‘Prelude to privatization:’ Social Security confirms workforce reduction targets, continues to shutter offices

The Social Security Administration in recent days has initiated a flurry of actions aimed at decimating its workforce and that Democrats warn are an effort to sabotage the agency and prepare to privatize its functions.

After a rash of abrupt retirements of senior leaders across the agency last week, the agency on Friday confirmed that it is seeking to shed 7,000 employees, which would bring its workforce down to 50,000 people. Last fall, the agency hit a 50-year staffing low after congressional Republicans refused to agree to append the agency’s funding to account for fixed cost increases as part of a continuing resolution to keep agencies open.

With that came an announcement that the agency will consolidate its current 10 regional offices down to four, as well as reorganize headquarters. And Elon Musk’s DOGE operatives have cancelled the leases for 45 field offices across the country, as well as the Office of Hearings Operations in White Plains, N.Y.

And though the agency’s frontline workforce had previously been spared from most of the Trump administration’s early workforce initiatives, including the deferred resignation program, early retirement offers and the purge of recently hired, promoted or transferred federal workers, on Friday leadership said all agency employees are eligible for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority or Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments, provided they have served long enough to qualify.

Further adding to the confusion was an agency-wide announcement Monday that all non-bargaining unit employees must cease teleworking and commute five days per week beginning Wednesday.

“We understand that this transition will require an adjustment to employee work/life arrangements,” the agency wrote. “Supervisors should be liberal with the approval of leave over the next four weeks to accommodate the changes.”

In a rambling message to employees obtained by Government Executive, Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek suggested the rapid changes were actually the fault of the previous administration.

“Elections have consequences,” he wrote. “President Biden dismissed Andrew Saul, fundamentally altering the independence of the Social Security Administration. With that decision, the autonomy of our employees once enjoyed changed. Now, under President Trump, we follow established precedent: we serve at the pleasure and direction of the president. Only the courts or Congress can intervene.”

Rich Couture, spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees’ Social Security General Committee, which represents around 42,000 SSA employees, said his union is still trying to understand how Dudek’s reorganization will impact service delivery.

“We have significant concerns with whether a diminishment of the support services that headquarters and the regional office components provide will impact the frontline workforce,” he said. The union has requested a formal notice and more information about the restructuring, but has not gotten a response.

At a press conference Monday, Senate Democrats accused the administration and Musk of sabotaging the agency as the first step in an effort to strip Americans of their earned benefits and sell off the agency’s functions to private industry.

“If you take the system today, with these superb statistics that 99.7% of retirement benefits are paid accurately and on-time, and you start hollowing it out, which is essentially what they’re doing, and then they’ll say, ‘Oh my goodness, we need the private sector here, or we won’t have a program,’” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “This is kind of the history of these kinds of efforts. It’s a prelude to privatization.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called Trump and Musk’s actions at SSA as akin to “taking a wrecking ball” to the agency and its services.

“Trump and Elon are now pushing all SSA employees out the door,” she said. “They are threatening them with future firings and forced reassignments while offering financial incentives to leave . . . 90% of the agency’s staff work across the country outside of headquarters at the over 1,200 field offices to make sure they’re available to help people in every part of the country. And the staff who are not providing direct service to Americans support the performance of critical work that keeps the agency and the Social Security system operational.”

But when asked by reporters about whether her caucus will demand protections in a deal to avert a government shutdown later this month, Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, demurred.

“We are looking at a number of different things,” she said. “The only one who wants a shutdown right now is Elon Musk, as he recently tweeted about it. We’re all working to get this done. The best way to do this is a short-term CR, and our committees are capable of getting this done.”