The Trump administration recently assigned 10 employees linked to the DOGE initiative to the Social Security Administration, where they will hunt for benefits fraud — including the macabre kind.
In affidavits filed Wednesday, two senior officials at the SSA said that at least seven employees either have access to the agency’s Death Master File or have duties that “relate to improper payments and death data.”
The group of staffers are from a hodge-podge of federal agencies, and at least four are engineers. As part of their duties, they have been given access to Americans’ personal, non-anonymized data, according to the agency’s chief information officer and a human resources executive.
The officials said the employees, whose names weren’t used, received privacy and ethics training.
The assignments are the latest twist in the White House’s crusade against death-related skullduggery. The administration has suggested that “tens of millions” of dead people are claiming Social Security benefits, but the agency’s inspector-general has conducted audits that suggest it’s a much smaller problem.
According to one 2021 audit, the SSA paid out $298 million to 24,000 dead Americans through December 2019. And while billions of dollars are paid out in error more broadly every year, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the over $1 trillion in annual benefits the agency pays out.
Leland Dudek, the acting leader of the SSA, has sought to clarify that information flagged by Musk and the White House aren’t evidence of fraud, even as he has defended DOGE’s role.
ProPublica reported on Wednesday that Dudek said he could only do so much.
“So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?” Dudek said on a recording, according to ProPublica.
The White House press office, the Social Security Administration press office, and Katie Miller, an advisor to DOGE, didn’t reply to emails seeking comment.
Retirement-policy experts have sounded the alarm for decades about Social Security’s ability to meet its commitments to American retirees once its trust fund runs out, which is currently estimated to take place in 2035. The SSA and outside experts have proposed ways to raise taxes or reduce benefit payments, but Congress hasn’t acted on them.
The affidavits filed Wednesday also say two employees, one detailed from NASA and the other from the General Services Administration, have access to data on the SSA’s workforce or are advising on things like “inefficiencies and areas for improvement.”
The American Prospect and the Associated Press have reported that up to 50% of the agency’s staff could be cut, but the agency has said those claims are false and it’s only targeting a 12.3% reduction in headcount.
Federal agencies have been ordered to submit workforce-downsizing plans to the Office of Personnel Management by March 13.
Over 99% of the money allocated to the Social Security Administration each year is paid to beneficiaries, with just 0.5% of spending amounting to “administrative expenses,” according to the agency’s website.
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