DOGE Wants to Replace SSA 60 Million Line COBOL Codebase in Months

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This one is definitely beyond the pale:

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
…
“In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED.”

Oh yeah, as someone in the news recently remarked:
Fool Around and Find Out

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Tom in Az, NaNoNyMouse, SueW, Lars220

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My advice, sign up for a my ssa account now and download/print out the info.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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EyesOnWindows, jburk07, SueW, WSdabble, Myst, Lars220

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Yes, it is a very good idea to follow Susan Bradley advice to set up a “my Social Security Account” and review all the available information there, and print out as much as you can, or take screenshots, so that you have some type of an official record before any thing could possibly go haywire (?) –
Here are some informational links that may be helpful:

From Clark Howard, a long time consumer advocate, he turns 70 in June 2025:

My Social Security: The Free Account Everyone Needs To Set Up
Written by Sally McDonald | December 19th, 2024

“… did you know there’s an important step you need to take before you turn 62? Money expert Clark Howard has one secret to share that will help protect your financial future: – 6 Things To Consider About Your “my Social Security” Account”

How to Create or Access Your Social Security Account – Ready to sign up?

Visit https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/create.html to get started. You will have the option to create an account with one of our credential service providers, Login.gov or ID.me.

Amazing Truths Revealed: Link to Simply Magnificent AskWoody Knowledge Bases

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Myst

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There are more details reported on this subject at
DOGE says fraudsters targeting Social Security’s call-in lines to bilk benefits
My guess, after reading various sources as well as the link I’ve included, there will most likely be nothing to worry about for SSA recipients who are currently and legitimately in the system. The massive overhaul should not be a threat in taking down the system, I’m sure the DOGE team will perform this effort with no interruption in benefits. My thoughts, if there is any kind of delay, hopefully the recovery will be a quick reset. Either way, smooth transition or a few bumps in the road, there is little doubt social security benefits will fail to make it to their legitimate recipients, give or take a day or two. I do agree It’s a good idea to download your personal information “for the record” with any government account that provides benefits, the link posted by @lars220 seems to be very helpful in doing just that. Hope for the best.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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Lars220

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Lars220 wrote:

You will have the option to create an account with one of our credential service providers, Login.gov or ID.me.

I’ve been getting SS for a while, but I updated my login credential service a about 4 months ago via Login.gov.  It’s a bit of a job but worth it for the POM.

You’ll get a bunch of long one-time use codes to use if your locked out.  I printed them out and put on a thumb drive.

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Lars220

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Hello,

Just wanted to add my experience to this discussion. After reading through this thread, I decided to check the SS info for myself and my husband. We each have a mySS account that is linked to a login.gov account. I signed into my login.gov account without any issues and could access the mySS account without issues. I checked all of the info and took a few screenshots plus downloads of a few things. Logged out and then tried my husband’s account.

Log in at the login.gov site was fine and it said his SS ID had been verified in July through the login.gov site. Usually I can just click the SS link there and it takes me to the mySS page – as it did with my own account. Didn’t happen with his – it wanted to reset up the ID verification – driver’s license, photo, other things – before I could access his mySS info.

I opted not to go through all of that and try again another day – and also see if the SS payments keep happening on time. I made NO changes and everything is the same – untouched as I couldn’t access the site anyway.

Just so annoying – I used Chrome Incognito – which has always worked before. Fingers crossed that nothing is awry – just irritating that things that did work now want you to jump through unnecessary hoops!

ETA: Not really looking for a “solution” – just wanted to share my experience in case someone else reads this thread and runs into trouble logging in.

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jburk07, Lars220

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Myst wrote:

The massive overhaul should not be a threat in taking down the system, I’m sure the DOGE team will perform this effort with no interruption in benefits

I’ve been involved in replacing systems with new code and hardware. It is never as easy as you think and always takes longer than planned. And if the code base is around 60M lines then I would expect “a few months” to be the sort of timeline your consultant suggested before you started the formal process of defining the product and hiring someone to do the work.

cheers, Paul

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wavy, Bill C., jburk07, Lars220, Dreamkid, SueW, IT Manager Geek, Myst, Charlie

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I agree. I’ve worked alongside TECH experts, such as yourself, many years ago. And I do know what it takes to code. I guess my point is trying to see there may be some positive outcome in this administration. And it’s never as it’s told by some, just exactly how they plan on going about this transformation in the Social Security Administration. We have to wait and see and prepare ourselves for one thing or another.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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Lars220

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Myst wrote:

Hope for the best.

And try to prepare (if you can) for the worst.  From what I’ve seen happening recently I’m not at all hopeful about much of anything.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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I know better than to get involved in politics. Really don’t intend to go up against anyone else’s opinion, it’s important to show respect and listen to what others have to say, and that’s what I try to do. Looking for the positive even when we are hit hard with the unimaginable.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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If we stop hoping, we’re are lost. Whether it’s personal (our own stuff), or political (affecting our lives/future), or technical (look at your desktop, for heavens sake), we can’t give up on tomorrow’s  sunrise.

Live in this day, hope for tomorrow.

 

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I may be slightly off topic in this thread, but while on the subject of Social Security I found an interesting and educational tool to save Social Security, but not from the DOGE cobol re-progamming that sounds scary to me, (a non tech home user), – but here is a user tool anyone can use to form ideas about how to save Social Security from its insolvency crisis:

“Social Security provides vital income security to millions of beneficiaries, but it is on a road toward insolvency. The Social Security retirement program is projected to run out of reserves by 2033, or by 2035 if combined with the disability program. Upon insolvency of the theoretically combined trust funds, all beneficiaries regardless of age and income will face an immediate 17 percent benefit cut, growing to 28 percent by 2073.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget offers An Interactive Tool to Fix Social Security. “The Reformer” allows users to build their own plan to restore solvency. See how your choices stack up! This interactive tool has progress charts on the right side of the webpage so you can see what your individual changes do to the outcome. I hope our Congress people will pay attention. Give it a try at:

https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/

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wavy

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The DOGE people at SSA have shown themselves to be woefully ignorant about legacy systems. There is nothing inherently wrong with the COBOL code used by SSA other than it is COBOL. That makes it difficult to maintain today because so few people know COBOL. Then there is the database structure in addition. Even with the help of AI, these people are whistling in the wind if they think they can replace 60 million lines of code plus a database plus possible hardware in a few months. I will guarantee that if they replace hardware, underlying system software, and COBOL application code there will be more than one significant hardware upgrade required and the job will take years not months. These types of “consultants” always underestimate the difficulty and overestimate their abilities. We should all take steps to protect our SSA information as best we can.

--Joe

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wavy, SueW, EyesOnWindows, NaNoNyMouse, Charlie, Alex5723, LHiggins, RetiredGeek

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Thank you so very much Joe!

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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See some supporting arguments in DOGE Plans to Rewrite Entire Social Security Codebase in Just ‘a Few Months’: Report

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See also If COBOL is so problematic, why does the US government still use it?
If you’ve gotten cash from an ATM, you’ve interacted with a COBOL-based system. Here’s why this old programming language will probably outlive us all.

“COBOL lacks a standardized way to store and work with dates…one of the most common placeholder dates is May 20, 1875. … Because that’s the beginning of time according to the ISO 8601 time and date standard. … What that means in practice is that, in at least some cases, if someone applies for Social Security without a birth date, they’d automatically be assigned a birthdate of May 20, 1875, which is how we end up with 149+-year-old senior citizens.”
“…the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) still uses…not just code written in COBOL but code written in IBM Assembler as well”

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wavy

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