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Mamdani's Anti-DOGE City Savings Plan Includes Firing McKinsey, Not Hiring Them
"Government must deliver for working people—and every dollar in our budget should work as hard as they do," said the mayor.
Mar 25, 2026
Cutting government "waste" and increasing "efficiency" have long been rallying calls of the right, most recently with President Donald Trump's "slash-and-burn" methods through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency—which rapidly cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and threatened lives across the Global South by terminating billions in foreign aid—and his cuts to Medicaid and federal food assistance.
But New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday appeared intent on "co-opting" the idea of efficiency, as one organizer said, as the progressive Democrat provided an update on his plan to save more than $1.7 billion in public funds "without compromising essential services."
The targets of Mamdani's savings plan aren't crucial healthcare programs like Medicaid—which even some Democrats like his erstwhile rival, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have attacked as "wasteful"—and education, but major government contracts with companies like consulting firm McKinsey.
Cutting the Department of Social Services IT contract will save the city $9 million per year, said Mamdani. McKinsey has contracted with the New York City government several times, including between 2014-17 when it was paid $27.5 million to reduce violence at the jail complex on Rikers Island—only to report "bogus" numbers as the problem worsened—and in 2022 when it was paid $1.6 million to research garbage disposal.
"The city was paying for a lot of work from outside contractors that was costing us far too much, so we're bringing a lot of that work in-house and saving our budget millions on things like IT services and software," said Mamdani in a video he posted to social media. "A contract with McKinsey at the Department of Social Services: no more. That's $9 million that we won't be spending next year.
Government must deliver for working people—and every dollar in our budget should work as hard as they do.That’s why I directed every agency to cut waste and help close our budget gap.Here’s some of what we found.
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— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@mayor.nyc.gov) March 25, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Other savings identified by city agencies, which were directed by Mamdani to find $1.7 billion in public funds that could be saved to fill what city Comptroller Mark Levine called "the biggest budget gap since the Great Recession," include $1.15 million at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which has been "overcharged for lifesaving medicine like naloxone."
"We're renegotiating that contract and saving another million dollars," said Mamdani.
Millions will be saved on leases as the city shrinks its "physical footprint" and stops renting spaces it doesn't need, and an estimated $13 million per year will be saved as officials strengthen its verification process to make sure homeowners are actually living in homes for which they get tax breaks.
Other contracts will be terminated or renegotiated at New York City Public Schools, generating more than $30 million in savings next year; the city's public hospitals system, saving about $40 million over the next two years; and the Department of Corrections, resulting in $4.3 million in savings.
Mamdani emphasized that to confront the city's deficit, "we need to tax the rich and end the drain that's been our relationship with the state for far too long."
"As we pursue that, though, we also have to take a close look at our own spending and cut waste wherever we can," the mayor said. "Because to deliver public goods you have to first deliver public excellence."
Organizer and writer Cole Sandick said Mamdani's "co-opting of efficiency from the right will be seismic for the American socialist project" and expressed hope that the mayor could begin "a national campaign against The Contractor State—neoliberalism's grand, massively inefficient outsourcing of government functions to private contractors."
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said it was "really exciting that NYC is generating operational efficiencies by in-sourcing needlessly outsourced public services and functions, building city capacity."
"More of this!" he added.
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Criminal Investigation Demanded for DOGE Theft of Social Security Data
"This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg," said the executive director of Social Security Works. "We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it."
Jan 21, 2026
Advocates and Democratic members of Congress are calling for a criminal investigation after a court filing revealed that operatives at the Department of Government Efficiency—previously headed by Elon Musk—pilfered and leaked Social Security data through a non-secure private server.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said Wednesday that his organization supports Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) in their call for "a full criminal investigation into DOGE leaks of private Social Security data to Elon Musk’s associates and immediate congressional action to safeguard Americans’ privacy."
"This reported malfeasance was enabled by a culture created by the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and DOGE soon after the president took office—a culture of recklessly interfering in the legitimate functions of the federal government with questionable intent and zero accountability," said Richtman, calling the data abuses part of a "relentless attack on the functioning of the Social Security Administration."
Richtman's statement came a day after the Trump administration acknowledged that DOGE operatives accessed and divulged highly sensitive Social Security data in ways that "were potentially outside of" SSA policy and in violation of a March 2025 court order. The Justice Department maintains that SSA doesn't know data was shared on the third-party server.
As the New York Times reported, the Trump DOJ also disclosed that "a political advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE Social Security team, asking for an analysis of state voter rolls the advocacy group obtained."
"One of the DOGE employees signed an agreement with the advocacy group, which the Social Security Administration appeared to learn through a review of emails," the Times noted. "The Justice Department did not provide details about what came of the agreement and whether sensitive data was shared inappropriately."
In a joint statement responding to the revelations, Larson and Neal said that "we have been warning about privacy violations at Social Security and calling out Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ for months."
"DOGE signed an agreement to share Social Security data with an organization trying to undermine state election results, sent 1,000 Americans’ personal records directly to one of Elon Musk’s top consiglieres, and shared the confidential data of Americans on a private server," the Democratic lawmakers continued. "The 'DOGE' appointees engaged in this scheme—who were never brought before Congress for approval or even publicly identified—must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these abhorrent violations of the public trust."
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, echoed that call on Wednesday, saying that "those who have committed illegal acts must be prosecuted."
Lawson also demanded that Congress launch "a long-overdue investigation into just what DOGE is doing with our earned benefits and our private data."
"Thanks to Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, Elon Musk’s DOGE minions have access to our private Social Security data. So does anyone they choose to share it with—and anyone who can hack the unsecured server they’ve stored it on," said Lawson. "This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it."
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The Republican Shutdown is a Threat to Social Security
While Republicans are saying they don’t want a shutdown, their actions show otherwise.
Sep 27, 2025
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Yet despite this unified control, they are steering us towards a wasteful, destructive government shutdown.
Though Democrats don’t control the government, they are committed to protecting Americans’ access to health care. Republicans are trying to bully them, but Democratic leaders are standing strong. They have told Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress that they want to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act as part of any budget bill.
Democrats are also fighting to reverse the devastating cuts that Elon Musk’s DOGE made to the Social Security Administration and other critical government programs. They refuse to vote for a budget that enshrines those cuts into law. They will vote for a budget that helps working people, but not for one that only benefits the ultra-wealthy.
While Republicans are saying they don’t want a shutdown, their actions show otherwise. Trump and his allies are refusing to even meet with Democratic leaders. They are determined to rip away Americans’ health care and make their earned benefits inaccessible. Indeed, they are willing to shut down the government, rather than give an inch.
A prolonged Republican government shutdown could easily become the straw that breaks the camel’s back at the Social Security Administration.
Republicans have already cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and $500 billion from Medicare. They are about to allow huge cuts to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They are clearly hostile to these programs, despite their efforts to pretend otherwise.
Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury had a moment of honesty when he revealed the Trump plan to privatize Social Security. Similarly, Trump’s Commissioner of Social Security had a moment of candor when he expressed openness to cutting Social Security by raising the retirement age.
Trump’s Republican cronies in Congress are partners in the destruction, refusing to hold Trump’s DOGE accountable for gutting vital programs and stealing our most personal, sensitive data. They are refusing to reverse DOGE’s decimation of the Social Security Administration, which is making it increasingly difficult for Americans to receive their earned benefits. They are asking Democrats to provide the votes to keep the government open, in return for absolutely nothing.
Republicans have spent months terrorizing the federal workforce, just as they promised to do in Project 2025. The workers that remain after Elon Musk’s DOGE rampage are exhausted and demoralized. If Republicans force a shutdown, these workers will still have to come to work, incurring commuting, childcare and other expenses, while not receiving their pay. They will be forced to figure out how to pay their mortgages, rent, and other bills with no money coming in.
This is what Trump’s OMB director and architect of Project 2025, Russell Vought, wants. In a speech prior to the November election, he made the outrageous goal explicit:
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.” (Emphasis added.)
So when federal workers — including air traffic controllers who keep us safe when we fly and Social Security Administration civil servants who ensure we receive the benefits we are owed — stop getting paid, starting October 1, you will know whose fault it is.
The Republicans are barrelling towards a shutdown at a time when the Social Security Administration is already at the brink of catastrophe. The agency has lost thousands of experienced staff, and the Trump administration is creating chaos with haphazard and misguided policy changes. As I wrote in early September, “The only reason the system hasn’t already collapsed is that the mission-driven staffers who remain are each doing the work of five people. They are holding Social Security together with shoestrings and chewing gum — but they can’t do it forever.”
Indeed, a just-published New York Times article interviewed one of those employees.
“In my 24 years, I have never seen it so bad to the point that a lot of us are medicated,” said one Social Security technical expert who works in a field office in the Midwest and takes an anti-anxiety medication daily….“We openly talk about it,” she said. “We joke about it, because what else can you do?”
Now, these staffers will be expected to continue working themselves to the bone, without even getting paid. Who could blame them if they look for other opportunities? And that’s if they even get a choice. Vought is openly threatening to use a shutdown as an excuse for mass firings of even more civil servants. He’s taking federal workers hostage, including those who keep Social Security and Medicare running.
Trump and his Republican cronies will try to blame Democrats, as they always do. But don’t let their misdirection distract you.
A prolonged Republican government shutdown could easily become the straw that breaks the camel’s back at the Social Security Administration. Social Security’s nearly 70 million beneficiaries will pay the price in the form of ever-lengthening wait times — and potential benefit disruptions.
Trump and his Republican cronies will try to blame Democrats, as they always do. But don’t let their misdirection distract you. It is essential that Democrats win back control of Congress in the midterm elections in November 2026, so that they can check Trump’s relentless efforts to become a dictator.
Until then, they must stop bowing down to Republican demands. It is the only way to fight against the Republicans stripping away the health care of 15 million Americans, forcing hospitals around the country to close, and making it harder and harder for Americans to access their earned Social Security benefits.
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