The Social Security Administration (SSA) currently has the smallest number of employees since 1967.
The largest reduction is likely due to the Trump Administration’s efforts to cut SSA staff. Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that over the course of 15 months, the current administration has driven out over 8,000 agency workers—triggering the SSA’s largest one-year staffing reduction on record.
Last year, the agency, under the Trump Administration, came under fire for its plan to cut its workforce by 7,000 employees, to reduce the size of what it called a “bloated workforce and organizational structure.”
The agency anticipated that much of its staff reductions would come from retirement, Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP), and resignation, while additional cuts would come from reduction-in-force (RIF) actions that include abolishing organizations and positions.
The Social Security Administration cited increased cost needs as the reason behind staff reductions, noting that the agency had identified over $800 million in cost savings or cost avoidance for fiscal year 2025 in areas of payroll, information technology, contracts and grants, and real estate.
However, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities contends that reductions severely impacted field offices and operations in every U.S. state, thereby dismantling customer service experiences. Over forty states and the District of Columbia saw cuts greater than 10% between January 2025 and April 2026, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). These losses included a drop of over 3,800 customer service staff who assisted visitors to SSA field offices and callers to SSA’s national telephone number.
Amid severe complaints and declining press reports on the status of customer service, the SSA stopped publicly releasing regular monthly updates to its service metrics in June 2025, including benchmarks on call wait times. While the agency has since restored some of these measures, it continues to exclude data on call wait times, the length in time it takes for applicants to schedule appointments, and the number of unfulfilled requests in its processing backlog.
In May 2026, the agency forwent releasing any updates to its monthly performance measures.
The cuts in staff, along with growing reports of incoming insolvency and losses to buying power, have over time weakened consumers’ confidence in Social Security.
To avoid further unraveling, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities urged the agency to begin hiring “significant” numbers of new employees, publish detailed plans for addressing its customer service challenges, identify specific steps to improve customer service, and release detailed customer service metrics to the public.