Elon Musk is gunning for Social Security, and the results are already looking like they could be disastrous. The Washington Post reports that a top official at the Social Security Administration privately admitted that Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is in charge as the agency is downsizing itself with cuts.
The administration plans big cuts at Social Security, to the tune of thousands of jobs. They’re looking to close a lot of regional offices. Now Trump has promised not to cut benefits. Putting aside what Trump said for a second, what do we know about what the administration and DOGE really want to do? What will the practical impact of cutting those jobs be? What jobs could they plausibly look at eliminating without touching benefits? What’s a reasonable scenario to expect?
“You may say that it’s not a benefit cut, but when you don’t have adequate staff and you don’t provide adequate services to the people who need them, then you are in effect cutting their benefits—because they can’t apply or get access to the benefits that they’re entitled to.”
