“DOGE
people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let
them see what is going on at SSA,” Dudek told the group, according to
the notes. “I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work,
but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to
effectuate those decisions.” ...
On Thursday morning — three hours after the publication of this story —
an all-staff email went out to SSA employees informing them they would
be prevented “effective today” from accessing certain websites on their
government devices, including “online shopping,” “general news” and
“sports.” ...
Even some Republicans privately acknowledge discomfort with Dudek, who was appointed as acting commissioner when the career senior executive in the role abruptly retired after refusing his push to give DOGE employees unauthorized access to private data. ...
Meeting with advocates on Tuesday, Dudek sought to cast himself as
someone on their side. He described his parents as blue-collar workers
with little formal education who divorced when he was young, according
to the notes obtained by The Post. His mother was injured and went on
disability benefits, he explained. In high school, he would eat
leftovers from the school cafeteria trash, he said.
Dudek said the old ways of “setting goals, doing studies, discussion,
getting information and data before making decisions” are gone. Those in
charge now “will make mistakes, but I need to move them in a direction
that is best for SSA,” he said, and asked the advocates for their
support. ...
Andrew
Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a
center-right think tank, said shrinking Social Security’s roughly $15
billion operating budget would represent just a small fraction of the
program’s $1.5 trillion in annual costs.
“If
you’re talking about Social Security solvency, this stuff is a drop in
the bucket,” Biggs said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” ...
Andrew
Saul, who served as SSA commissioner in Trump’s first term, said he
welcomed the cuts — but he was adamant that without corresponding
modernization of the agency’s many aging technology systems, service
will suffer.
“You can’t replace all of these people without the proper systems,” Saul said. “And it takes time to develop them.” ...
In
interviews, eight employees described chaos and the dissolution of a
system they have been proud to serve, fueled by DOGE-led cuts to staff,
spending and operating systems.
Wait
times for basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours,
according to some employees, who like others spoke on the condition of
anonymity to share internal details. Delays in reviews of disability
claims and hearings before administrative law judges are already
starting. ...
Meanwhile,
supervisors have little time to give guidance or advice, the employee
said, because they are constantly pulled into lengthy meetings to
dissect the latest guidance from the Trump administration on
return-to-office orders, firing of probationary employees and a Musk-led
campaign requiring federal workers to send weekly bullet points laying
out their accomplishments.
“Morale
is in the toilet,” the employee said. “We all know what DOGE wants to
do, which is just break us, so they can privatize us.”
Due
to a DOGE-driven spending freeze on federal credit cards, some offices
can’t pay phone bills, the employee said, while one office was forced
last week to cancel three disability hearings because the staff could
not use charge cards to pay for interpreters who speak foreign languages
or American Sign Language. One claimant has a terminal illness, and
another is in danger of losing their house, the employee said. No new
hearings have been scheduled.
Meanwhile,
a DOGE-led campaign to cancel contracts deemed “wasteful” across the
government is also hurting Social Security. The agency lost a contract
that paid for medical experts to testify at disability hearings, the
employee said, along with another contract for mold removal from
offices. ...
As
the agency prepares for a mandated return to in-office work, space
constraints in some offices have left supervisors to consider assigning
employees to work at desks in supply closets, the worker said.
“It’s just chaos, people are terrified, and no one knows anything, including our supervisors,” the employee said. ...
