The website WIRED, citing an anonymous source, reveals that the DOGE team, currently under Elon Musk’s leadership, is attempting to migrate the social security system code from COBOL to more modern languages like Java. They are aiming to complete this transition in less than a year.
As of now, 67 million people in the United States receive social security benefits amounting to a whopping $930 billion annually. Any delays or issues in the payment process can have a significant impact on a large number of individuals. Large-scale system migrations like this typically take several years. Since 2017, the U.S. social security system has been trying to move its code, but the process remains incomplete.
Internally, the U.S. social security system consists of hundreds of specialized applications, with the COBOL code alone comprising 60 million lines. Additionally, there are other legacy platforms with millions more lines of code. Despite longstanding efforts to support the code, the system still operates on a COBOL core, particularly the database system known as Master Data Access Method (MADAM).
Elon Musk previously showcased errors in the social security system data, highlighting instances like individuals aged 150 years due to date misinterpretation in COBOL, which uses May 20, 1875, as day zero.
Source: ArsTechnica
TLDR: Elon Musk-led DOGE team is working on migrating the U.S. social security system code from COBOL to newer languages like Java, aiming to complete the transition in less than a year. Challenges and errors in the current system, including individuals mistakenly listed as 150 years old, have been highlighted.
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