Elon Musk’s team has descended on an already understaffed Social Security Administration, which now faces further workforce cuts and closures of vital local offices. The consequences could be significant for millions of the most vulnerable Americans.

President Donald Trump was asked at a press conference this month if there were any federal agencies or programs that Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency wouldn’t be allowed to mess with.

“Social Security will not be touched,” Trump answered, echoing a promise he has been making for years. Despite his eagerness to explode treaties, shutter entire government agencies and abandon decades-old ways of doing things, the president understands that Social Security benefits for seniors are sacrosanct.

Still, the DOGE team landed at the Social Security Administration this week, with Musk drawing attention for his outlandish claims that large numbers of 150-year-old “vampires” are receiving Social Security payments. DOGE has begun installing its own operatives, including an engineer linked to tweets promoting eugenics and executives with a cut-first-fix-later philosophy, in multiple top positions at the Social Security Administration.

Their first wave of actions — initiating the elimination of 41 jobs and the closing of at least 10 local offices, so far — was largely lost in the rush of headlines. Those first steps might seem restrained compared with the mass firings that DOGE has pursued at other federal agencies. But Social Security recipients rely on in-person service in all 50 states, and the shuttering of offices, reported on DOGE’s website to include locations everywhere from rural West Virginia to Las Vegas, could be hugely consequential. The closures potentially reduce access to Social Security for some of the most vulnerable people in this country — including not just retirees but also individuals with severe physical and intellectual disabilities, as well as children whose parents have died and who’ve been left in poverty.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    5·
    10 hours ago

    From a comment on the same topic elsewhere that disappeared:

    and what allowed the Confederated States of America to coalesce into a feudal terror state.

    It’s what the whole continent was founded upon. I came upon a news item last night about a slave graveyard a man discovered after having bought a property in South Carolina. When he realized he was looking at graves, he (at his own expense) called in professionals to help locate and another to make headstones. He said he had allowed some people to come in and see the work and was talking to a group where he referenced “forced labor camps” and a woman learned in and told him, “Honey, those were plantations,” and he told her yes, forced labor camps, because it’s important not to kid ourselves about our history. My heart swelled to know there is kindness clarity in the heart of of someone in the Deep South who had the funds to come out of pocket to do as much as his family can reasonably afford, to give (some? 144, iirc) of those people what dignity he could give, even posthumously.

    Sure, hard work is necessary to survive, sometimes more and sometimes less. That’s why it is an honor to give back where we can, and a moral Imperative to strive to make a good a life we can for everyone as best we can, and as more* or less as necessary, while giving everyone the best tools at their disposal to make the most of themselves, while also doing our best to help re-educate and re-habilitate as many as possible, and leave humane institutionalization for those we fail, always striving to do better, more. It’s a tall order and the survival of our species is, now or less, dependent on that.

    We can not eliminate all suffering or acts of nature. We can work hard and vigilantly to minimize it. It’s a tall order, and it starts with ourselves and our own values. And maybe taking time for deep reflection of who we are and what steroids we can take within our means to get there, then working together with individuals who have similar values.