By Tami Luhby

(CNN) — Calling its workforce “bloated,” the Social Security Administration announced Friday plans to slash about 7,000 jobs, or roughly 12% of its staff. The potential cuts are part of a larger reorganization at the agency in line with the Trump administration’s drive to downsize the federal government.

The move comes as President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised not to touch Social Security benefits. However, a key employee union, advocates and Democratic lawmakers are raising concerns that deep staffing cuts will hurt customer service.

What’s more, the reduction will hit at a time when the number of Americans receiving Social Security benefits is soaring, as the tail end of the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age. More than 73 million people receive monthly payments from the agency.

“We’re at a 50-year staffing low, and we’re serving the highest number of beneficiaries we’ve ever had in the history of this agency,” said Rich Couture, a spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees’ Social Security General Committee. “All of this will adversely undermine the ability of SSA to fulfill its responsibilities to the American people for the provision of Social Security benefits.”

The agency’s swift reorganization is being led by Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner whom Trump named to the post less than two weeks ago. He was a mid-level career staffer at Social Security before being elevated, and he is aggressively reshaping the agency as Trump’s nominee, Frank Bisignano, awaits Senate confirmation.

Dudek had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation earlier in February for working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, but the president instead decided to put him in the top job temporarily.

A “significant focus” of the overhaul will be on “functions and employees who don’t directly provide mission critical services,” Social Security said in a press release.

As part of its “significant workforce reductions,” the agency is offering early retirement and voluntary separation incentives to all employees. It expects much of its goal to lower its headcount to 50,000, from the current roughly 57,000 employees, will be achieved through these incentives, as well as resignations.

But the agency also warned that additional cuts will come from layoffs, known as reduction-in-force actions, that could include the elimination of organizations and positions. Earlier this week, it announced it would shutter its Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, placing 140 workers on administrative leave.

In addition, Social Security says it will consolidate its 10 regional offices into four and reduce the number of deputy commissioner-level organizations it has. Meanwhile, DOGE has listed lease terminations for nearly four dozen agency sites across the country, prompting bipartisan concerns from some federal and state lawmakers.

The staffing cuts come as the Trump administration is mandating sweeping headcount reductions across the federal government. Earlier this week, the administration directed agencies to submit detailed plans on how they will conduct mass layoffs, with the first set of plans due March 13.

Although the Trump administration has specified that agencies’ restructurings should not negatively affect the delivery of services such as Social Security and Medicare, the overhaul at the Social Security Administration will have an impact on benefits, Jack Smalligan, a senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute and former deputy associate director at the Office of Management and Budget focusing on Social Security issues, wrote on X.

“The policy decisions by the Trump Administration in these past weeks will affect the lives of millions of Americans and in the years ahead the consequences of crippling a key agency will unfortunately be all to evident,” he wrote.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

The-CNN-Wire
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