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DOGE wants to modernize Social Security’s legacy tech — what could possibly go wrong?
Yes, Social Security Administration systems that rely on COBOL need to be updated. No, Elon, it can't be done quickly.
What they didn’t realize was that COBOL doesn’t have a standardized way of dealing with dates, which led to records for numerous century-old-plus people who were not — I repeat- — not getting an unfair penny of government funds. As Waldo Jaquith, former director of technology acquisition for the Inflation Reduction Act, said on Bluesky about the scheme, “I’m an expert in modernizing legacy government software systems. Unless Congress acts soon to block DOGE’s misguided technology plans, Social Security, which has never missed a payment in its nearly 90 years, might finally not deliver American workers’ hard-earned retirement checks.
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