There have been reports that Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, who had been employed by DOGE, had left employment with the federal government. Those reports turned out to be false. He only left DOGE. He's now a "special government employee" with Social Security.
It must be purely coincidental that this was announced the day after the Ways and Means Committee hearing with Commissioner Bisignano.
From NPR:
A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were "relatively nonexistent" during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was," Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers. …
"Elon [Musk] was pretty clear about how he wanted DOGE to be maximally transparent," Lavingia said. "That's something he said a lot in private. And publicly. And so I thought, OK, cool, I'll take him at his word. I will be transparent."
Shortly after the interview was published online, Lavingia got an email. Just 55 days into his work at DOGE, his access had been revoked.
I’m glad we’ve got great managers running Social Security like a business.
From the Washington Post:
Social Security has stopped publicly reporting its processing times for benefits, the 1-800 number’s current call wait time and numerous other performance metrics, which customers and advocates have used to track the agency’s struggling customer service programs.
The agency removed a menu of live phone and claims data from its website earlier this month, according to Internet Archive records. It put up a new page this week that offers a far more limited view of the agency’s customer service performance.
The website also now urges customers to use an online portal for services rather than calling the main phone line or visiting a field office — two options that many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills rely on for help. The agency had previously considered cutting phone services and then scrapped those plans amid an uproar. …
The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a hearing with Commissioner Frank Bisignano for 2:00 on June 25th. This will not be a full Committee hearing. It’s a joint hearing between the Social Security and Work and Welfare Subcommittees. The Work and Welfare Subcommittee has jurisdiction over SSI.
From the report by Social Security's Trustees on the state of the trust funds:
- ... The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund will be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2033, unchanged from last year’s report. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of total scheduled benefits.
- The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund is projected to be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits through at least 2099, the last year of this report’s projection period. Last year’s report projected that the DI Trust Fund would be able to pay scheduled benefits through at least 2098, the last year of that report’s projection period.
- If the OASI Trust Fund and the DI Trust Fund projections were combined, the resulting projected fund (designated OASDI) would be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2034, one year earlier than reported last year. At that time, the projected fund’s reserves would become depleted, and continuing total fund income would be sufficient to pay 81 percent of scheduled benefits. (The two funds could not actually be combined unless there were a change in the law, but the combined projection of the two funds is frequently used to indicate the overall status of the Social Security program.)
- Although the OASI Trust Fund depletion year remains the same, both the OASI and OASDI depletion dates advanced by about 3 calendar quarters, relative to last year’s projection. ...
The change in the depletion date is because of the effects of the WEP/GPO repeal.
It seems quieter at Social Security since Frank Bisignano was confirmed as Commissioner. I don’t know if it’s a good thing but I have less to write about.
From the New York Times:
Elon Musk stood before a giant American flag at a Wisconsin political rally in March and rolled out an eye-popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration. Scammers, he said, were making 40 percent of all calls to the agency’s customer service line.
Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact. After journalists followed up, staff members began drafting a response correcting the record.
That’s when Leland Dudek — plucked from a midlevel job only six weeks earlier to run Social Security because of his willingness to cooperate with Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar with the exchange.
“The number is 40 percent,” insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aide who was working closely with Mr. Musk, according to one of the people familiar with the April 1 call. President Trump believed Mr. Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.”
Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found. …
Mr. Dudek was recently placed on administrative leave …
Mr. Dudek, 48, has told associates that while he did his best to fend off deeper cuts, he harbors deep misgivings about the effect of DOGE’s oversight, according to several people familiar with the conversations. …
On Feb. 27, a DOGE engineer told Mr. Dudek in an email that the administration had identified roughly three dozen federal contracts in Maine as “nonessential,” including the two from Social Security.
“We should cancel them,” wrote the engineer, Ethan Shaotran, 23, who declined to comment when reached by The Times. …
Mr. Dudek faced another crisis on March 20, when a federal judge issued an order prohibiting Mr. Musk’s team from entering Social Security databases that contained personally identifying information. …
On the night of the ruling, two DOGE leaders told Mr. Dudek that the agency should continue allowing access to the data despite the judge’s order, with one arguing that the order was so ambiguous that it could block all Social Security employees, not just members of DOGE, from gaining access, according to a person familiar with events. …
One question I have after reading this is whether Dudek talked with the Times. I’ll guess he did.
Until this year the Social Security Administration had a small staff, perhaps one person, dedicated to preserving agency history. I understand that this has been closed down. The nice and informative website that they created was shut down for a time but is back up now. I never visited there in person but I understood that there was a small agency history library and museum. Does anyone know what happened to the contents of the library and museum? I hope they've been preserved somewhere.
There was an earlier report that the President planned to shut down the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB). It wasn't clear at the time whether that was happening then or was something to happen in the future. I still don't know what the intent was at that time but the SSAB is still in business. They just issued a statement on Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Territories.
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I'm hearing that Social Security is having a significant problem with its ERE system. Attorneys aren't able to upload files. This has been going on since Monday and is a national problem.
By the way, I'm calling it ERE but, honestly, I don't know what the official name is now. It's gone by various names. ERE (Electronic Records Express) is the oldest name and, I think, the name most commonly used by attorneys representing claimants.
Over the decades it’s been my experience that people new to the Social Security world dramatically underestimate the complexity and sensitivity of the work that the Social Security Administration does. I wonder how long it will take for DOGE employees to figure this out. I doubt that their arrogance can long coexist with knowledge of just how complex Social Security is.
As an example of the complexity let’s imagine a recent widow calling in to ask about benefits she might be able to receive. Sounds like that would be a common sort of transaction and it is. Here’s some of the questions that should come up and there are plenty more that may come up:
Depending on the answers to those questions and potentially more, the widow and members of her family may be entitled to these sorts of benefits and she and others in her family may easily be entitled to two or three of these at the same time:
DOGE Track is an online service tracking DOGE activities across the government, including Social Security. It tells you what has happened in great detail but gives no predictions for the future. It’s a great resource. There’s been so much going on that it’s been hard to keep track of it all. I’ll warn you that DOGE Track is a bit buggy. I can open it on my iPad but not my desktop. It’s labeled as a beta version, meaning they know it’s buggy and are working on it.
Heather Schewedel writes for Slate on what it’s like to correct a mistake in the date that Social Security has down for your birthday. Not fun.
From a press release:
A former Social Security employee has admitted to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
David Lam, 45, Pearland, was an operations supervisor and claims specialist for the Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Houston. …
Lam admitted to working with various coconspirators—typically, women with children—to file fraudulent survivor benefits applications listing the deceased men as the children’s fathers or stepfathers. If true, this would have entitled the women to receive benefits while raising their children as widows. However, the women had no connection to the men listed on the applications and the deceased men did not father the children. To facilitate his scheme, Lam would utilize the deceased men’s names, dates of birth and death and Social Security numbers.
He would also instruct the coconspirators to split the stolen funds with him. The women would transfer funds via applications like Zelle, CashApp or Chime. Lam agreed to take responsibility for causing $3,346,280 in loss to the SSA and has agreed to pay that amount in restitution. …
From SCOTUSblog:
BREAKING: The Supreme Court grants DOGE affiliates access to Social Security Administration records. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would deny the request.
