REUTERS
In what has to be its wackiest nugget yet, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency this week revealed that “Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania.”
Really and truly.
During a briefing in the Oval Office, Musk gave more details, explaining that the clunky, decades-old system means that “the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000.”
Indeed, “The speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government,” Musk marveled.
And when the elevator breaks down, “nobody can retire. Doesn’t that sound crazy?”
Sure does, but, somehow, the “retirement mine” is completely real.
In the underground facility at Iron Mountain in Boyers, Pa., 700-plus federal workers manually process each and every retirement filing on paper (which can reportedly take months) and store the paperwork in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes.
Since 1987, Uncle Sam has dumped some $130 million into multiple attempts to digitize the process, somehow failing every time.
Eventually, the feds gave up, opting to put up with one more insane inefficiency.
Nor does DOGE flagging the madness guarantee it’ll end.
How many more “limestone mines” are out there?