The is growing uncertainty about the future of Social Security checks, and this is bad news for millions of Americans who depend on them for a living. According to Martin O’Malley, former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the agency is headed into a disaster caused by the interference of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the leadership of Elon Musk.
“The Trump co-presidency is gutting this agency. It is breaking it from within, and it ultimately will lead to cascading failures, interruptions, and system shutdowns that will, eventually, and I think within the next couple of months, lead to benefit interruptions for the first time in 90 years.”
The Role of DOGE and Elon Musk in the Potential Collapse of SSA
Since Elon Musk took charge at DOGE following his appointment by President Trump, he has shaken up how government agencies work, and his actions have destroyed even the SSA, which is the one agency that has never failed to send monthly benefits since August 14, 1935.
O’Malley said that the Trump co-presidency was gutting the SSA by breaking it from within. So far, DOGE has cut thousands of SSA jobs and proposed the closure of dozens of field offices in the U.S. These moves have interrupted how SSA delivers its services and made it hard for disabled people and retirees to get help.
“They’re trying to jam them up and give people the worst possible experience they can have,” O’Malley told the committee. “So then, after wrecking it, they can rob it.”
Claims of Fraud, Fear, and Misinformation
Recently, Elon Musk presented lots of misleading claims accusing the SSA of fraud and having undocumented immigrants as beneficiaries in its database who are siphoning benefits worth billions of dollars. He also said that over 40% of SSA calls are fraud attempts, but this claim was refuted by experts, who termed it as totally false.
O’Malley corrected Musk and said that only 1 out of every 3,00 calls is a successful direct deposit fraud attempt, which is just 0.0000322581% of calls. SSA has lost only $133 million through fraud out of $1.4 trillion paid last year, which is a tiny 0.000095%.
O’Malley also refuted Musk’s claim about how undocumented immigrants were receiving Social Security checks by saying that all immigrants are prohibited by law from receiving any Social Security benefits. However, they pay approximately $22 billion for the eligible beneficiaries.
Is SSA Attack Unfair?
The attack on the SSA by DOGE and Elon Musk seems unfair, considering that it has run efficiently for decades. When O’Malley was in charge of the SSA during President Biden’s tenure, it achieved a 99% payment accuracy rate and an overhead of only 1.2%, making it more efficient than any private insurance firm. During this time, a performance-tracking program known as SecurityStat, which was modeled after NYPD’s CompStat, was used at the SSA, and it enabled it to maintain openness and accountability in all divisions.
DOGE invasion has led to access to sensitive databases, leading to accusations that the agency is sending checks to millions of deceased people. O’Malley also said that DOGE misinterpreted the data that only 0.1% of beneficiaries are over 100 and that payments automatically stopped once an individual hit age 115.
Could DOGE Be Targeting The SSA’s Asset Reserves?
Critics like O’Malley believe that DOGE could be trying to pull down the SSA to acquire its assets reserves, which as of 2024, were worth $2.7 trillion. He also accused DOGE and Elon Musk of accusing the SSA of wastage yet they were paying workers to leave, “If you want to find wasted Social Security today,” O’Malley said, “look at the cash they are burning by paying experienced, overworked men and women to leave the agency.”
Conclusion
As Elon Musk continues to push the SSA to the brink through DOGE, the Social Security checks could be at risk. So far, many SSA offices have been closed and the workforce cut, besides the threats to the trust fund and false fraud claims, and all these could interrupt benefits and break its system after a 90-year record.