DOGE’s Plans to Rewrite Social Security’s codebase Is yet another reminder disability Advocacy will forever be a sisyphean Task

My good friend Makena Kelly reported last week for Wired about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s, or DOGE, plans to “rebuild” the codebase used by the Social Security Administration. The current system used by the agency, which comprises tens of millions of lines of code written in the decades-old programming language called COBOL, is being targeted by DOGE to be rewritten in mere months. Kelly notes to safely rewrite the existing codebase would be a years-long endeavor.

The project seeks adopt a “more modern” language such as Java, according to Kelly.

The reason I’m covering my friend’s report is simple: the technological tie is obvious, but more pressingly, the collateral damage to overhauling Social Security’s codebase is the disability community. This is absolutely not theoretical; I’m a lifelong disabled person who currently receives Social Security benefits. I am, as Kelly writes, one of the 65 million Americans who are being served by Social Security’s programs. DOGE’s determination to ostensibly “better” Social Security’s operation with new code has massive potential to hurt disabled people by paying us incorrectly, if at all. Whatever the case, screwing with one’s monthly payments would have disastrous consequences for people like myself who rely upon on what we’re entitled to for everyday sustenance.

Social Security workers realize the precariousness of DOGE’s proposition.

“Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se; [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” a technologist at the agency said to Kelly in an interview.

Call it cynical or fatalistic, but I’d be willing to bet my monthly Social Security check Musk and Steve Davis, the Musk lieutenant charged with overseeing this undertaking, hadn’t anticipated or considered the ripple effects of such an enormous change. To put it more crassly, both men clearly didn’t give a shit about what could happen to those in the disability community if Social Security began to hiccup as a result of their reckless ambition. They not only have zero prescience, they’re heartless. More crucially, Musk and DOGE have no clue how government works, or why it works, and they won’t learn.

They’re too stupid, and too brazen, to understand, as Kelly wrote, even minor changes to Social Security’s system can “result in cascading failures across programs.”

Kelly’s story dovetails well with my piece from over the weekend about the newest American Experience documentary on the history of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In the film, disability activist Anita Cameron said “there’s a cost to our existence.” She meant it in context of the tangible accommodations the ADA mandated be built for disabled people, but those words are apt in context of Social Security too. For the vast majority of disabled people, not to mention senior citizens and children who are disabled, Social Security benefits are the literal cost of keeping disabled Americans alive. The money pays bills. It pays for food. It pays for caretakers. It pays for electricity and internet access. It pays for medication. In so many ways, Social Security benefits is the engine of the disability community; to arbitrarily rip out the agency’s spine that is its codebase is the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Kelly notes Social Security has pondered modernization before—just not like this.

Reading Kelly’s report served as yet one more sobering reminder that, despite the ADA’s unquestionable standing as landmark legislation on par with the Civil Rights Act, there is still so much further to go societally when it comes to the embracement of disabled people. Granted, the ADA and Social Security are separate things, but the tie that binds them is the people they serve. To wit, disabled people still remain on the margin’s margin when it comes to advocacy and representation. All the staunch DEI supporters embrace Pride Month in June for the LGBTQ community, yet there’s a pittance of the solidarity in July for Disability Pride Month. News organizations can hire reporters to cover narrow beats like AI, but are unwilling to cover accessibility because it’s misunderstood and won’t drive enough web traffic. TV shows like See on Apple TV+ are panned for being bad television, yet no one acknowledges the representational gains of Blind people being (leading) badasses. It’s why accessibility in tech is, and always will be, an evergreen cause—and really good journalism fodder for me to boot.

“Move fast and break things” is a nice mantra for startups. It isn’t nice for governmental entities like Social Security. Breaking things can very materially break people’s lives.