From a press release:
The Social Security Administration today announced the closing of a component within the agency, the Office of Transformation. Employees in this office will be put on administrative leave effective today. …
Feb 24, 2025
Office Of Transformation Closes; Employees Placed On Administrative Leave
A Win For Government Employees
From Government Executive:
An independent federal oversight agency has deemed at least some of President Trump’s mass firings of probationary period employees unlawful, creating a pathway for those employees to regain their jobs.
The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government. It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity. ...
Trump earlier this month fired [Special Counsel] Dellinger from his job, but a federal court reversed that decision and reinstated him to his post. The Trump administration has challenged that ruling up to the Supreme Court, but justices there last week declined to overturn Dellinger’s reinstatement. ...
After publication of this story, OSC released a statement confirming its findings and suggesting Dellinger is actively contemplating expanding them to include far more federal workers.
"The special counsel believes other probationary employees are similarly situated to the six workers for whom he currently is seeking relief," OSC said. "Dellinger is considering ways to seek relief for a broader group without the need for individual filings with OSC." ...
Tense Times In Baltimore
From the Baltimore Banner:
... “Everything was smooth and very positive, and it seemed like this was a great place to work. But now, no one knows anything,” said a Baltimore-area Social Security employee who has been with the agency less than a year. “I still don’t know if I’m going to have a job.”
That employee, as well as other current Social Security workers, asked for anonymity out of fear of being targeted by the administration. ...
The Trump administration said it is terminating most probationary workers across federal agencies. About 4% of Social Security’s 58,627 employees nationwide had less than one year on the job as of spring 2024, according to the most recent federal data available. ...
I can't copy them here but the photos that accompany this article are evocative and depressing, more so than the writing and the writing is good.
Feb 23, 2025
A Message To Staff
From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:57 AM
Subject: Time Sensitive: 'Accomplishments' Assignment
A Message to All SSA Employees
Subject: Time Sensitive: ‘Accomplishments’ Assignment
You should have received an email yesterday from the sender “HR” requesting that you reply to that email with 5 bullets about your accomplishments last week. This email is a legitimate assignment and should not be reported as spam. You must take the action requested by the deadline.
Things to do:
Review your work over the last week and identify the most impactful mission-critical work accomplishments that advances our public service mission, as well as the Administration’s priorities. This is an opportunity to highlight the important work you do that helps impact the lives of those we serve.
Reply to the email from HR with 5 bullets describing your accomplishments:
Don’t include any sensitive or confidential information, including details that aren’t available to the public.
Where relevant, include the specific SSA programs or operational priorities that your accomplishments support.
Include your immediate supervisor in the cc line of your response.
Deadline:
Your response to the HR email is due no later than 11:59pm EST on Monday, February 24, 2025.
COVID Killed 1.7 Million In U.S.; Saves $205 Billion For Social Security
From The Effect Of US COVID-19 Excess Mortality On Social Security Outlays, a study by Hanke Heun-Johnson, Darius Lakdawalla, Julian Reif and Bryan Tysinger:
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant excess mortality among the US population, impacting the future outlays of the US Social Security Administration (SSA) Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. This study aimed to estimate the net effects of pandemic-induced excess deaths on OASDI liabilities ... The pandemic resulted in approximately 1.7 million excess deaths among individuals aged 25 and older between 2020 and 2023. These premature deaths reduced future retirement payments, which increased the Social Security fund by $294 billion. However, this gain was offset by reductions in future payroll tax flows ($58 billion) and increased payments to surviving spouses and children ($32 billion), resulting in a net impact of $205 billion. ...
For better or worse, DOGE has probably ended this sort of research.
Feb 22, 2025
Another Insult From Musk; Unions Fight Back
From the Washington Post:
All federal workers will shortly receive an email asking what they did last week — and that if employees fail to respond, it will be taken as a resignation, Elon Musk wrote in a post on X Saturday. …
From a press release:
AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, AFT Challenge DOGE’s Access, Executed by Unconfirmed, Acting Official, to Confidential, Private Data of Hundreds of Millions of AmericansSuit filed on heels of SSA Acting Head’s Departure Amid Concerns about DOGE Access to DataBaltimore, MD — In a new lawsuit filed on Friday night, retirees and unions sued to halt DOGE’s unprecedented, unlawful seizure of personal, confidential, private and sensitive data from the Social Security Administration, without any express authority. Such access has been granted by an unlawful acting official, installed at SSA with disregard for the rules governing such appointments. ..
More On The Elevation Of Dudek — With A Small Role For Andrew Saul
From Lisa Rein at the Washington Post:
Leaders of the Social Security Administration had just opened an investigation into a career employee they believed was improperly sharing information with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team when President Donald Trump elevated the employee this week to acting commissioner. …
It’s not clear what data Dudek shared, but his actions raised enough alarm that he may have violated privacy and tax laws that senior officials placed him on paid leave as they launched their investigation. The officials, including attorneys in the general counsel’s office, also were notified late last week that Dudek had sent harassing emails to employees in the agency’s personnel and security divisions to rush them to let several engineers hired by DOGE start work and gain access to agency computer systems. The officials pushed back, saying that they had not completed background investigations into the new hires….
When the [DOGE] team learned last week that Dudek would be investigated, the chief information officer called acting commissioner Michelle King to demand answers. Then, on the Sunday of Presidents’ Day weekend, King received an email announcing that Trump had appointed Dudek to replace her. After being effectively forced out, King abruptly retired after three decades of service, the three individuals said. Her acting chief of staff, Tiffany Flick, also retired. …
In his first days on the job, Dudek has made bold moves that are highly unusual for someone in an acting role. He has slashed the agency’s research program, restructured numerous departments, announced the hires of new political staff, and made personnel changes that include the demotion of the career senior executive who was involved in placing him on paid leave last week, according to internal personnel announcements obtained by The Washington Post. …
“If I were them, I would want to get my permanent person in as fast as possible,” said Andrew Saul, who served as Social Security commissioner during Trump’s first term. “The situation is not good, obviously.” Saul said he recommended King, then deputy commissioner for operations, to Trump’s transition team after his election in November. “I knew she’d hold the ship down.” …
Feb 21, 2025
SSA Ending External Research
The Social Security Administration today announced the termination of their Retirement and Disability Research Consortium (RDRC) cooperative agreements. This action supports the President's Executive Order, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.
“Terminating our RDRC cooperative agreements aligns with President Trump's priorities to end fraudulent and wasteful initiatives and contracts,” said Social Security's Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek. “We will continue to root out waste and abuse to earn back America's trust and confidence in our agency.”
Social Security previously entered into RDRC cooperative agreements with research centers that included a focus on research addressing DEI in Social Security, retirement, and disability policy. Terminating these cooperative agreements results in about $15 million dollars in cost savings for hardworking Americans in fiscal year 2025.
My recollection is that money has been specifically appropriated for external research. If so,this would be an example of Presidential impoundment, a very dubious legal theory. I believe this hurts Boston College and the University of Michigan the hardest.
Trump Administration Says ALJs May Be Fired At Will
From the New York Times:
The Trump administration told Congress on Thursday that it believed President Trump had the constitutional power to summarily fire administrative law judges at will, despite a statute that protects such officials from being removed without a cause like misconduct. …
To insulate the officials from political interference, Congress enacted a statute that says disciplinary action, including firings, may be taken against such judges “only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing before the board.”
Ms. Harris’s letter to Congress also brought to wider attention that the Justice Department had said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the law protecting administrative law judges in a little-noticed Feb. 11 filing in an appeals court case. …
The Social Security Administration employs the vast majority of federal ALJs.
The Rise Of Dudek
From the Wall Street Journal:
Leland Dudek had spent more than a decade at the Social Security Administration, including time overseeing a fraud investigation office, but was largely unknown to senior executives at the agency.
Just last week, in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Dudek said that he was put on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” he wrote in the post, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. …
[Michelle] King was informed in an email Sunday morning that Dudek had been elevated to acting commissioner and she decided to retire from the agency after three decades, some of the people said.
Dudek’s elevation to acting commissioner followed a tumultuous period in which members of Social Security’s leadership team grew concerned about the manner in which he was helping DOGE personnel, some of the people said. They had received information that Dudek had been sharing information with nonagency personnel beginning in December, before Trump’s inauguration, and heard complaints from career staff who said he had pressured them to help DOGE representatives, these people said. …
Feb 20, 2025
Only 41 Employees Given Job Ultimatum
From Government Executive:
The Social Security Administration on Thursday gave 41 probationary employees in the agency’s headquarters and regional offices the choice to be reassigned to frontline agency work or to get caught up in the ongoing governmentwide purge of recently hired or promoted workers….
Rich Couture, spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees’ Social Security General Committee, which represents more than 40,000 SSA employees, confirmed the initiative and said while the union appreciates giving probationary workers who weren’t subject to the agency’s exemptions a chance to stay employed, the agency needs more workers, not fewer.
“We are grateful that the probationary employees on the front line were not terminated,” he said. “With 10,000 new beneficiaries each day and a 50-year low in staffing, now is the time to be adding to our frontline staff . . . Should all [of the 41 probationary employees] accept reassignment, we still need to prevent attrition and add 20,0000 new hires to be able to deliver Americans their earned benefits efficiently and accurately.”
We’ve Got To Get All Those 150 Year Old People Off Benefits
The Trump Administration is asserting that there are literally tens of millions of people receiving Social Security benefits even though they’re way over 100 years old -- 150 years old in many cases! This is a disturbing allegation.
I think that Social Security has to treat this seriously. The thing to do is to look at what private enterprise does to prevent fraud committed by crooks using the identity of deceased individuals.
Private enterprise, particularly financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, use a database of deceased Americans to prevent fraud. It’s called the Death Master File. It’s state of the art and all financial institutions rely on the Death Master File.
Social Security ought to use the Death Master File to prevent fraud.
I’m sure that most of my readers know I’m being facetious. That state of the art Death Master File used widely by financial institutions was created and is maintained by the Social Security Administration which certainly uses it to cut off benefits to those who have died. Social Security isn’t beset by fraud committed using the identities of the deceased. It’s the exact opposite. It’s literally the very model of how to prevent it!
I wonder if Fiserv, Frank Bisignano’s old company, uses the Death Master File.
DOGE Claims To Have Already Saved Over $232 Million At Social Security But That Is Disputed
Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is claiming to have already saved over $232 million at Social Security, primarily by cancelling a contract with Leidos, Inc. Social Security has been contracting with Leidos for more than thirty years for IT support.
NPR, however, is reporting that the Leidos contract with Social Security hasn’t actually been terminated.
Feb 19, 2025
Dudek Speaks
Statement from Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner, about Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information
“I am honored and humbled to be appointed Social Security's Acting Commissioner pending Senate confirmation of Frank Bisignano to be SSA's next Commissioner. I accepted the position because I strongly believe in the agency's mission and the hardworking and dedicated employees who serve America.
Openness, transparency, and accountability are tenants of good government and demonstrating them begins with me. To that end, I want to share several points to reassure the public and our employees that I will continue SSA's history of transparency and protecting benefits and information.
I have experienced firsthand the impact that Social Security benefits have on family's lives. Since joining SSA in 2009, I have had the opportunity to work across multiple parts of SSA, and especially appreciated my experiences working alongside frontline employees in the Cambridge, MA field office.
Transparency begins with me: My first call as Acting Commissioner was to our Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to provide them an opportunity to oversee and review any and all agency activities, including my actions past, present, and future. I trust in the People to be informed, and I am making available my agency personnel and performance files to the OIG.
The law matters and we will follow it: I have invited the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan and independent agency that works for Congress, to observe how we conduct agency business.
Good government means finding ways to do better: The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, is a critical part of President Trump's commitment to identifying fraud, waste, and abuse, and better ways for the government to function to support its people. I want to be very clear about the DOGE personnel who are now working at Social Security.
- Our continuing priority is paying beneficiaries the right amount at the right time, and providing other critical services people rely on from us.
- DOGE personnel CANNOT make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information. They only have READ access.
- DOGE personnel do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future.
- DOGE personnel must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.
I also want to acknowledge recent reporting about the number of people older than age 100 who may be receiving benefits from Social Security. The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits.
I am confident that with DOGE's help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people.”
Tenants? Tut, tut, tut.
Very Corrupt
Donald Trump quoted by Aaron Rupar:
We have a very corrupt country. Very corrupt country. And it's a sad thing to say ... if you take all of those millions of people off social security, all of the sudden we have a very powerful social security.
Feb 17, 2025
Another Great Victory For DOGE: Acting COSS Resigns
From the Washington Post:
The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said Monday. Michelle King, who spent several decades at the agency before being named its acting commissioner last month, left her position Sunday after the disagreement, the people said. President Donald Trump appointed Leland Dudek, a manager in charge of Social Security’s anti-fraud office, as acting commissioner …
In selecting Dudek, Trump bypassed dozens of other senior executives who sat higher on the agency’s leadership hierarchy, touching off alarm in and around the agency, which has already faced years of budget and staffing difficulties. …
According to the New York Times “Before he was named, Mr. Dudek posted comments on LinkedIn praising Mr. Musk’s team and saying he had been assisting its efforts, according to people who saw his posts. Mr. Dudek has deleted his account.“ comments on LinkedIn praising Mr. Musk’s team and saying he hYou thought I was joking when I said that some high Social Security officials would face horrible decisions during the Trump Administration.
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