“I genuinely have never been this concerned about the ability of that agency [Social Security Administration] to function,” said Pamela Herd, professor at the Ford School, in an interview cited by FactCheck.org. “Yes, I think people are right to be worried about it.” With DOGE's sights of making significant employment cuts to the agency, Herd anticipated an extreme backlog in the administration's ability to operate efficiently. She noted that the many recent changes made to the SSA, “are further weakening an agency that was already operating on a kind of barebones administrative budget.” Hence, the SSA could “effectively fail to deliver on promises... The promise of Social Security benefits is only as good as the ability to deliver them.”
