WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Social Security Administration (SSA) continues to make good on President Trump’s promise to protect American taxpayers from unnecessary spending while continuing to ensure it delivers on its mission.
“For too long, SSA has operated on autopilot,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We have spent billions annually doing the same things the same way, leading to bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements. It is time to change just that.”
The agency has thus far identified over $800 million in cost savings or cost avoidance for fiscal year (FY) 2025 in areas of payroll, information technology, contracts and grants, and space savings (i.e., real property), and other savings through new, common-sense approaches to printing, travel, and purchase card policies.
List of Savings
Payroll: Froze SSA and Disability Determination Services (DDS) hiring and drastically reduced overtime – $550 million.
Information Technology Systems (ITS) Budget: An ITS budget reduction of $150 million by cancelling non-essential contracts and identifying reductions in other ITS contracts.
Non-ITS Budget: 70 percent Reduction in Travel – $10 million.
Contracts and Grants:
- Contracts Terminated – $15 million.
- Grants Terminated – $15 million.
Real Property:
- Planned non-public facing usable square footage (USF) reductions:
- Achieved Savings to date – 270,000 USF – $102 million.
- Anticipated Additional Savings thru EOY FY 2025 – 30,000 USF – $1.5 million.
- Soft-Term Lease Terminations – Over 60 lease terminations with assistance from the General Services Administration (GSA) – $4.0 million in annual rent savings once terminations are complete. Most sites are co-located; others are non-public facing, consolidations, or preplanned closings.
Guards: Plan to implement protective security officer staffing model and policy for field offices – estimated $30 million beginning in FY 2025.
Printing and Postage: Made SSA-1099 and SSA-1042 notices available online, and 5.4 million customers opted out of paper notices – $3 million cost avoidance.
Centralized Print Printing: Contracted with vendors to centrally print and mail notices rather than having frontline staff print and mail them locally – $28 million in workyear savings.
Travel and Purchase Card Policy: Revised card policy to save millions in purchase card obligations.
Social Security remains committed to identifying more ways to save taxpayers money and implementing more solutions that free up frontline employees to help more customers.