Despite most of the agency being exempt from deferred resignations and the government-wide hiring freeze, early retirement and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments are now available to the entire agency workforce.

DOGE cost-cutter-in-chief Elon Musk likened the U.S. retirement system to a pyramid scheme during a podcast with Joe Rogan.

“This is going to lead to total system collapse,” O’Malley told The Baltimore Sun. “It’s a very old, fragile computer system in (COBOL) language, which isn’t even in schools anymore.” In a social media post made Friday, O’Malley went on to say he expects benefit interruptions to start soon.

It’s one thing for Musk to peddle bogus claims about imagined Social Security “fraud.” It’s something else when he targets the system itself.

Calling its workforce “bloated,” the Social Security Administration announced Friday plans to slash about 7,000 jobs, or roughly 12% of its staff. The potential cuts are part of a larger reorganization at the agency in line with the Trump administration’s drive to downsize the federal government.

After seeing a client who had lost her job, federal prosecutors said a Social Security employee offered the woman money in exchange for meeting him for sex in Massachusetts.