President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk’s cuts to the Social Safety Administration’s workforce and operations have brought about large issues for the favored social security web program that 73 million People rely on to afford their fundamental price of dwelling.
The Washington Publish printed a bombshell report on Tuesday, detailing the issues Musk has brought about on the Social Safety Administration by way of his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity.
From the report:
The Social Safety Administration web site crashed 4 occasions in 10 days this month, blocking hundreds of thousands of retirees and disabled People from logging in to their on-line accounts as a result of the servers had been overloaded. Within the area, workplace managers have resorted to answering telephones on the entrance desk as receptionists as a result of so many staff have been pushed out. However the company now not has a system to watch prospects’ expertise with these companies, as a result of that workplace was eradicated as a part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
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The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and authorized immigrants who want Social Safety playing cards with much less entry or shut out of the system altogether, based on these conversant in the issues.
The issues are due to a myriad of decisions Musk has made to how the company runs.
The Social Safety Administration plans to minimize roughly 7,000 staff—or 12% of its workforce—which present and former Social Safety officers say might make it unimaginable for this system to maintain up with the wants of the tens of hundreds of thousands of People who obtain and apply for advantages yearly.
“Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Safety commissioner below former President Joe Biden, advised The New York Instances.
Musk and his DOGE bros additionally modified the way in which recipients can confirm their identities to the company, nixing the power to take action over the cellphone and requiring the aged and disabled individuals who obtain advantages to do it both on-line or in-person. That’s an unimaginable burden for a inhabitants that’s not as laptop literate as others. It might additionally burden recipients who dwell in rural areas or areas with poor web entry. Getting in individual could be much more of a burden since many aged and disabled recipients can not journey to places of work—if they may even get an appointment.
A memo obtained by the publication Widespread Info mentioned the brand new identity-verification process would lead an extra 75,000 to 85,000 weekly visits to company places of work. In flip, that may result in “longer wait times and processing times,” the memo mentioned. Already, wait occasions for appointments might be greater than a month.
Musk has had it out for Social Safety since his buddy Trump put him accountable for discovering waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal authorities.
Musk criticized the social security web program as a “Ponzi scheme.” He lied that this system is rife with fraud—lies which have led eligible individuals to lose advantages. He additionally helped drive out the appearing Social Safety administrator and exchange him Leland Dudek, an unqualified hothead who has acted vindictively since taking on.
For instance, Dudek canceled a contract that allowed new mother and father in Maine to use for Social Safety numbers for his or her new child infants on the hospital—a transfer that may have compelled these mother and father to journey to a Social Safety workplace to acquire. He seemingly did it to punish Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who stood as much as Trump at a gathering with governors.
Dudek additionally threatened to close your complete Social Safety Administration down as a result of he was mad {that a} decide blocked DOGE officers from accessing People’ delicate private data as they sought to show Musk’s baseless lies that the company is rife with fraud.
Musk isn’t the one Trump administration official attacking Social Safety.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disparaged this system and accused anybody who has had issues receiving advantages as being “fraudsters.”
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She thinks something got messed up and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining. And all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right? Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the process system knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen,” Lutnick—who is a billionaire and will simply guarantee his mother-in-law wouldn’t face monetary smash if her Social Safety examine went lacking—mentioned on a podcast.
Musk’s assaults on the overwhelmingly standard social security web program goes in opposition to Trump’s declare that he would shield Social Safety if elected.
And breaking Social Safety is politically moronic. It is without doubt one of the hottest applications within the nation.
Eighty-seven p.c of People ages 25 and older consider that Social Safety ought to be a precedence for the nation, no matter governmental funds deficits, based on an October 2023 ballot from Greenwald Analysis for the Nationwide Institute on Retirement Safety, a nonpartisan analysis group. And a newer ballot, performed by Related Press-NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis, discovered that 67% of People believed the federal government spends too little on Social Safety. Solely 6% mentioned an excessive amount of is spent on this system.
What’s extra, older voters who obtain Social Safety advantages are among the many most dependable voting blocs within the nation. Which means a backlash from these voters might sink Republicans possibilities within the 2026 midterm elections. In 2024, Trump received voters ages 65 and older by simply 1 share level, based on exit polls, so even a modest backlash from that voting group might closely harm Republicans subsequent November.
And the indicators that the backlash is coming are already exhibiting up. Older voters are packing into Republican lawmakers’ city halls to demand they stand as much as Musk’s DOGE cuts.
