DOGE’s plans for social security are back door way to cut payments, experts and former official warn: ‘This is the most serious threat I’ve ever seen to it’ 

• The government efficiency team in Elon Musk aims for the goal of social security, Claiming fraud with the payment of controversial changes that may make it difficult for the elderly to reach the advantages. Critics, including Mark Kobe, say the changes are part of an effort to “reduce” accumulated payments and the intestine of the agency.

The ELON Musk Ministry of Government Efficiency Ministry has a new goal in its endeavor to eliminate government waste: social security.

Musk and Doge Team accused the agency of engaging in a widespread fraud process, most notably that tens of millions of dead are mistakenly receiving payments.

To reduce some of this definition in the supported identity, the agency applies stronger procedures for ventilation: a proposal that forces millions to submit social security claims personally.

Change was criticized by some, including billionaire Mark Koban, who launched this step “the back door method to reduce payments”.

Former SSA officials and experts have echoed the Cuban comments and raised concerns about the impact of Dog’s initiatives on social security payments.

Benefits of the back door

Laura Haltal, a former participant in the Social Security Department, who resigned in late February, said, said. luck Dog used to use the pretext of fraud inside the agency as a way to reduce the amount of advantages that were paid.

The agency announced on Tuesday that individuals who cannot verify their identity through my online social security account will need to visit their local social security office to do so personally. The leaked memo has also suggested that supporting the social security phone may end the identity verification, which will also increase personal visits.

In response to new identity auditing measures, Social Security Administration also plans to accelerate the treatment of direct deposit changes-whether online or personal-to only one working day, which is a significant decrease from the previous 30-day reservation.

Many people, including Cubans, have raised concerns about how this affects the elderly who live outside social security checks.

“How many elderly people live exclusively from their SS checks, can they withstand the costs of the Internet? How many elderly people no longer have a SS office near them now after dozens have been closed?

Haltzel said the changes will make it difficult for some Americans to reach their advantages with little to target actual fraud. She said that the changes were to reduce social security “by reality”, and the Trump administration promised not to touch the popular benefit.

She said: “It creates an environment in which the beneficiaries whom we are trying to serve simply are able to reach the benefits they paid.”

She said: “We have always tried to facilitate the matter for the demands … more efficient for the demands. The justification that is offered for the reason they pushed them is that there is a lot of fraud,” she said. “Well, mathematics there do not add what is up.”

According to the SSA General Inspector, only 0.3 % of the claims are due to fraud. The rate of accuracy of the social security payment exceeds 99 %, and the agency has several guarantees against improper payments, according to the Al -Khanji progressive center on budget and politics priorities.

Tiffany Felk, former Chief of Staff of the US Social Security Administration, said that Dog’s acquisition of SSA seems to be “dependent on the general legend of the presumed fraud.”

In the court file, Flick raised concerns about DOGE employees‘ The ability to protect sensitive taxpayers data. She said that she was “not confident” that Duji staff had “the knowledge and training required to prevent sensitive information from unintentionally to bad actors”, as the team was not examined by SSA or trained on data, systems or SSA programs.

“In such an anarchist environment, the risk of data leakage in the wrong hands is important,” she said in the deposit.

On Thursday, a temporary federal judge was prevented from accessing sensitive data in the Social Security Administration, saying that they had little justification to search for fraud.

The judge wrote: “The Duji team is mainly participated in a fish hunting trip in SSA, in search of a fraud, based on more than just doubts,” the judge wrote.

Musk’s Musk ‘Dead People Database’

One of the main arguments that Musk and Doge used for the need for reform is the claim that the dead are pushed for social security, which is referred to as Musk in the name of the “Persons’ Datab”.

“The twilight may be real and there are a lot of vampires who collect social security,” Musk said in a post on X.

“The presence of tens of millions of people who were distinguished in social security as” alive “when they definitely represent a big problem. It is clear that some of these people were alive before America existed as a country. Think about it for one second.

Trump later chanted these allegations at a press conference, claiming that “millions and millions of people over the age of 100” are receiving social security advantages: “It is clear that they are fraudulent or incompetent.”

These claims were exposed by experts and news outlets, but Musk continued to pay the claim.

“What people do not understand is that you can get an active social security number for a very long time because social security pays a record to earn a worker and can pay the benefits of the widow or the benefits of children – so there can be many different benefits.” luck.

Al -Taman said that she was concerned that Dog was trying to persuade people that there was a widespread fraud to undermine confidence in the program and the government, while using it as an excuse to “wander” at the agency.

She said, “It may end completely without functional, and create a lot of waste and assault.”

The numbers delivered by Musk and Trump appear to distort social security data.

“They do not understand the difference between the active claim, the active benefits, historical demands and historical benefits,” he said, noting that people may still be in the system but they do not actually receive benefits. “It is not simply not worth the time and effort from our employees to go to the records to back down from the previous history of someone who has passed that he does not receive entitlements today.”

The agency’s job discounts that are already suffering from employee deficiency can place

Officials also raised concerns about the SSA proposed employee discounts.

Hallazel, who took the “thorn on the road”, said that the team “instilled in every person in SSA for a specific fear that if they did not leave, their job may be lost to them.”

It accused the cost reduction team of creating a culture of fear intentionally, the inability to predict and work with a clear contempt for government employees.

Dog was clear about her plans to reduce the number of government employees, but experts say the discounts may cause the SSA to be already treated under pressure.

“You can reduce direct costs by having fewer federal employees, and you can make it difficult for people to demand advantages because the people who were going to serve them have gone.” “The lower the number of people, the more it takes.”

“They create completely administrative burdens, as there is no need for any, under the guise of savings, as you know, waste, fraud, and abuse,” she added.

Altman warned against increasing the agency’s work burden with low employment levels. SSA has reached its lowest level in 25 years in the agency’s employees in the fiscal year 2024.

“I got increased birth and decreased employees,” she said. “I have been working on this program for the past fifty years, and this is the most threat I have ever seen.”

SSA representatives did not respond wealth Request to comment.

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

2025-03-21 14:00:00