- The government efficiency team in Elon Musk aims for the goal of social security, Claiming fraud with the payment of controversial changes that may make it difficult for the elderly to reach the advantages. Critics, including Mark Kobe, say the changes are part of the “back door” voltage to reduce payments and the intestine of the agency.
The ELON Musk Ministry of Government Efficiency Ministry has a new goal in its endeavor to eliminate government waste: social security.
The Musk and Doge team accused the agency participating in widespread fraud, most notably the claim Tens of millions of dead People are mistakenly receiving payments.
To reduce some fraud in identity, the agency imposes stronger Identification proceduresA proposal that would force millions to make social security claims personally.
Change has been criticized by some, including billionaire Mark Kobe, Who called the step a “The background method for cutting payments.”
Former SSA officials and experts have echoed the Cuban comments and raised concerns about the impact of Dog’s initiatives on social security payments.
A social security spokesman told a “social security spokeswoman”: “SSA is almost recently asking all agency employees, including front lines employees in all offices across the country, working in the office five days a week. This change ensures that the maximum employment is available to support the strongest identity audit requirements in social security,” a social security spokesman told a social security spokeswoman. luck In an e -mail statement. “The agency will continue to monitor, and if necessary, make adjustments, to ensure that it pays the right person in a timely manner while protecting the benefits and programs it runs at the same time.”
Benefits of the back door
Laura Haltal, a former participant in the Social Security Department, who resigned in late February, said, said. luck Dog used to use the pretext of fraud inside the agency as a way to reduce the amount of advantages that were paid.
The agency announced on Tuesday that individuals who cannot verify their identity through my online social security account will need to visit their local social security office to do so personally. A Leakage It also hinted that social security phone support may end identity verification, which will also increase personal visits.
In response to new identity auditing measures, Social Security Administration also plans to accelerate the treatment of direct deposit changes-whether online or personal-to only one working day, which is a significant decrease from the previous 30-day reservation.
Many people, including Cubans, have raised concerns about how this affects the elderly who live outside social security checks.
“How many elderly people live exclusively from their SS checks, can they withstand the costs of the Internet? How many elderly people no longer have a SS office near them now after dozens have been closed? The billionaire said in a post On x.
Haltzel said the changes will make it difficult for some Americans to reach their advantages with little to target actual fraud. She said that the changes were a social security reduction “by reality”, and the Trump administration promised not to touch the popular benefit.
She said: “It creates an environment in which the beneficiaries whom we are trying to serve simply are able to reach the benefits they paid.”
She said: “We have always tried to make it easier for the demands … more efficient for the demands. The justification that is put forward for the reason they pushed them is that there is a lot of fraud.” “Well, mathematics there do not add what is up.”
According to SSA General Inspector, only 0.3 % of claims are due to fraud. Social Security payment accuracy rate is more than 99 %, and the agency has many of the involved guarantees for improper payments, according to the progressive research tank Budget and politics priority center.
Tiffany Felk, former Chief of Staff of the US Social Security Administration, said that Dog’s acquisition of SSA seems to be “dependent on the general legend of the presumed fraud.”
In the court file, Flick raised concerns about the ability of DOGE employees to protect sensitive taxpayers data. She said that she was “uncomfortable” that Duji staff had “knowledge and training required to prevent sensitive information from unintentionally transferring them to bad actors”, as the team was not examined by SSA or trained on SSA data, systems or programs.
“In such an anarchist environment, the risk of data leakage in the wrong hands is important,” she said in the deposit.
Thursday, a The federal judge temporarily prevented Dog From accessing sensitive data in social security management, saying they had no little justification to search for fraud.
The judge wrote: “The Duji team is mainly participated in a fish hunting trip in SSA, in search of a fraud, based on more than just doubts,” the judge wrote.
Musk’s Musk ‘Dead People Database’
One of the main arguments that Musk and Doge used for the need to repair is the claim That the dead is running Paid social security, something referred to as Musk in the name of the “Database of the Death”.
“Perfume may be real and there is a lot of vampires that collect social security”, Musk He said in a post on X.
“The presence of tens of millions of people who were distinguished in social security as” alive “when they are definitely a big problem. A separate post.
Trump later He chanted the claims at a press conferenceIn claiming that “millions and millions of people over the age of 100,” they receive the advantages of social security: “They are clearly fraudulent or incompetent.”
These claims were exposed by experts and news outlets, but Musk continued to pay the claim.
“What people do not understand is that you can have an active social warranty number for a very long time because social security pays a worker’s earning record and can push the benefits of the widow or the benefits of children, so there can be many different advantages.” luck.
Al -Taman said that she was concerned that Dog was trying to persuade people that there was a widespread fraud to undermine confidence in the program and the government, while using it as an excuse to “wander” at the agency.
She said, “It may end completely, and creates a lot of waste and abuse,” she said.
The numbers delivered by Musk and Trump appear to distort social security data.
“They do not understand the difference between the active claim, the active benefits, historical demands and historical benefits,” he said, noting that people may still be in the system but they do not actually receive benefits. “It is not simply not worth the time and effort from our employees to go to the records to back down from the previous history of someone who has passed that he does not receive entitlements today.”
The agency’s job discounts that are already suffering from employee deficiency can place
Officials also raised concerns about the SSA proposed employee discounts.
Haltzil, who took early retirement in February, said that the team “instilled everyone in SSA with a clear fear that if they did not leave, their job may be lost to them.”
It accused the cost reduction team of creating a culture of fear intentionally, the inability to predict and work with a clear contempt for government employees.
Dog was clear about her plans to reduce the number of government employees, but experts say the discounts may cause the SSA to be already treated under pressure.
“You can reduce direct costs by having fewer federal employees, and you can make it difficult for people to demand advantages because the people who were going to serve them have gone.” “The lower the number of people, the more it takes.
“They create completely administrative burdens, as there is no need for any, under the guise of savings, as you know, waste, fraud, and abuse,” she added.
Altman warned against increasing the agency’s work burden with low employment levels. SSA hit a The lowest 25 -year level in the agency’s employees In the fiscal year 2024.
“I got increased birth and decreased employees,” she said. “I have been working on this program for the past fifty years, and this is the most threat I have ever seen.”
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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