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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I work for SSA.  Here’s reality. Forget solvency and Trump’s stooge threatening to shut the agency down. It will break its own and miss payments due to staffing shortages and computer issues—  probably in the next few months.

Our staffing was below 1970s levels even before Trump took office. With huge backlogs. My division was backlogged a year. And was detailed to an 18 month backlog.  Now, Elmo and the GS 15 ACOSS stooge are making the working environment so incredibly toxic that substantive work has ground to an halt annd anll we seem to do is sit in all hands calls trying to comply with the latest instance and insulting email.

And then they offered VSIP and VERA— stacked. Everyone who can get out is— 12 people out of the 40 or so one my team had their last day today. These are the people who have been there long enough to understand the program.  Employee retention and hiring was a huge issue before Trump. Now, we no longer have the staffing or institutional knowledge to keep the program running.  I have 18 years  in, can’t VERA and it never dawned on me during Trump 1 to leave. And I’m actively interviewing to leave the agency and move out of the DMV.  And praying for a RIF so I get my years severance. I can’t do this for 4 years.

And now they are adding 85,000 people each week who would have done teleservice benefits registrations to the field office workload. While cutting staff and closing field offices and regional offices.  It can’t be done.

SSA is an incredibly complex program running on 1970s computer systems. It takes years to really understand the program and systems. And mentoring and training new hires takes people off of casework. Which makes it a Humpty Dumpty Agency. Once you break it, there is no real way to put it back together. And it will break— even if Musk were not trying to kill it off.  It’s just a matter of when.  [/quote]

You making the case for DOGE with your post.  What is so incredibly complicated about SSA other than it is running on incredibly antiquated software and hardware? This is something Musk can actually help fix.  What is harder to fix is that the program is going to become insolvent if it continues without changes.  It is not going to get cancelled but the ss tax need to increase or benefits need to decrease. [/quote]

It takes money to do the massive computer upgrade SSA needs. Money that Congress— Dem and R controlled—  haven’t allocated.  So they just patch on a partial new system to manage anew workload or regulation or policy change as needed.  Because that’s what they can afford. It’s 1970s and 2020 technology having to work together and held together with straws and chewing gum.

And I wonder, what could be so complex about a system with all the financial and banking and work history and tax and birth and death and parentage and immigration and marriage information, etc, etc about every single American citizen and many permanent residents Americans, coming in from 50 states and abroad and from multiple federal agencies— and used to administer not just retirement, but survivors befits, spouses benefits, widows benefits, etc.   Oh— and add on that half the agency’s workload is disability, which requires getting and reviewing medical for tens of millions of Americans that come from every medical provider in the country, from solo MD partitions who still handwrite notes and stick them in an envelope and mail them to megacorps who send in records electronically. 15 years ago, the disability files were all paper. Some still are. 5 years ago almost all retirement appeals were paper. They are just now being made electronic.   And it requires documenting not just underlying eligibility for benefit which is complex in many cases, but financial entitlement for programs like SSI.

The IRS, SBA, treasury, department of Ed, etc, etc  they have some of the records.  Musk is parked at SSA and pitching a temper tantrum because SSA has ALL THE RECORDS and receives them from the different programs at each department, plus all the different ways doctors, companies and people submit. For 350 million people.

What could be complex about that?

Plus, the underlying Regs are a beast. You work for a company your whole life, get a W2, get retirement. That’s easy. But, not everyone lives on W2 income. Not everyone is being paid on their own earning record. And making disability determinations is its own complex regulatory monster.  It takes subject matter experts. You aren’t one if you think it’s just pressing a button for folks with well documented W2 income.  Is there a common law marriage in the claimants state? Has parentage been proven? Has someone who is self employed earned a quarter of coverage? Does a 60 year old with an high school education and semi-skilled past work have transferrable skills with little or no vocational adjustment— working with a vocational database whose job list predates computers? Because if the don’t they anre disabled otherwise, they are.  Easy easy lemon sqeasy, amirite?

But to answer your question— the updates requires would be a massive expenditure. And Musk isn’t in the massive expenditure on SSA business. Neither is Congress. Until it breaks. Which it will.  Because a patched together system will only work so long. Especially when you are pushing the people who understand it out the door. [/quote]

This is too many words for the average MAGA.

MAGA, SS is like your trusty old truck Beulah that’s being held together with duct tape and salvage parts. Sure she ain’t pretty, but she’s paid off and reliable as long as you change the fluids regularly and keep the spark plugs clean, and you take care to turn the engine just so, and let her run for a few minutes before driving and accelerate carefully and engage the clutch just so. You know that if you respect her she’ll respect you.

Now, Musk is the kid at the stealership fresh out of trade school promising he can make Beulah run like new again with his fancy diagnostic machine and a blank check. You trusting him with your old girl? Especially when his sales manager is actively selling your wife on a sedan?[/quote]

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