Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Elon Musk, de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and others have been sued over cuts at the Social Security Administration (SSA).Newsweek has contacted the SSA and DOGE for comment via email outside of regular working hours.Why It MattersThe SSA sends monthly checks to some 70 million Americans, and is widely considered the most-popular government program, paying retirement, survivor and disability benefits.But the federal agency, like others, has in recent weeks come under the watchful eye of Musk’s DOGE. The department has been tasked with streamlining government efficiency and cutting waste and fraud, leading to thousands of job cuts and closure of some offices and internal departments, as well as reports of delayed or stopped benefits.What To KnowFive groups and seven Social Security beneficiaries, in the lawsuit filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court on Wednesday, said SSA cuts have disproportionately impacted disability beneficiaries and violated their constitutional rights.Named in the legal action is Musk, the SSA, its acting commissioner Leland Dudek, as well as DOGE and its acting administrator Amy Gleason.
Elon Musk delivers remarks as he joins U.S. President Donald Trump for an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Elon Musk delivers remarks as he joins U.S. President Donald Trump for an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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The legal action claims the “defendants are now executing a campaign of systemic dismantling” by “reducing offices, slashing the workforce by 7,000 employees, imposing a hiring freeze while drastically reducing overtime, consolidating regional offices from ten to four, and placing crushing new burdens on the agency’s local offices—forcing tens of thousands of additional beneficiaries to flood them each week.”DOGE Cuts at the SSAIn February, the SSA announced that it would reduce the SSA’s workforce of 57,000 down to 50,000 and reduce regional offices from 10 to four. It said the move would streamline “redundant layers of management” and reduce “non-mission critical work.”Two internal offices—the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (OCREO) and the Office of Transformation—were closed in late February. At the time, the SSA told Newsweek that some employees in the dismantled OCREO department had been put on administrative leave.It also announced in March that it would end over-the-phone identity proofing for all new benefits claimants and direct deposit changes, meaning those who could not prove their identity online would need to visit a field office. This was later partially walked back, with disability benefit claimants now permitted to use phone services to provide identity requirements.Plaintiffs are requesting that the court reverse internal department closures, halt all staffing reductions, reinstate employees who were terminated, and roll back policies that require in-person appointments.What People Are SayingPlaintiffs in the lawsuit said: “Cloaked in the threadbare rhetoric of streamlining operations and ‘prioritizing essential work,’ the defendants have systematically dismantled, and continue to dismantle, the core functions of SSA, abandoning millions of Americans to poverty and indignity. What the defendants frame as ‘reform’ is, in truth, administrative vandalism.”The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) president and CEO Maria Town said in a press release on April 2: “Americans with disabilities deserve a functioning Social Security system, not arbitrary shutdowns and inaccessible service. We filed this lawsuit because disabled Americans are already suffering – and without urgent court intervention, the harm will only grow.”Leland Dudek, acting commissioner of the SSA, said in a statement on February 19: “Good government means finding ways to do better: The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, is a critical part of President Trump’s commitment to identifying fraud, waste, and abuse, and better ways for the government to function to support its people.”What Happens NextThe SSA and DOGE have not yet made any public comment on the lawsuit.
