There’s been a lot in the news recently about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). One thing that caught my eye earlier this week was how the Social Security Administration database still contains a bunch of people over 100 years old.
No one seems to know or has confirmed whether these most likely dead people are still receiving payments, but that is not the real story here. The real story is that the system managing this database was built decades ago and still runs on COBOL.
The Good
Before I start ragging on COBOL, let’s talk about why its actually good. COBOL is probably never going away; its so deeply ingrained in modern solutions (bank transactions, ATM machines, etc.). COBOL was designed for handling massive financial transactions, which is exactly what the Social Security Administration does. In that sense, the system is doing what it was built to do. It also provides accidental or maybe intentional security through obscurity. COBOL is not exactly a prime target for hackers because barely anyone knows how to work with it.
If I were putting together a cyber syndicate, I would not be headhunting COBOL developers. And then there is the simple fact that if it is not broken, why fix it? When was the last time we heard about this system actually going down?
The Bad
That being said, COBOL is ancient. The people who know how to maintain it are retiring, and no one is exactly lining up to replace them. Once they are gone, who is going to maintain or update the system? Young developers would rather work with modern languages like Python, Go, or JavaScript than spend time learning COBOL. A quick search on whether COBOL is worth learning will tell you everything you need to know.
The Ugly
Upgrading the system would not be easy or cheap. Modernizing the COBOL-based system range would probably cost hundreds of millions to a few billion dollars. That is assuming they do not botch the transition, which, let’s be honest, would probably happen; it is the government after all.
Remember when the Navy tried to revamp its Eval and FitRep software with eNavFit? After years of downtime and constant issues, they decided to go back to NAVFIT98 like nothing ever happened. Who knows how much time and money were wasted on that project.
Final Thoughts
Ideally, the Social Security Administration would phase out COBOL and move to something more modern and maintainable. Maybe something based on Python or even a cloud-based solution.
Realistically, they will probably keep working with the old system until it is completely unsalvageable. When that happens, we will get a rushed and overpriced replacement that takes years to roll out.