DOGE is driving Social Security cuts and will make mistakes, acting head says privately

The newly installed caretaker at the Social Security Administration acknowledged this week that Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service is calling the shots as the agency races to slash thousands of jobs and shrink its budget, telling a group of advocates, "Things are currently operating in a way I have never seen in government before."

In a meeting Tuesday with his senior staff and about 50 legal-aid attorneys and other advocates for the disabled and elderly, acting SSA commissioner Leland Dudek referred to the tech billionaire's cost-cutting team as "outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs," according to a meeting participant's detailed notes that were obtained by the Washington Post.

"DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA," Dudek told the group, according to the notes. "I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions."

His remarks to skeptical advocates came on Dudek's 12th day in a role that the White House rewarded him with after he secretly shared information with DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency. His short tenure — while President Donald Trump's nominee to permanently run the agency waits in the wings — has been consumed by a whirlwind downsizing of the staff in charge of the safety-net program used by 73 million retired and disabled Americans.

Dudek has announced plans to slash 7,000 jobs, a cut of more than 12 percent. He has moved to close regional hubs and field offices that serve the public, eliminated entire programs and consolidated departments.

An exodus of senior executives on his watch — some voluntary, others forced — is fast depleting decades of expertise. And this week, the long-struggling disability benefits system came under threat as backlogged state offices that review claims were told there would be no more overtime or hiring.

Yet it's still not clear what Trump and Musk have in mind as an endgame for Social Security, which has long been a political third rail in Washington.

The president has made promises that "we're not touching Social Security," even as DOGE races to shrink the government. About a dozen Musk-aligned tech engineers have gained access to databases containing reams of taxpayer information, and the cost-cutting goal appears to overlap with an urgency to find fraud.

After Musk's claim that vast numbers of centenarians were fraudulently receiving retirement benefits was debunked, Trump doubled down Tuesday night in his address to a joint session of Congress. "We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors," Trump falsely stated.

Musk's attacks last week on Social Security — he described it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" — have further heightened alarm and uncertainty for lawmakers, policymakers and the public about whether Americans' earned benefits will end up as collateral damage.

"They're alleging that they're uncovering massive fraud in the system," said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "But where are they going with this? There's very little fraud in the retirement system. Since they're mispresenting the data in such extreme ways, it's hard to know."

On Thursday morning — three hours after the publication of this story — an all-staff email went out to SSA employees informing them that they would be prevented "effective today" from accessing certain websites on their government devices, including "online shopping," "general news" and "sports."

"These additional restrictions will help reduce risk and better protect the sensitive information entrusted to us in our many systems," the email stated, according to a copy obtained by the Post.

The new guidance will further limit the beleaguered staff's ability to do their jobs, one SSA employee warned, because news sites — especially obituaries — are key sources staff rely on to prevent fraud.

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme, a fraudulent investment scam that pays early investors with money from later investors in an attempt to appear profitable. It is an earned benefit program for seniors and disabled Americans funded through payroll taxes that has never missed a payment — although uncertainty about the program's solvency because of falling birth rates and growing lifespans has made it a political minefield.

Democrats have pounced on what they say is reckless rhetoric and thoughtless cuts unfolding at the agency of 57,000 employees. Social Security is the government's central hub for some of Americans' most sensitive personal and financial information, and it is the country's largest payer of benefits, issuing more than $126 billion a month in mostly earned benefits — a massive sum that courses through the economy. One of the top motivations for constituents to contact their members of Congress is when they can't get help processing a retirement or disability claim.

"Now we know that something we Senate Democrats have feared for a long time is coming true," Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said at a news conference on Capitol Hill this week. "Social Security is under attack and at risk."

Other lawmakers said they fear the benefit is on the path to being privatized. In recent days, Martin O'Malley, who served a year as SSA commissioner under President Joe Biden, sounded the alarm in a rare public swipe at a successor.

"Ultimately, you're going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits," O'Malley said. "I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days."

Even some Republicans privately acknowledge discomfort with Dudek, who was appointed as acting commissioner when the career senior executive in the role abruptly retired after refusing his push to give DOGE employees unauthorized access to private data.

Dudek — a mid-level data analyst with no management experience until his sudden promotion — has been open about his rapid moves to cut costs.

"For too long, the Social Security Administration has operated on autopilot, creating inefficiencies that burden our employees and all Americans," he wrote in a message to the staff last Saturday. "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 that."

Meeting with advocates on Tuesday, Dudek sought to cast himself as someone on their side. He described his parents as blue-collar workers with little formal education who divorced when he was young, according to the notes obtained by the Post. His mother was injured and went on disability benefits, he explained. In high school, he would eat leftovers from the school cafeteria trash, he said.

Dudek said the old ways of "setting goals, doing studies, discussion, getting information and data before making decisions" are gone. Those in charge now "will make mistakes, but I need to move them in a direction that is best for SSA," he said, and asked the advocates for their support.

Following Trump's claims Tuesday night, Dudek issued a news release on Wednesday that referred to "significant progress" in identifying and correcting records of people 100 years or older whose date of death was not listed in agency databases, leading to the perception that they were receiving retirement benefits. Dudek thanked Trump for "highlighting these inconsistencies."

The Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment. A White House spokeswoman referred a reporter to the president's comments to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Feb. 18. "Look, Social Security won't be touched — other than if there's fraud or something — we're going to find it. It's going to be strengthened but won't be touched."

The spokeswoman said in an email: "President Trump has nominated a highly qualified individual, Frank Bisignano, to lead the Social Security Administration. As President of Fiserv, he has experience delivering the right checks to the right people at the right time — which is the top priority!"

The Senate Finance Committee has yet to schedule a confirmation hearing for Bisignano.

Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, said shrinking Social Security's roughly $15 billion operating budget would represent just a small fraction of the program's $1.5 trillion in annual costs.

"If you're talking about Social Security solvency, this stuff is a drop in the bucket," Biggs said. "It doesn't make any sense at all."

The uncertainty about Musk's intentions has been fueled by statements from senior Trump administration officials that appear difficult to reconcile with the realities of the federal budget.

On the one hand, Trump and many of his senior advisers have repeatedly promised that Social Security's beneficiaries will not be harmed by the massive cost-cutting underway at federal agencies and that any reductions will only affect fraudulent payments. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reiterated that pledge in an interview on Tuesday, telling Fox Business that "we're going to pay every single person who deserves Social Security." During his first term as president, Trump largely stuck by his 2016 campaign pledge not to pursue spending reductions to the program.

At the same time, Musk and Trump have fueled speculation, particularly among Democrats, that they have designs to cut far more than fraudulent or mistaken payments, estimated at less than 1 percent of the retirement program. Democrats and advocates also warn that the massive cuts to staffing already underway at Social Security are certain to worsen service for customers.

Dudek has only raised more alarms by issuing news releases touting cuts. In his missive to staff over the weekend, he said the agency would outsource "nonessential functions to industry experts," the first step toward privatizing what could be crucial customer service functions.

Fears have been heightened in particular by false claims of far more waste in the program than has been documented by watchdog reports and audits over the years. Appearing to misread a chart, for example, Musk said on social media in February that DOGE had identified payments to "tens of millions" of deceased Americans — an incorrect assertion repeated by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

In Tuesday's address to Congress, Trump also said that Musk was finding "hundreds of billions" of dollars in wasteful spending — a number that appears possible only if entitlement programs such as Social Security are included — and he ticked through examples of those older than 100 who had allegedly received payments.

Substantial budget cuts to Social Security, the single most expensive federal program, cannot mathematically be achieved solely by targeting these kinds of payments. June data suggests that the agency paid less than $150 million to those over 99 years old, which amounts to less than one-fifth of 1 percent of retiree benefits. Democrats have raised the prospect that the Trump administration intends to declare large amounts of legitimate Social Security spending as "fraud" as the basis to cut benefits.

Andrew Saul, who served as SSA commissioner in Trump's first term, said he welcomed the cuts — but he was adamant that without corresponding modernization of the agency's many aging technology systems, service will suffer.

"You can't replace all of these people without the proper systems," Saul said. "And it takes time to develop them."

Other budget experts say it's possible Musk and Trump are just misinformed and not covertly planning a major cut to retiree benefits. Musk may be aiming to make technical changes to improve the Social Security system, which could save a few or maybe tens of billions of dollars. That outcome would protect retirees but also come far short of meaningfully reducing spending on the program.

Meanwhile, employees say the staff is under siege as firings, early-retirement and buyout offers, resignations and layoffs hover overhead — along with anxiety that customers will suffer.

In interviews, eight employees described chaos and the dissolution of a system they have been proud to serve, fueled by DOGE-led cuts to staff, spending and operating systems.

Wait times for basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours, according to some employees, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal details. Delays in reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative law judges are already starting.

Employees at a field office in Indiana have been forced to pick up calls for other offices, one employee said, and are fielding phone inquiries for an area covering two-thirds of the state. The phone "never stops ringing now," the employee said. Phone backups have prevented the staff from processing retirement claims.

Meanwhile, supervisors have little time to give guidance or advice, the employee said, because they are constantly pulled into lengthy meetings to dissect the latest guidance from the Trump administration on return-to-office orders, firing of probationary employees and a Musk-led campaign requiring federal workers to send weekly bullet points laying out their accomplishments.

"Morale is in the toilet," the employee said. "We all know what DOGE wants to do, which is just break us, so they can privatize us."

Because of a DOGE-driven spending freeze on federal credit cards, some offices can't pay phone bills, the employee said, while one office was forced last week to cancel three disability hearings because the staff could not use charge cards to pay for interpreters who speak foreign languages or American Sign Language. One claimant has a terminal illness, and another is in danger of losing their house, the employee said. No new hearings have been scheduled.

Meanwhile, a DOGE-led campaign to cancel contracts deemed "wasteful" across the government is also hurting Social Security. The agency lost a contract that paid for medical experts to testify at disability hearings, the employee said, along with another contract for mold removal from offices.

The elimination of the entire civil rights office is causing further chaos and uncertainty; the staff there was responsible not just for processing discrimination cases but also for obtaining office equipment for blind employees — accommodations that are required under federal disability law. No one has explained who will be taking over this type of work, employees said.

As the agency prepares for a mandated return to in-office work, space constraints in some offices have left supervisors to consider assigning employees to work at desks in supply closets, the worker said.

"It's just chaos, people are terrified, and no one knows anything, including our supervisors," the employee said.

Another employee said they were briefed on a call last week in which managers received instructions to come up with cuts of half the agency's staff and the same number of contractors by the end of March. Word of reductions on that scale spread throughout the agency, the employee said. In an internal announcement, Dudek said staff cuts of 50 percent were inaccurate, causing still more confusion.

For his entire nearly 30-year career at SSA, one employee said, changes came slowly and were accompanied by a barrage of information explaining to staff exactly what was being altered and why. However, since DOGE took hold, changes have come so fast that they are impossible to follow, the employee said.

"No one really knows what they're doing, no one has answers, and at some point, something is going to break."