DOGE To Rewrite SSA Codebase In ‘Months’

According to an article in Wired, Elon Musk has appointed a team of technologists from DOGE to “rewrite the code that runs the SSA in months.” This codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and handles record keeping for all American workers and payments for all Social Security recipients. Given that the code has to track the byzantine regulations dealing with Social Security, it’s no wonder that the codebase is this large. What is in question though is whether a small team can rewrite this code “in months.” After all, what could possibly go wrong? “The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis … and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL … and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months,” notes Wired.

“Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.”

In 2017, SSA announced a plan to modernize its core systems with a timeline of around five years. However, the work was “pivoted away” because of the pandemic.