Social Security

DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million From Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million.

DOGE, led by Elon Musk, significantly misrepresented savings from a Social Security Administration IT contract, claiming $232 million in cuts while actually only reducing spending by $560,000. The reduction came from canceling a Gender X Marker project, raising concerns about both financial transparency and anti-trans policies under the Trump administration.

Does or did COBOL default to 1875-05-20 for corrupt or missing dates?

The document explains why some legacy systems use 1875 as a base year for dates, particularly in Social Security systems, due to practical constraints and data storage optimization in early computing. The choice of 1875 was based on logical considerations about the earliest possible birth dates for Social Security beneficiaries, rather than being a COBOL-specific implementation.