DOGE wants to modernize Social Security’s legacy tech — what could possibly go wrong?

The Social Security Administration (SSA) payment system has more than 60 million lines of COBOL code. That makes it one of the world’s largest, not to mention oldest, codebases. Everyone agrees it needs to be updated. But, sorry, there’s no way it can be updated in mere months.

Nevertheless, Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claim they can convert the ancient SSA code to Java or some other modern language in only a few months. Reminder DOGE isn’t a real department — and that modernization effort isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

Seriously, I’ve seen this rodeo before. For example, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been trying to replace the 200,000-line assembly language Individual Master File (IMF) with Java for decades. Hasn’t happened. The latest plan was to replace the IMF by 2028. I say “was” because President Donald J. Trump, Musk, and DOGE have cut the IRS modernization funds to zilch. 

As for SSA, it was going to replace COBOL with Java in 2017, a code translation expected to take five years; it failed. (That’s why we’re having this conversation now.) Part of the problem was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, as Ernst & Young noted, the agency also didn’t have a real plan for modernizing its legacy IT systems, nor one to identify and track the systems.

Guess what? There’s no real plan today, either. All we know is that Musk, yes-man Steve Davis and  nine kid software engineers, and some undefined AI program will miraculously transform the code into Java.

I doubt any of them can even read COBOL code. This is, after all, the same crew who thought there were hordes of 150-year-old fraudsters ripping off Social Security. 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.

Why should they know? Over a decade ago, fewer than one in four colleges offered COBOL classes.

Thinking of dates, that’s not the only data in that codebase kept in formats incompatible with modern languages. Converting this data accurately is crucial and fraught with risks. Any errors during the conversion process could result in data loss or corruption, which would have catastrophic consequences for the millions of Americans who rely on Social Security benefits.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick believes that if Social Security checks didn’t go out one month, his mother-in-law “wouldn’t call and complain.” Maybe she wouldn’t — after all, she has a billionaire son-in-law. I don’t. I bet the vast majority of the 73 million other Americans who depend on it don’t have billionaires in the family either. 

Even if these youngsters did grok the language, knowing COBOL is only part of the problem. You see, COBOL is more than just a coding language. It also incorporates organizational processes and policies. That’s not an approach modern developers deal with.

In addition, COBOL systems were not designed to integrate seamlessly with modern technologies. A migration requires extensive customization to ensure compatibility with newer software and hardware, which is both costly and complex. This integration challenge was exacerbated by the need to maintain the system’s functionality during the  transition, a delicate balancing act that demands meticulous planning and execution.

Meticulous is not the word I’d use for Musk and his move-fast and break-things bunch.

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. This is profoundly stupid and will definitely fail, and it’s just a question of whether our social security system fails along with it.

“I cannot think of a single legitimate reason for DOGE to perform such a modernization, especially on such a time scale.”

Jason Fichtner, a former SSA deputy commissioner, told CNBC: “If you start messing with the system’s code, that could impact those who are currently getting benefits now, and that’s a new front-and-center concern.

“You can’t just flip a switch one night and expect to be able to upgrade. It takes due diligence, and you have to understand the complexity of the programs,” he added.

In light of DOGE’s employee cuts at the agency, Fichtner and Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, warned in a column: “If Social Security’s computer systems experience an outage, which has happened twice in recent years, the agency may lack the expertise to resolve it.” 

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. Yes, legacy systems should be replaced and upgraded. No one’s arguing they shouldn’t be.

But waving a magic AI wand powered up by a political agenda isn’t the way to do it.