When you fire people without understanding what they even do, you make big mistakes. 
Oops, We Didn’t Mean It
CBS News reports Trump administration fires and then tries to rehire nuclear weapons workers in DOGE reversal
Late Thursday afternoon, a number probationary employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration were fired, a source in the Energy Department confirmed. This is the entity within the department that manages the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, among other responsibilities. Three U.S. officials told The Associated Press up to 350 employees at the NNSA were abruptly laid off, with some losing access to email even before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they had been locked out. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, which saw about 30% of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance.
The hundreds let go at NNSA were part of a DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees.
“The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, referencing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”
By late Friday night, the agency’s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the firings for all but 28 of those hundreds of fired staff members.
“This letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025 has been rescinded, effective immediately,” said the memo, which was obtained by the AP.
While some of the Energy Department employees who were fired dealt with energy efficiency and the effects of climate change, issues not seen as priorities by the Trump administration, many others dealt with nuclear issues, even if they didn’t directly work on weapons programs. This included managing massive radioactive waste sites and ensuring the material there doesn’t further contaminate nearby communities.
That incudes the Savannah River National Laboratory in Jackson, South Carolina; the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state, where workers secure 177 high-level waste tanks from the site’s previous work producing plutonium for the atomic bomb; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a Superfund contamination site where much of the early work on the Manhattan Project was done, among others.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the firings could disrupt the day-to-day workings of the agency and create a sense of instability over the nuclear program both at home and abroad.
How Many?
Three U.S. officials told The Associated Press up to 350 employees at the NNSA were fired.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy confirmed with Fox News Digital that fewer than 50 employees were actually dismissed from their positions.
I suspect 50 is a lie because it reflects rescinded firings. Fox News had this discussion on the dismissals.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy confirmed with Fox News Digital that fewer than 50 employees were actually dismissed from their positions.
“Less than 50 NNSA employees were dismissed. These staff members were probationary employees and held primarily administrative and clerical roles,” the DOE spokesperson said. “The Energy Department will continue its critical mission of protecting our national security and nuclear deterrence in the development, modernization, and stewardship of America’s atomic weapons enterprise, including the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nonproliferation.”
An NNSA source told Reuters that managers were called on Thursday evening to inform employees they had been let go, though on Friday they received emails saying things had suddenly changed.
How This Happened
Also consider Nuclear Agency Mass Firings
The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the U.S. stockpile of thousands of nuclear weapons. Despite having the words “National” and “Security” in its title, it was not getting an exemption for national security, managers at the agency were told last Friday, according to an employee at NNSA who asked not to be named, fearing retribution from the Trump administration. Just days before, officials in leadership had scrambled to write descriptions for the roughly 300 probationary employees at the agency who had joined the federal workforce less than two years ago.
Managers were given just 200 characters to explain why the jobs these workers did mattered.
It was a tall order for the relatively obscure civilian agency that conducts a wide variety of nuclear security missions, including servicing the nation’s nuclear weapons when they’re not on missiles and bombers, and making extensive safety and security upgrades of the warheads. Some workers were responsible for making sure emergency response plans were in place at sites like a giant facility in Texas, where thousands of dismantled warheads are stored. Others worked to prevent terrorists and rogue nations from acquiring weapons-grade plutonium or uranium. Many had “Q” clearances, the highest level security clearance at the Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy’s press office did not respond to repeated requests by NPR for comment.
In the final days leading up to the firings, managers drew up lists of essential workers and pleaded to keep them.
In the end, it didn’t matter. On Thursday, officials were told that the vast majority of the exemptions they had asked for were denied by the Trump administration.
Multiple current and former employees at the agency told NPR that scores of people were notified verbally they were fired. Many had to clear out their desks on the spot. “It broke my heart,” says one employee who was among those who left the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.
On Friday, an employee still at NNSA told NPR that the firings are now “paused,” in part because of the chaotic way in which they unfolded. Another employee had been contacted and told that their termination had been “rescinded.” But some worried the damage had already been done. Nuclear security is highly specialized, high-pressure work, but it’s not particularly well paid, one employee told NPR. Given what’s unfolded over the past 24 hours, “why would anybody want to take these jobs?” they asked.
Question of Authority
The employees received the recension emails after their access to emails had been cut off. Smart.
By the way, DOGE has no authority to do anything but make recommendations, some of them were obviously bad.
Strange Quiet
- Republican Senators and Representatives are strangely quiet.
- The Department of Energy is quiet.
- DOGE is quiet.
No one wants to discuss why approximately 350 employees were fired only to rescind all but 50.
I would want to sweep this under the rug too.
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February 12, 2025: Trump Says he Will Love and Cherish Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
The new softer side of Trump now cherishes Medicaid. Is everyone happy?
February 11, 2025: Trump’s Steel Tariffs Now Will Work as Good as the First Time
Q: How’s that? A: Very poorly.
Legal Amateur Hour
On February 9, I offered this warning: The Elon Musk Sponsored, Ted Mack Legal Amateur Hour
The problem with the DOGE approach is the mission may backfire spectacularly.
We just had one example. And many cases are tied up in court, especially USAID.
Had DOGE proceeded with USAID on a case-by-case basis we would not be in this situation.
It’s the same with the NNSA.
Were these firings legal anyway? Also it seems these are top people who could easily move elsewhere. What if they don’t want to follow the rescinding order and instead find another job, do they still need to wait for the notice period?
I’m just surprised DOGE is running around firing people in the civil service when it seems this could be very illegal, yet no one is doing much about it including Democrats so maybe it is all fine and dandy
I’ll take the mistakes if they mean we (meaning all of us) get the win of detangling and exposing fraudulent theft of taxpayer dollars.
Any comments on the 12 million people receiving Social Security each month who are 120+ years old? The oldest known American is 114 years old. Give them 1 month to verify they are alive and then shut them all down over 115+ years. Then make everyone who is receiving social security verify they are really who they say they are within the year. This is way worse than I thought it could possibly be. Supposedly there are only 101,000 (approx) Americans over 100 years old, but we are sending SS checks to 20.7 million?!???!? This is 400 billion right there. That’s almost a third of what they send out.
When you are trying to aggressively downsize an organization you’re going to make mistakes. What makes Trump and Elon different is their willingness to make bold decisions that will undoubtedly lead to some mistakes. This is effective management and what MEN do. The world has become used to the way women handle tough issues. Hysteria and character assassination.
Oh darn… We lost probationary inspectors. Am think that we will be fine.
“When you fire people without understanding what they even do, you make big mistakes.”
Yes, just like it did in case of the helicopter-plane collision at the DC airport. There should have been 2 ATCs there – one to monitor airplane traffic and another to monitor helicopter traffic. But there was only one person, forced to do the job of two in such a critical area.
Tellingly, it happened at the **Reagan** International airport, named after the man who destroyed all US workers and pretty much the entire American middle-class with his Reaganomics disaster, now in its 45th year.
lol you sound like a kamala supporter
LOL. You sound like a blithering idiot. I have not voted for any donorCRAT Party candidate for decades now.
Besides, people like BJ Clinton and 0-bama have done so much more to make Reagan’s wet dreams come true than someone like GHW Bush etc., ever could.
It was known beforehand some issues would manifest. Most of the jobs were shams. Probably the only way to know is do the layoffs then stay close to the horn on both ends. There will be other issues but the comms are good. They got back essential layoffs and those systems aren’t a single point of failure. There wasn’t any serious threat of a nuclear incident like the commies in the old U.S.S.R.
What don’t you understand about “When you fire people without understanding what they even do, you make big mistakes”? One of the many lessons applied by successful business people.
Fire the entire civilian workforce in government. Heck, fire congress too. All we really need are Trump and Musk.
That will save $0.3 trillion in the $6.75 trillion budget.
Golden Age here we come!
You are a man of rare insight and vision!
Fire the military.
You do it. They might fire back.
Kudos on the wordplay.
And President Musk – thankfully, still with us.
It works out perfectly for King Chaos:
take credit for the bigly number fired…
and don’t care/count the rescinded/rehired.
Functionality may suffer, but hey, it’s all about the optics…
and the MAGA loyalists are loving the look.
Truly the blind leading the blind.
Well I think Johnson, Carter and Reagan also had layoffs that got no publicity. Only Musk, but the previous layoffs were lists that were studied for WEEKs by managers who worked with the individuals! And not a bunch of kids with AI??? Now we know the short comings of AI! And lack of Formality of Operations, yea boards. The managers should have been engaged. But this audit has shown that appointed INSPECTOR GENERALS were asleep at the wheel, or spending too much time at martini luncheons.
NNSA should be in DoD not, since 1999, in DoE.
DoE is mostly another slush fund for green energy and paying off friends.
Sorry, paywall:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3311236/in-final-days-biden-awarded-50-million-to-self-dealing-charity-leader/
Excerpt: A slice of that pie, $50 million, was awarded by the Department of Energy to a little-known charity in New Mexico called the Tribal Energy Consortium.
Hey,
It is tribal energy. It must be good…They make energy out of smoke signals.
Things are being rushed.
Its not a big deal. Government is what colossal parasite.
So they accidentally fired a few critical workers, it was corrected in 3 days.
Next.
Another theory bites the dust. That US Government was only a little bit wasteful and some fraud might be exposed but it could never amount to a Trillion bucks.
All those conspiracy theorists proved right again.
Whole lot of people being Red Pilled after Social Security exposed and we have not even got into Health Fraud or Education.
That is the Nature of Fraud that it happens because regular people can not believe something so monstrous was possible coming out of the very people whom they have aligned a whole lifetime of trust with.
If I’m Trump I would start building low cost prisons to hold all these crooks.
Nope.
We already have a much cheaper option to send them to El Salvador. Looking to cut costs Trump will surely opt for that.
I know, they are crazy, now they want to cut social security payments from people that are 300 years old… I mean, where is this going to stop ?? lol
To be fair vampires are people too and should get disability as well since they can’t come out in the day and they are very limited as to their diet. We must also ask ourselves whether werewolves can live that long too.
One X user pointed out that 2023 data showed the US population at around 334.9 million. However, Musk’s data (likely from DOGE’s ‘Big Balls’ analyst) shows 394 million names in the Social Security Administration database.
Musk responded: “Yes, there are FAR more “eligible” social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history.”
“If DOGE’s numbers are right, $522B—1/3 of ALL spending on Social Security each year—is fraudulent,” X user Robert Sterling said.
Eligible people might have paid in the past, before stopping for whatever reason, still paying, or those who collect social security.
Sorry, but the government spends a lot of money accounting for the number of people, and if you read the form, it encourages non-citizens (migrants) to fill it out. So likely is Hamas and Iran collecting SSI?
Ida Mae Fuller was the country’s first monthly Social Security benefits recipient. She died at age 100 in 1975. Is her Social Security number still in an active data base and are checks still being mailed out to her? At age 150, she probably would qualify for the country’s oldest SS beneficiary, living or dead.
Well, now you’re just using math logic, and you’re going to anger the political hate-baiters here that get their news from non-math-using sites
But thanks – from some of us – for the heads-up
Haha, I am a British citizen. I lived in NYC for a few years at turn of the millennium, I have social security number that was issued for my taxes. I still have that number on my W8 form
The withholding tax exemption for non residents. So suspect quite a few of those excess numbers are from people who are no longer resident in the USA
One of those numbers belong to Angus the cat…
Those top secret facilities and their top secret worker are invisible to civilians without top secret clearance. Top secret people don’t tell their family what they are doing. Drill baby drill depleted U barrels to blowup bunkers and tanks. DOGE had no idea who these people are. That’s a good thing !
“Despite having the words “National” and “Security” in its title, it was not getting an exemption for national security”
That’s a common mistake that AI makes. If 2 words are not consecutive, AI has trouble determining the relationship between 2 words.
The mass firings at the NNSA put the very existence of humanity in danger, but the solution is to invest billions more into AI training so the same mistake doesn’t happen again.
Its called ‘FORMALITY OF OPERATIONS’ AI does not know what that is. First you have an executive committee, then there is such thing as deniability, or your innocent, no formality. The crime was immediately pronounced, instead of there is a possibility of an error. I totally support this audit, but, but, there are Formalities that have been skipped. Very sad, since the crimes are sooo egregious.
‘The mass firings at the NNSA put the very existence of humanity in danger’
LOL!!!!
BUT this is why everyone’s talking points about cutting waste never materialize. Politicians are so afraid of triggering voters or potential donors that they “tip-toe through the tulips”, move slowly and ultimately, fail to accomplish much of anything.
Considering how useless DOGE is, it sure has been making headlines a lot lately.
Fire first, ask questions later.
The broader issue here that no one has caught (as usual) is that you don’t pick up nuclear scientists off the street the same way you pick up dimwitted politicians.
Those that got let go will find something else to do or just retire and hit the social security dole. Universities are in a death spiral begging for bodies to fill their schools because there aren’t enough young people.
Hard choices coming up about who maintains what over something else.
https://www.highereddive.com/news/decline-high-school-graduates-demographic-cliff-wiche-charts/738281/
There will be winners and losers across the board.
Not sure these were scientists. Most were workers decommissioning old nuclear warheads.
We can just sell those at the flea market.
You are correct news coming from the AP they might not exist
The y-axis doesn’t match the data they plotted (not to mention it is deceptively formatted instead of either starting at zero or indicating a break between 0 and 3.3 million). This particular period has a variation of <15% from peak to trough, which is hardly a cliff.
Universities are in trouble because their product isn’t worth the cost according to an increasing number of college-aged students and the administrative ranks at schools grew much faster than those of tenured professors. They overbuilt in the heady days after Corzine worked his magic and Paulson threatened Congress, back when jobs were scarce and the conventional wisdom was to pursue higher education and even continue on to graduate school. Not everyone is fit for another 4+ years of schooling, but just about any 18 year-old can get 50k-100k in student loans.
While this blog post is from 2009, one would be awfully optimistic to think that the situation has improved dramatically-
https://www.educationnext.org/the-costs-and-benefits-of-remediation/
Some of this work is straight BS. “Radiation remediation” of sites that have lower radiation than the background natural radiation in places where people have lived for thousands of years with no ill effects.
It is only happening because of excessive regulations based on OG hoax fraudulent science.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-elon
Evidently they went on a fission operation.
Minor error. 2000 out of 200,000 is a 1% error. Certainly close enough for government work.
You noted, I’m sure, that Judge Chutkan held an emergency hearing today and denied a request by a plethora of plaintiffs to shut down DOGE. She indicated that she needed more time to consider the issue, warning the plaintiffs that “I’m just not seeing it”.
No doubt she’s not. She’s also reading the tea leaves, given that the acting US SG filed an emergency SCOTUS appeal on Sunday, noting te 60 odd lawsuits filed against the Trump administration and the devestating impact they are having on the transition.
You’ve also noted, I’m sure that two judges have now denied requested TROs. And one judge wrote a blistering dissent in a case where a TRO was granted that, if you understand anything about how the process works, was clearly a roadmap for SCOTUS to follow as they consider, and eventually detonate, the nuclear option.
I cannot predict how quickly this will occur. Or whether this particular emergency appeal will be the one. I’m thinking perhaps that Roberts wants to see a few more outrageous rulings pile up, thereby providing plenty of evidence before he pulls the trigger.
But the trigger will be pulled on the ridiculous lawfare efforts.
And then once that is put to bed we can move on to the birthright issue. That stack will also be detonated, although it will take a lot longer than ending the BS that is occuring right now.
Lastly, I have a question. Re: the birthright issue. Many anomalies and the court has never squarely confronted the issue. But one thing they have said in the past is this: if a non citizen gives birth on a US flagged ship that is inside the territorial waters of the US, birthright citizenship is not conferred.
Please explain why and how that is any different than a non citizen giving birth on land.
Thank you.
Over 200,000 probationary employees were targeted across several departments , 2000 were targeted at the energy department where these layoffs fall under . My gosh how many employees has the feds hired over last several years ? Mish writes about this ? There are millions working for the feds directly and inderectly . Maybe do an article on what the trajectory of federal government employment over last 2 decades and how much the average compensation including benefits and so on . When was the last time the feds had a layoff ? How about 4 counties around DC are part of the 10 wealthiest counties in the country and they have more private schools than anywhere else . You talking about can’t see the forest for the trees this qualifies The federal dovernment is a bloated blob everyone knows it and it is exactly what the constitution was against it was for a small non intrusive government that didn’t dominate the country, but here we are .
I saw some mention of this recently. Apparently, the government has long probationary periods, between 1-2 years! That’s crazy.
But dumping the probationary workers is the easiest thing to do as they don’t have the same union protections as non-probationary ones.
Bigger question beyond the federal employees: how many of the people working in federal agencies are actually contractor/consultant types? The number is not inconsiderable and the government spends massive amounts of money on contracts with these consultancy organizations. Instead of only focusing on federal workers, why not pay a little attention to the vast cadres of non-government employee employees working in the federal space.
I would be surprised if the number were under 40%. Contractors are often used in government to move people cost sunder some other umbrella that isn’t easy to discern. Kingdoms in government are based on the number of people you control.
The Musk-Trump Administration fired “three hundred” FAA employees over the weekend — just hours before Saturday’s deadly plane crash near Atlanta, Georgia that killed two people. And within just weeks of four other deadly crashes in the United States that happened on Donald Trump’s watch. https://apnews.com/article/doge-faa-air-traffic-firings-safety-67981aec33b6ee72cbad8dcee31f3437
FAA air traffic controllers should be replaced by robots/AI.
HA Lets get it goin: end the snap program and section 8
Gotta pay for part of that 4.5 trillion tax cut for us rich people somehow.
I’m not so concerned about mistakes being made as much as rectifying them quickly when they happen. I would not want to brush it under the rug – rather I would use it as an opportunity. If i were DOGE spokesman I would say something like ‘We’re dealing with such a huge bureacracy built up over decades upon decades that inevitably we’ll get our wires crossed and make some inadvertent misssteps – but unlike in the past with government we’ll be quick to fix those situations when they occur. We regret the temporary distress this may have caused to some of our most critical workers….’ etc
Nice…but not necessary at all. We no longer need the consent of the governed.
No problem. All of them have already another job… with uncle Xi or brother Putin.
This doesn’t bother me one bit. Go fast, cut big, and fix mistakes along the way.
Our federal government is so overgrown, incompetent, and corrupt that we need to cut hard and make them justify every add-back. If you think this is disorderly, think about living through the looming bankruptcy crisis. And spare me the manufactured and selective outrage of the corrupt, complicit, deceitful media. I don’t really care, Margaret.
You may not care, but Trump should. If this type of thing happens to Social Security checks, Musk and others will be on the end of a pitchfork
You wouldn’t stab a man with a kid on his shoulders.
No mistake was made.
I do not think DOGE has the authority to fire anybody or cancel any contracts or do anything but make recommendations to appropriate government authorities. If that is the case, then there has been a lot of foolish dismissal decisions by government authorities, one being acting on a DOGE recommendation that should have been presumably rejected. This theme of Musk’s team authority has been over reported consistently since he started his work. Maybe the issue is trump is providing a lot of heat to follow where Musk sheds light.
The light being shown by DOGE is long overdue.
For anyone who has studied Musk’s methods this is no surprise. You only have only to listen to what he says himself about how he cuts costs. He says that you cut back to the point where you realize that you have to hire back ten percent of those you had cut and you hire them back. That is the sign that you have cut enough and now the company is truly lean and mean as all his companies are now. He did it at Twitter and it worked very well.
👆 I was just about to say the same thing, though @Doug78 said it better… this is exactly what he did at Twitter and it worked.
If you want to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs. In Stalin’s case twenty million eggs and still no omelet. Musk has a perfect record.
Trotsky said that.
Worked very well? Twitter is worth 80% less than when musk bought it.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-fidelity/index.html
Most have moved to BlueSky or Threads but believe whatever you want.
It’s worth what I SAY it’s worth!
You are behind the times. Look at their last results and especially their margins. They doubled their profits. Operating margins went from 13% to 46% and their EBITDA is $1.2 billion on $2.7 billion of revenue. With margins like that X will pay down their debt and then will be minting cash.
Lol….okay. Since it’s no longer public, I assume you must have some insider knowledge of their financials.
I send him secret messages in his dreams.
Even private companies have to report by law some financials to the public. If you are an investor you would have known that.
Musk just announced 10% cuts at SpaceX.
Let the astronauts hang another year.
Like this is meaningful. Situation easily rectified and it will be.
What is important is the fraud coming to light over at Social Security. That funding mechanism supposed to keep people out of poverty in Old age.
Instead used to prop up how many via fraudulent claims who would have voted for which party?
In the meanwhile any people who survive on Social Security alone are deprived of what should have remained a solvent system but was turned into a Tax collecting agency to fund waste.
The working age people unable to put together a down payment for a home as the tax bite prevents them from aspiring to starting families or affording them.
The real Creeps who knew this was going on in Washington DC will plead ignorance but they are guilty of Treason against the people of US.
Social Security payouts by age and recipients:
0 – 9 years old: 38,825,456 recipients
10-19: 44,326,480
20-29: 47,995,478
20-39: 52,101,915
40-49: 47,626,581
50-59: 45,740,805
60-69: 46,381,281 (boomer gen)
70-79: 33,404,412 (boomer gen)
80-89: 15,165,127
90-99: 6,054,154
100-109: 4,734,407
110-119: 3,627,007
120-129: 3,472,849
130-139: 3,936,311
140-149: 3,542,044
150-159: 1,345,083
160-169: 121,907
170-179: 6087
180-189: 695
190-199: 448
200-209: 879
210-219 866
220-229: 1039
240-249: 1
360-369: 1 (so born around 1665)
Mish, you’re the computer guy. Couldn’t a search like this been easily conducted 50 years ago – if only somebody wanted to?
What do you make of this – a lot of people eating yogurt?
Those figures roughly add up to more than the US population. Something doesn’t add up.
That’s exactly what Musk said. Somehow millions more SS numbers in use than there are people.
Not sure where those numbers came from but Musk is a known liar and even admitted he would be “wrong” on TV when he and his kid were at the White House with Trump.
The accurate numbers are published every month, social security snapshot.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
For the month of January, there were 144,000 new socialists added to the roles to bring the total number of socialists to 73 million and costing the US taxpayer $126 billion / month.
The SSA OIG has already investigated this. Please look up SSA OIG report A-06-21-51022 | July 2023.
The report found that there were roughly 19 million people in the SSA database over the age of 100 without death information. The IG found that 98% of that number were NOT receiving benefits nor did they have reportable income.
Musk is implying that millions of dead people are receiving benefits when that’s simply not the case.
Thanks for your post and your research.
Unfortunately, as you already know, political BS posters here don’t care about the truth, just the way things look on the surface for ‘their team’
Yes, I’m aware. That’s why Musk tweets like he does. He knows the rubes are salivating for more confirmation bias tweets.
Simps gonna simp…
Then why are they still there? Same reason voter rolls are padded?
Illegals and criminals make up SS numbers all the time. My understanding is that the numbers never got checked in the past or if they did and came up fraudulent, no one did anything about them because the goal was for people to work at jobs.
The SS probably has some bureaucratic, esoteric reason why they chose not to run flag/cleanup programs. It would be interesting to hear what their rationale was.
Those Social Security numbers include US citizens overseas, wives of US citizens entitled to Social Security, and former legal foreign residents of the US that worked in the US who had Social Security numbers.
So yes, the numbers should be greater than the population of the USA.
You’re forgetting that not everyone in the U.S. population count has a social security number. There are other factors at play as well-
“Over 20 million Americans have more than a single social security number associated with their names.
How did that happen? Chalk it up to a combination of fraud and human errors.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-20-million-americans-one-social-security-numbers-not-enough/
Maybe the SS administration never fixed the Y2K problem 😉
It’s because my minions can’t understand how the date format works in COBOL, but it made such a great story we decided to run with it.
Make no mistake: we are gutting social security to fund tax cuts for me and my cronies, and there is nothing you can do but pretend it isnt happening.
You should change your name to President Ocasio-Cortez.
Be the change you want to see. You can be our first transsexual poster.
The support payments for all your kids can be expensive. Maybe keep it zipped up?
I’m breeding the new master race.
This has already been debunked. The social security office uses COBOL which is just about as old as the dinosaur age.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-150-year-old-benefits/
But have they really? This would seem to be in conflict with Avery2’s list above.
This tells me that the amount lost to fraud is close to 6 TIMES what we spend on Boomers.
Wait until they dig into the DOD budget!
Once they go down that trail, they better start wearing bullet proof vests and having the valet start their cars.
I’ve got little Kevlar on my shoulders all the time. He can stop a head shot.
Where did you get this list from? If true, then most of SS management should be summarily fired immediately.
Avery2, your URL is missing.
Drilling down the MPO45v2 URL gets a number-filled page at:
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2024/5a.html
Hope this helps.
DoGE claims excess SS numbers at every age group, but especially those over 60.
(Old people are not only voting from the grave, but also collecting SS checks).
Looks like SS could be over spending by 60% (roughly)
SS numbers in 60+ age group = 121.8 million
Population in 60+ age group = 75.8 million (Neilsburg Research Jul’24)
121.8 / 75.8 ~= 160%
This is going on across the gov’t. These DOGE kids have no experience, knowledge or wisdom to understand the decisions they are making.
Yes, there is a lot things going on the American people are NOT happy about; fraud, waste and abuse, but we can’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many of these folks have no control over money or anything and are just do their jobs.
I’m not defending the gov’t but serious things can go wrong when the wrong people are removed arbitrarily.
They appear to be getting on the right track by focusing on grants and unauthorized programs where the fraud, theft and abuse are likely to be. But to layoff people due to a keyword search is really bad, and that is what’s happening.
If you throw out the baby with the bath water, you just go pick him up. Most of the time they’re fine.
Your mom, however, was quite unlucky…
FYI – “Yves” has opened up comments – with strict rules – at the Naked Capitalism site after a week hiatus centering around this topic, so this would fit right in.
When you are talking about reviewing millions of Federal workers there are going to be a few mistakes make (even 6 nines of accuracy which is next to impossible to achieve would lead to 1 person in a million losing their jobs incorrectly).
What’s important is that they were quickly rectified rather than taking months or years like most bureaucracies.
They aren’t reviewing anybody, they’re just firing people on the basis of the date they were hired.
Thank God it wasn’t anything important.