary separation incentive payments” or early retirement.
HuffPost readers: Do you work at SSA, and are you considering a buyout? Tell us about it. Email arthur@huffpost.com.
Thursday’s announcement is only the latest in a series of staff-cutting moves at federal agencies ― including the Social Security Administration, which said earlier this week it would shutter its internal Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity.
“Our focus is supporting President Trump’s priorities, which include streamlining functions and prioritizing essential work,” Lee Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement.
Last week, the agency sent termination notices to 41 employees who it said could transition to frontline positions answering phones or working in field offices if they wanted to remain employed. The agency largely shielded its “probationary” workforce, however, while other federal workforces laid off their newer hires on a larger scale.
Rich Couture, president of the American Federation of Government Employees committee that represents 40,000 Social Security employees, said in a statement Friday the AFGE would oppose the cuts.
“Social Security staffing is already at a 50-year low while the number of beneficiaries increases by 10,000 people daily,” Couture said. “In terms of efficiency, SSA is already incredibly effective, with operational costs of less than 1 percent of annual payments ― far more efficient than private insurance companies whose overhead costs exceed 10-20 percent annually.”