In early May, employees of the Social Security Administration received an email asking them to work harder. Not harder in a general sort of way, but 10% harder, preferably more. Citing a sudden spike in an already enormous backlog of retirement claims, the missive from headquarters demanded that 60,000 federal workers join together in a mass “sprint” of productivity to reduce processing times “by at least 10 percent daily through the end of May.”

The ask was not accompanied by any mention of the role played by SSA’s new leadership in creating the backlog. In March, SSA brass introduced ID proofing and fraud protection measures that created three-day holds on all telephone retirement and survivor claims. The changes were part of a larger suite of so-called “Cost Avoidance, Efficiency and Workforce Optimization” initiatives engineered and administered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Then there was the DOGE-directed effort to shave the SSA by 7,000 employees; at the time of the directive, the project was halfway complete, with nearly 3,500 SSA employees accepting $20,000 buyouts by the end of March. The exodus included 2,000 of the SSA’s most important and veteran employees across the country’s 1,200 Social Security field offices, or more than one-and-a-half employees per local office.

“The technical experts were like the Swiss Army knife of the field office,” says LaPointe. “They could do everything and mentored others. But they have gone the way of the dodo. Now, claims people are doing the work of four or five people. They are burning out. We’re getting reports of mental health challenges. Trump’s budget director said he wanted to put federal employees in a state of ‘trauma.’ Well, it’s working.”