Axios and the Strategic Organizing Center, a labor union coalition, estimate that Social Security Administration field offices across the country may have lost 20% of their staff since March 2024.
The unions estimated that field offices, where Americans can apply for benefits and interact with the agency in person, had lost about 5% of their staff by March. Hawaii (11%), Montana (14%), and New Mexico (10%) were among the states hardest hit.
Add to that the nearly 2,000 field workers who accepted the Trump administration’s voluntary buyout, as well as the reassignment of approximately 1,000 local call center representatives to staff the agency’s overburdened national hotline.
According to Axios, the total reductions will affect approximately 20% of the Social Security workforce beginning in March 2024.
A spokesperson for the agency disputed that calculation, stating that headcount in field offices had decreased by about 6% since March 2024.
“This change in staffing has not had an impact on the ability of SSA to serve the American people due to enhanced process engineering, technology improvements, and world-class management,” according to a spokesperson.
This year, the Department of Government Efficiency plans to let at least 26 field offices’ leases expire.
In a July press release, the Social Security Administration stated that average wait times at field offices had been reduced to 23 minutes from 30 minutes the previous year.
It also claimed to have significantly reduced the average wait time for a phone call to just six minutes this week, down from an 18-minute average for the rest of the year.
The trust fund that funds Social Security has also been deteriorating, with the most recent estimates indicating that the agency may no longer be able to meet all claims by late 2032.
