I'm not sure why but Social Security has posted in its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Reading Room hundreds of pages of records it has filed with the U.S. District Court in the litigation over DOGE access to agency databases. If you want to delve into this in great detail, here you go.
Apr 25, 2025
You Knew It Was Coming: SSAB To Be Axed
From U.S. News and World Report:
... The White House's Office of Management and Budget has notified staff at the Social Security Advisory Board that it plans to cut the board's annual budget from around $3 million to zero, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss non-public budgetary details. ...
Note that this is completely illegal, at least if this is something to be done now instead of just a proposal for the next federal budget. Congress has appropriated money for SSAB. The President lacks the power to unilaterally withhold the money or terminate the agency.
What’s Going On With The Death Master File?
SentiLink asks and to a large extent answers the question “What’s going on with SSA’s Death Master File?” The answer is that DOGE added millions of names of people who died a long time ago. These additions had no intended effect on benefit payments. Other systems already prevented benefit payments to those who would have been 120 years of age or older. The only effects were upon those who were included by mistake. We don’t know how many were added to the Death Master File by mistake but any number is too many since the whole exercise was pointless to begin with!
An analysis by SentiLink suggests that those with the following surnames were most likely to have been added to the Death Master File even though they were alive:
- Rodriguez
- Garcia
- Perez
- Perez Rodriguez
- Harutunyan
OIG Criticizes SSA Contract With Verizon
Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has a good deal of criticism for the agency's $160 million contract with Verizon for an updated telephone system. Things worked out poorly and OIG blames the inability to get Verizon to make things work on lack of performance standards in the agency's contract with Verizon.
Apr 24, 2025
It Wasn’t Just Aliens Who Were Cut Off Benefits By DOGE — Plenty Of Citizens As Well
From the Daily Beast:
What might be called Day of the Dead Living is being continually played out at a Social Security Administration (SSA) office in upstate New York, and likely across the country.
“We have people who did not receive benefits come in every day with their ID and say, ‘I’m not dead, I’m alive!” says Rennie Glasgow, a claims technical analyst with 15 years of experience at the agency who handles the most challenging cases at the Schenectady office.
These supposed dead are not to be confused with more than 6,000 living immigrants the Trump administration moved to the SSA Death Master File (DMF) in an attempt to force them to self-deport by depriving them of the ability to work legally.
Many more American citizens were wrongly consigned to the DMF after Elon Musk’s DOGE goons bullied their way onto the SSA’s databases and mistakenly decided that “countless” people listed as 120 years old and older were receiving benefits.
“[DOGE staffers] went into the system and they killed off people,” Glasgow told the Daily Beast. “About 4 million people, they marked them as dead. But they’re not sure if those people were supposed to be marked as dead, so they’re sending us an email saying, ‘If these people come into the office with their identification, you can reinstate them.’” …
Follow Me On Bluesky
I have been posting on Twitter, now "X", for some times. Unfortunately, "X" has become a cesspool. I don't want to keep posting on "X." Please follow me on my Bluesky account -- @socsecnews.bsky.social instead. I'll keep cross posting on "X" for a while but "X" ain't for me any more and, increasingly, it's not a place where my readers feel comfortable either. Bluesky is a sane platform which is not run by a nutjob. It's not full of crazy people. I'm happy to leave "X" for the wingnuts.
I post some things on Bluesky that I don't post here. Often I post items on Bluesky before I post them here. Bluesky may be worth your time, especially if you're disgusted with what Twitter has become.
Apr 23, 2025
I Think He’s Wrong But What Do I Know?
From Newsweek:
Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley is warning that benefit payments could soon be delayed for millions of Americans, citing deep staffing cuts and internal chaos at the Social Security Administration (SSA) under the Trump administration.
Speaking at a public forum in Long Island on Monday, O'Malley said he believes an interruption in payments could be imminent.
"I truly believe there's going to be some interruption of benefits for some period of time, and I believe that will probably happen in the very near future," O'Malley said, according to Long Island Press. "I've never hoped I was wrong so much in my life." …
Back To Seizing Social Security Benefits To Pay Student Loans
From MarketWatch:
The Trump administration is turning on some of the harshest consequences for falling behind on student loans.
Starting on May 5, the government is restarting debt collection on defaulted student loans. As part of these efforts, the Department of Education is restarting the process that allows for borrowers who are in default on their student loans to have their Social Security benefits and tax refunds offset to repay the debt, the U.S. Education Department announced Monday. Early this summer, the government will also begin garnishing wages to repay defaulted student loans.
This will mark the first time in five years — since the collections system was paused as part of the pandemic-era freeze on student-loan payments — that borrowers have faced these consequences for defaulting on student loans (defined as not making a payment on the debt in more than 270 days). …
You might think that few Social Security beneficiaries have student loans but you’d be wrong. Many do and the limited income of those who do makes it difficult for them to make student loan payments. Remember that those who are disabled are eligible for relief from their loans — but most don’t know this.
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