What is being described as a "total annihilation" of SSA, say critics, proves that Trump's promises to protect Social Security "are a sham."

The Social Security Administration, now under the control of an official installed by U.S. President Donald Trump, began the process of gutting whole segments of the agency and firing a huge portion of its already diminished workforce, sparking alarm among advocates who say the move will almost certainly result in benefit delays and disruptions.

The American Prospect, which first reported earlier this week that Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek was weighing staff cuts of up to 50%, obtained an email sent late Thursday indicating that the department has launched an “agency-wide organizational restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions.”

  • @WhatAmLemmyEnglish
    14•23 hours ago

    I don’t buy the idea that these people are plain stupid. This fascist dictatorship is corporate led. The proof is in the allocation of funds.

    They know their actions will kill the economic mobility of tens of millions, and tens of millions more will be plunged into poverty. They do not care. They are trying to irreparably destroy democracy and all institutions that facilitate effective governance. They wouldn’t be inflicting this type of damage on the electorate unless they believed they’d never have to answer to voters, or risk losing power, again.

    • Snot FlickermanEnglish
      5•22 hours ago

      They wouldn’t be inflicting this type of damage on the electorate unless they believed they’d never have to answer to voters, or risk losing power, again.

      You realize their “AI” currently has real diminishing returns, and even with AI that can replaces some intellectual labor, they mostly do not have enough and consistent enough automation to… actually replace human workers, right?

      They’re stupid because they think they’ve already achieved that and they most certainly have not.

      You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

      Historically this kind of treatment of lower classes, especially ones that have traditionally had better quality of life, leads to civil unrest.

      Just because they believe they’ll never lose power again and that they’ll successfully murder millions through their policies and that they’ll fool some of the people… Once people cannot afford food, things usually spiral out of the control of the ruling classes, however smart they think they are.

      If they were smart they would realize how actually lifting up the working class benefits them, too.

      • @gibmiser
        3•21 hours ago

        I don’t think their “plan” includes AI replacement, at least not as a requirement. They want shit to fail so they can privatize it or buy it when it fails. After that, regulatory capture prevents new competition.