The Social Security Administration is preparing to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000 — and the final reduction in force number could be as high as 50%, according to two people familiar with the agency’s plans who are not authorized to speak publicly.

The Social Security Administration announced a “massive” reorganization and “significant” job cuts on Thursday that critics said could increase customer-service wait times and make it more difficult to detect fraud.