Social Security Administration
Headcount, average pay, length of service, sub-agencies, and hiring trends for Social Security Administration, drawn directly from the OPM Federal Workforce Data (June 2026).
OPM FedScope stock folio
Employment stock June 2026 Social Security Administration
Social Security Administration is a major federal employer: 49,439 employees (2.5% of the federal civilian workforce) across 51 states (including DC). At an average salary of $103,798 it pays below the federal average of $117,339, and headcount declined 0.2% from the prior period.
Monthly FedScope employment stock for Social Security Administration - headcount, pay, tenure, and nearest peer names from the same OPM extract (49,439 employees · $103,798 avg).
- HEAD 49,439
- RANK #13/126
- PAY $103,798
- LOS 16.1 yrs
- SHARE 2.5%
- STATES 51
- NET +79
- SUBS 1
- PHOTO Department of Transportation
- BOOK OPM FWD
Headcount peers
Photo peer: Department of Transportation (52,923 employees)
According to OPM FedScope June 2026, Social Security Administration ranks #13 of 126 federal agencies by headcount (the same employee_count ordering as our agencies directory and /rankings/largest-agencies). Peer bars use similar workforce size, not duty-station geography. Corpus placement →
Social Security Administration pay book (lean avg)
Lean-pay strip (49,439 employees · $103,798 avg) vs federal average $117,339.
Agency Average
$103,798
Federal Average
$117,339
vs. Federal Avg
-11.5%
Where Social Security Administration ranks on pay
Ranked by agency (not weighted by headcount), its average salary of $103,798 is higher than 10% of the 121 federal agencies (12 pay less on average). Smaller specialized agencies often post higher per-employee averages than large ones like Social Security Administration, so this agency-count rank can differ from a comparison to the government-wide, employee-weighted average shown above. The highlighted bar marks where Social Security Administration sits in the federal pay distribution.
Average-salary distribution across all 121 federal agencies; Social Security Administration ranks higher than 10%.
Sub-agency pay span (dense agency)
Under $80K
0
$80K–$100K
0
$100K–$120K
49,439
$120K–$150K
0
Over $150K
0
Sub-agencies & Organizational Units
Social Security Administration has 1 sub-agencies. The highest-paying unit averages $103,798.
| Sub-agency | Employees | Avg Salary | Avg LOS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Security Administration | 49,439 | $103,798 | 16.1 yrs |
Geographic Presence
Social Security Administration has employees in 51 states (including DC). Maryland has the most with 8,124 employees.
| State | Employees | Avg Salary | Avg LOS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | 8,124 | $123,485 | 16.5 yrs |
| California | 5,048 | $107,165 | 16.2 yrs |
| Pennsylvania | 3,184 | $90,128 | 14.7 yrs |
| New York | 3,017 | $105,114 | 15.3 yrs |
| Texas | 2,800 | $100,680 | 17 yrs |
| Florida | 2,316 | $92,629 | 15.5 yrs |
| Alabama | 2,279 | $83,293 | 14.8 yrs |
| Illinois | 2,076 | $101,338 | 15.6 yrs |
| Missouri | 1,944 | $94,934 | 15.7 yrs |
| Georgia | 1,374 | $104,288 | 16.6 yrs |
| Ohio | 1,153 | $100,198 | 16.5 yrs |
| North Carolina | 1,101 | $100,985 | 17 yrs |
| Michigan | 1,075 | $104,752 | 16.4 yrs |
| Washington | 946 | $106,850 | 16.3 yrs |
| Massachusetts | 838 | $115,947 | 16.6 yrs |
| New Jersey | 798 | $113,466 | 16.2 yrs |
| Tennessee | 783 | $96,288 | 16.5 yrs |
| District of Columbia | 727 | $128,668 | 19.5 yrs |
| Kentucky | 617 | $94,749 | 16 yrs |
| Virginia | 597 | $101,323 | 16.3 yrs |
Showing top 20 of 51 states
Workforce Dynamics
Dynamics feed (RSS)Monthly hiring and separation trends. Net change over 12 months: +79.
| Month | Accessions | Separations | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2026 | +303 | -197 | +106 |
| May 2026 | +9 | -32 | -23 |
| Apr 2026 | +10 | -6 | +4 |
| Mar 2026 | +0 | -4 | -4 |
| Feb 2026 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Jan 2026 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Dec 2025 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Nov 2025 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Oct 2025 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Sep 2025 | +0 | -1 | -1 |
| Feb 2025 | +1 | -0 | +1 |
| Aug 2024 | +1 | -0 | +1 |
vs Federal Hiring Climate
OPM FedScope dynamics for Jun 2026 — Social Security Administration against the same-month federal civilian totals (not a forecast).
Agency net (Jun 2026)
+106
+303 / −197
Federal net (Jun 2026)
+2,416
+15,984 / −13,568
Share of federal accessions
1.90%
Moved with the federal climate this month
Hiring & Separation Reasons
Why employees join and leave Social Security Administration
Accession Reasons
NEW HIRE - EXCEPTED SERVICE APPOINTMENT
180
NEW HIRE - COMPETITIVE SERVICE APPOINTMENT
140
TRANSFER IN - INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER
2
NEW HIRE - SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE (SES) APPT
2
Separation Reasons
RETIREMENT - VOLUNTARY
116
QUIT
77
OTHER SEPARATION
28
TRANSFER OUT - INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER
16
RETIREMENT - OTHER
5
Similar-Sized Agencies
Federal agencies with a similar workforce size to Social Security Administration
Showing 6 of 125 other federal agencies.
Department of Transportation
Department of Commerce
Department of Interior
Department of Defense
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture
Nationwide agencies with similar pay or tenure
Two peer sets for Social Security Administration on OPM FedScope averages that vary across the full agency corpus, not duty-station geography or sub-agency hierarchy.
Peers near this lean pay band
Nearest agency-wide average salaries ($103,798 here).
Peers near this dense headcount tenure
Nearest agency-wide average length of service (16.1 years here).
How these figures are calculated
The pay percentile above is computed live from PlainGovJobs' own OPM FedScope database, not hand-typed: Social Security Administration's average salary is ranked against every other federal agency's average salary, agency-by-agency (not weighted by headcount), and the percentile is the share of agencies whose average is strictly lower.
The sub-agency pay-span bars sum each sub-agency's own employee_count into one of five salary bands based on that sub-agency's average salary; the bands add up exactly to Social Security Administration's total employee count, since every sub-agency is counted in exactly one band.
See the methodology page for the full source-to-page pipeline and refresh cadence.
Data Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) FedScope Employment Cubes, June 2026. Federal civilian non-seasonal full-time and part-time employees. Data does not include military personnel, postal workers, or intelligence agency staff. Last updated: 2026-08-11.
Data currency: Employment stock from OPM Federal Workforce Data June 2026 (prior-period deltas vs May 2026); monthly hiring/separations from FWD Dynamics June 2024–June 2026 (filled civilian headcount and flows, not live USAJOBS vacancy listings). State pages sum only duty stations with a disclosed US state/DC code; 898,675 employees have redacted geography in the release and appear in the national total only. Database compiled 2026-08-11. See our methodology § populations for the three windows. Spot a figure that looks wrong? Report a correction.