Now that tech billionaire Elon Musk has left given up his position with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and is leaving Washington, many have begun to question where the Social Security Administration stands in relation to DOGE going forward. Musk had previously been a part of President Donald Trump’s inner circle, however, this alliance has since ended on a sour note. Regardless of this, the current SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano has stated that DOGE will still continue to play a major role in the operation of the agency going forward.
In recent months, the SSA has implemented several changes, some rather significant, at the behest of DOGE. Amongst these changes was a workforce minimization of 7,000 jobs and the introduction a new anti-fraud system.
DOGE and the Social Security Administration
Bisignano, a self-proclaimed “fundamentally DOGE person”, said to the Wall Street Journal that he “plans to implement DOGE staff to help the SSA update its customer service and employ more technology and artificial intelligence.”
“I look at them as a resource to help me,” Bisignano added. Since being sworn in as commissioner last month, Bisignano has shown great determination towards digitization at the SSA so that beneficiaries can easily replace their Social Security cards or fulfill other queries remotely.
However, tensions have been escalating between DOGE and SSA employees earlier this year. This issue arose as a result of DOGE circumventing procedures in order to access beneficiaries’ personal data. “The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that DOGE may access non-anonymized Social Security records to support its initiative to improve government efficiency,” according to Newsweek. Subsequently, concerns regarding privacy and the emergency nature of the relief were raised by the dissenting justices.
In a previous statement, Liz Houston, a White House spokesperson, said, “Under President Trump’s leadership, SSA has charted a new course for the agency that prioritizes enhancing customer service, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, and optimizing its workforce towards direct public service.”
At the beginning of the year, SSA staffing numbers dropped by 5,000, going from 57,000 to 52,000. Regarding this matter of staffing, Bisignano said, “I think we should get away from focusing on head count to focus on what our objective is, which is to do a great job for the public.”
Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, shared with Newsweek that “DOGE will have an instrumental role in moving the SSA forward in regard to technology and innovation, but we truly haven’t seen the real impact as of yet. What many of the staffers are starting to understand is that implementation takes time and doing this will take years not months or days.”
Will Social Security face cuts?
Both Bisignano and Trump have clearly expressed that plans to cut Social Security do not exist despite the potential financial troubles faced by the SSA. However, according to estimates by analysts, if no changes are made now, the agency will no longer be able to make full payments by 2035. “The idea that I’d be doing anything other than trying to bolster it up is just crazy,” Bisignano asserted.
Additionally, SSA staff have been warning of possible delays regarding benefit payments as the staff have been asked to prioritize processing the 900,000 or so cases that have been impacted by the Social Security Fairness Act.
The SSA phone line currently has high wait times and many callers do not even get to speak to a representative at all. Bisignano hopes to aid this. His goal is to “reduce the average wait time for calls to the SSA to 12 minutes, from the current 19.2 minutes” by September 2026. Additionally, through the help of DOGE, he wants to reduce the average processing times for initial disability claims to 190 days. Currently, it takes around 231 days, however, the response to these technical shifts could be that of skepticism.
“Past suggestions of changes to how recipients interact with Social Security have been met with concern and even outright disdain,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, said to Newsweek. “For older Americans who have paid into the system for years, they don’t want to see access to in-person and over-the-phone assistance drift away from what is such a pivotal source of income for millions each month.”
In short, with Musk’s decision to leave his role of leadership in DOGE, the future of the department and its reforms remains up in the air. Furthermore, it still has not been confirmed who will take Musk’s spot in leading the reforms, however, Bisignano has reiterated his commitment to DOGE’s principles.
“There won’t be any immediate impact this year or next. The changes DOGE is driving are mostly tech-heavy—system upgrades, digital improvements, backend overhauls,” said Thompson.
“Here’s the catch: by the time those improvements are implemented, the technology will already be outdated. It’s a never-ending game of catch-up. What gets upgraded today will need another upgrade tomorrow. That’s the reality of moving a legacy system into the digital age, yet and Social Security recipients won’t feel those effects anytime soon.”