Niamh Shackleton
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is causing 'complete chaos' for the Social Security Administration, according to employees.
The Musk-headed department has had a cut-throat approach to saving money and has axed a series of jobs, budgets, and contracts within the US government and claims to have so far saved an estimated $140 billion, as per its website.
And one department that's facing a lot of casualties is the Social Security Administration (SSA), which is responsible for administering social insurance programs, including retirement and disability benefits.
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Musk has been critical of the department, making seemingly unfounded claims that there had been 'fraudulent payments of entitlements' to 'illegals' on a podcast with senator Ted Cruz and radio host Ben Ferguson.
It's believed around 69 million Americans receive some kind of social security benefit on a monthly basis, leaving many people's finances hanging in the balance as Musk continues to slash SSA staffing numbers and budgets.
Reportedly DOGE wants to clash 7,000 SSA jobs. As of 2018, around 60,000 people worked for the SSA — and it's believed Musk could cut even more jobs than the initial 7,000 so that workforce is made up of just 50,000 people instead.
With Musk's upheaval of the SSA in mind, there are fears that the administration could completely collapse.
Speaking last month, former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Martin O'Malley told CNN: "Everything they’re doing is driving this agency to system collapse.
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"It will lead to interruptions in service, and that will ultimately cascade into more frequent system interruptions for the processing of claims, ultimately leading to system collapse and eventually the interruption of benefits."
He gave a bleak prognosis of 90 days until the SSA fell into complete disarray in March, meaning the country could now be two months away from one of the US government's largest agencies collapsing.
Current SSA employees have also expressed their concerns.
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"It’s just been a lot of craziness, a lot of foolishness," one staffer told The Guardian.
"Until they get rid of DOGE and the person in office right now, and the Republicans actually get a backbone and stand up for something for once in their lives, things are just going to be complete chaos. That’s really the best word to describe SSA right now, just complete, utter chaos."
As well as people's jobs being at risk, so are American citizens' security benefits.
An anonymous employee said to The Guardian: "They have these ‘concepts of plans’ that they’re hoping are sticking but in reality, are really hurting American people.
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"No one knows what’s going on. They’re just coming up with ideas at the top of their head."
275,240 federal jobs were cut in March alone, up from 172,017 in February, reported Challenger, Grey, & Christmas Inc.