How DOGE Broke Social Security

A breakdown of DOGE’s incursion at the Social Security Administration

For a PDF version of a breakdown of DOGE at the Social Security Administration, see here.

Last week, the Revolving Door Project marked the one year anniversary of DOGE with a retrospective of the psuedo-agency’s rampage across the federal government. As part of that report, we detailed the infiltrations on an agency-by-agency basis to provide a fuller picture of what was lost and who was harmed. We covered 20 different agencies, but we couldn’t get to every single attack—the report was already nearly 70 pages long! 

But, on the same day of our report, the latest DOGE bombshell broke: court filings from the Department of Justice revealed that two DOGE agents at the Social Security Administration had violated security protocols by sharing sensitive data over a nonsecure third party server. Furthermore, the agents had been in contact with a political advocacy group looking to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results.” The individuals were referred by the DOJ to the Office of Special Counsel for violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some partisan activities.

In light of this unsurprising, but certainly vexing, revelation of DOGE’s lackadaisical approach to data security—and association with election conspiracists—we figured it’s the perfect time to add a retrospective on the Social Security Administration to our DOGE report.

DOGE’s Impact on the SSA’s Capacity

Within a few weeks of DOGE’s creation, they had their men on the inside. Michael Russo, formerly the Chief Technology Officer of a payment processing company that had equity in SpaceX and worked with StarLink, was installed as chief information officer of the SSA. By mid February, Leland Dudek was elevated to acting commissioner after Michelle King was forced out for refusing to cooperate with DOGE. Dudek, formerly a relatively low level civil servant within SSA, had been placed on administrative leave the week before his promotion due to his unsanctioned attempts to cooperate with DOGE. By his own admission, Dudek had for months been in contact with Steve Davis, a DOGE lieutenant and longtime Musk associate, providing DOGE with “executive contact information” and “circumvent[ing] the chain of command” of the SSA. As head of the agency, he quickly gave DOGE read-only access to its systems.

Under the leadership of DOGE and Dudek, the ability of the SSA to serve its beneficiaries was severely hampered. First, DOGE dismantled the Office of Analytics Review and Oversight, the Office of Transformation, and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity. The functions of these offices ranged from overseeing fraud detection and prevention efforts to modernize the agency through electronic signature and document uploads. Perhaps the DOGE agents realized the civil service was already carrying out their purported mission and decided to eliminate the competition. The administration claimed these functions were absorbed into other offices, but these cuts placed nearly 200 employees on administrative leave, many of whom were likely let go.

In addition to these organizational restructuring efforts, the SSA announced in February, under pressure from DOGE, plans to reduce its workforce by 7,000 employees, a roughly 12% cut. The distribution of these cuts is unclear, but Social Security field offices lost roughly 2,500 employees to DOGE’s buyout program alone. In at least three field offices, this meant their staff levels were reduced by 50% or more. Apparently this wasn’t enough for DOGE—in April, the Washington Post reported that DOGE pressed the agency for further reduction in force proposals, though the SSA seems to have escaped further decimation.

Decimated Customer Service

As a result of these cuts, an agency that was already dealing with years of severe customer service shortcomings became even less responsive. In 2024, the wait time on SSA phone lines was dramatically reduced after a hiring surge of 1,600 employees. This progress was quickly reversed by DOGE. 

DOGE’s initial plans to end phone services for individuals filing retirement claims and changing banking information, which were eventually scrapped, led to a flood of calls into the agency as beneficiaries scrambled to learn what the changes meant for their access to benefits. Wait times skyrocketed, with some callers on hold for two to three hours.

Even the SSA’s website suffered, despite the supposed technological genius of DOGE personnel. The site repeatedly crashed, sending error messages to beneficiaries stating that they could not receive payments. The systems used by field offices crashed three times in a ten day period.

If people wanted answers in person, well, DOGE cut those offices too. While the agency claimed field offices were not closing, a DOGE list obtained by NPR contained 47 field and hearing offices that were slated to have their leases either terminated or not renewed. One of the first hearing offices to close was in White Plains, New York, forcing residents to travel anywhere from 24 to 135 miles to have their appeals heard in person.

We’re still learning how these closures and wait times impacted social security beneficiaries over the past year, but we know how long wait times have affected people in the past. In 2023, approximately 30,000 people died while waiting for a SSA determination about their disability benefits. It’s fair to assume, with fewer staff and resources, that longer wait times had similar effects in 2025. We may never learn the full scope, however, as the agency scrapped its reporting of performance metrics like wait and processing times. 

Politicizing Social Security

What’s more, the agency also became a key tool in the administration’s crackdown on immigrants. In April, the SSA moved over 6,000 immigrants into their Death Master File, intentionally misclassifying them dead. The move canceled the legally obtained social security numbers of immigrants and barred them from being able to obtain legal employment in a transparent effort to have immigrants “self deport” if they cannot support themselves and their families.

DOGE also used its access to sensitive information to create a database that pooled information from the SSA, Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, and other agencies regarding immigrants. The master database has been used to identify, track, and surveil immigrants, making DOGE’s team at the SSA complicit in the violent incursions into American cities by ICE and CBP that took the life of Alex Pretti last weekend (and several others before him.)

And, of course, we now know that DOGE agents at SSA were in contact with groups seeking to overturn election results and mishandled sensitive data. It’s a stark reminder that DOGE’s haphazard blitz through the government had real material consequences—and that they can still be brought to justice. It’s good that the DOJ referred these two DOGE members to the Office of Special Counsel, but the Trump Justice Department cannot be relied upon to be self-policing. As this retrospective shows, there is plenty more for which DOGE must be held accountable. Elected officials, both in federal and state governments, should be prepared to do so when they have the chance.