Social Security website stutters, perhaps due to DOGE action • The Register

The US Social Safety Administration’s web portal has incessantly gone offline in current weeks, and introduced inaccurate or incomplete data to customers, maybe due to adjustments steered by Elon Musk’s cost-trimming DOGE unit.

A Washington Put up report suggests DOGE’s introduction of a fraud checking service is in charge for the location typically going darkish, and cites nameless workers members who declare the applying wasn’t examined to function at acceptable scale.

The Social Safety Administration (SSA) has admitted it is suffered outages, and blamed its previous infrastructure and person demand.

“SSA web site went down due to atypical excessive quantity and it’s a 1979 platform,” the SSA wrote on X. “It had nothing to do with DOGE. In truth, this drawback has alerted to a difficulty that DOGE will promptly repair.”

That 1979 is probably going a reference to the tens of millions of strains of COBOL and meeting code on the coronary heart of the SSA, and there have been rumors Musk’s staff is mulling changing all of it with one thing trendy within the house of months. We’re not stunned to see the codebase and DOGE talked about collectively by administration spinners; the software program is within the White Home’s cross-hairs.

SSA hasn’t mentioned why demand to entry the portal is excessive however the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper’s report advances two theories: Customers are being inspired to make use of the online as an alternative of different channels for assist, and a few recipients of funds are incorrectly being advised they’re not at present receiving any cash.

Final week, for instance, recipients of Supplemental Safety Earnings – a program for disabled and low-income People – had been advised their advantages can be lower. This turned out to be an error, and checks had been deposited on time.

“This alarming episode raises recent questions on operations at SSA and the consequences of the Division of Authorities Effectivity’s assaults on the company, which you have got helped facilitate,” mentioned Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in a letter to performing SSA commissioner Leland Dudek, referring to Musk’s non-department DOGE.

“Certainly, we’re involved that these efforts are a precursor to makes an attempt to make additional cuts to Social Safety, or privatize it totally.”

Additional adjustments at SSA usually are not past the realms of risk. Elon Musk lately described social safety as a “Ponzi scheme” on Joe Rogan’s podcast and the SSA has announced plans to chop staffing ranges by 7,000, from 57,000, by encouraging retirement or voluntary redundancy.

There’s additionally a political angle to the SSA’s issues. After a really public spat final month between the Maine’s Democratic Governor Jane Mills and President Trump, Dudek issued a letter to workers instructing them to cancel contracts that end in funds of federal funds to the state, regardless that he acknowledged that this might enhance fraud ranges.

“Please cancel the contracts. Whereas our improper funds will go up, and fraudsters could compromise identities, no cash will go from the general public belief to a petulant little one,” Dudek wrote, based on Consultant Gerald Connolly (D-VA).

DOGE operatives have apparently expressed a perception they will rebuild SSA’s web site in six months, if not your entire codebase someway. Right here’s hoping they succeed, in opposition to all odds as that is the sort of cautious work ordinarily that takes years, as Elon Musk has already mentioned that he needs to emphasise on-line buyer interactions and rely much less on phone-based service. ®