Social Security payment system headed for 'collapse' due to Musk and DOGE, warns former commissioner

If you receive Social Security payments, you need to prepare for the possibility that one of your next benefit checks may be very, very late. That's the dire warning from former U.S. Social Security Administration commissioner Martin O' Malley.

[T]he recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.

“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Ahead of any interruption in benefits, “people should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

That's easier said than done; most people on fixed incomes don't have nest eggs to tide them over if those payments don't come, which is the entire point of the Social Security system to begin with. But while Social Security has never before missed payments, the steep and utterly incompetent slashing of the agency risks what a sneering Musk might refer to as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly"—a complete and possibly prolonged systems crash.

O’Malley said DOGE leaders are now making changes at the agency, and significant staff cuts have already led to system outages. Those intermittent IT outages may happen more frequently and for more extended periods of time until there is a “system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” he said.

This is a pattern that is repeating throughout government. Firings and workplace shutdowns at NOAA are likely to affect the accuracy of weather forecasts; FAA gutting is putting passengers at increased risk of disaster; the closure of Securities and Exchange Commission offices is only one among many Musk/DOGE actions seemingly designed to encourage rampant corporate fraud.

But none of those things, not one, is likely to have the focused, nationwide impact that an extended pause on Social Security benefits would bring. That would be not just catastrophic to recipients who depend on those benefits, but would be politically catastrophic to every Trump-backing elected official in the nation.

You would think that Republicans would be scrambling to undo the Trump administration's illegal cuts to such critical services, but so far? They're doing nothing at all. And with every passing day, the risks get worse.

The only thing you can do to protect yourself, if you depend on these payments: save all the money you can. Assume some future payment may be a few days late, or may be a few weeks late, simply because Musk's incompetent teen Nazis touched some system they shouldn't have touched and brought the whole thing down. The real risks to government systems will begin to arise after mass firings are over and there's nobody left who understands this or that narrow detail of each of those systems; what once may have been an easy fix can easily balloon into more catastrophic problems when the "easy fix" option is no longer available.

In fact, start saving your money even if you're not receiving Social Security payments. Stop getting on planes, pull back from whatever discretionary spending you can avoid. With Trump's announcement that new, steep tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China will now be going into effect, the stage is set for a rapid unscheduled disassembly of the entire U.S. and world economy. This is going to get much, much worse before it gets better.