There is a good chance someone you know will not get their Social Security check in the next one to three months. The Trump administration – just a few weeks old – has already undermined Social Security with four threats: checks may not be sent on time; drastic cuts in service are planned; transparency and accountability are reduced; and Social Security insolvency is coming sooner.
Social Security (SSA), without doubt, is our most important social program: 72 million retirees, spouses, people with disabilities, children – according to SSA data– receive a check each month and the vast majority depend on it for most of their livelihood. Social Security lifted about 16.1 million older adults above the poverty line.
Threat 1: Uncertainty About Timely Social Security Checks
In 85 years, Social Security has never missed sending checks. But the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees have taken over Social Security records without adequate understanding of the system: particularly its COBOL-based infrastructure. Ignorance manifested in the DOGE false rumor that fraud was rampant because – again, wrongly — millions of people over 150 were receiving payments. But Social Security stops payments to anyone at age 115, the SSA notes.
Because of the takeover of Social Security system by people without administrative experience, Martin O’Malley, the former head of the Social Security Administration, warned in a CNBC interview: “You’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits. I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”
Threat 2: Social Security Service Cuts
Humans have a couple of milestones in their lives and signing up for Social Security is one that needs extra attention. Social Security service had been rated much higher than many government services. But the Trump cuts in staffing recently announced by the SSA, will delay answers to enrollment, key questions, and problem solving.
In about 2009 each Social Security (SSA) staff member served 821 beneficiaries (55.8 beneficiaries were served by about 68,000 staff) enrollment and problem solving were mostly seamless and quick. But staff levels have fallen since the number of beneficiaries have grown as the youngest of the boomers hit retirement age, The steady decline since 2009 made worse by the Trump administration promises to terminate 7,000 more employees means that one SSA staff member will service almost twice as many: 1,440 beneficiaries. The SSA is also closing offices around the nation from ten regional offices to four.
Service quality will certainly fall, which is essentially a cut in benefits all Americans expect from Social Security.
Threat 3: Elimination Of Independent Research On Social Security
Under the radar, but also a critical threat to Social Security is the recent cancellation of Social Security research and evaluation contracts with six university-led research consortia, including the City University of New York – Baruch College, The New School, Boston College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the National Bureau of Economic Research. I am one of the researchers who was ordered to stop work on Social Security research.
Research centers have historically provided independent, high-quality research about the base of the hundreds of millions of records. That means what we know about Social Security’s key functions is based on facts received critically by experts. Independent research monitored policy impacts, and ensuring transparency. Researchers could critically evaluate the numbers coming out of the system.
Now, without the scrutiny there are a lot of things we won’t know including:
o How will benefit disruptions affect retirees’ health and well-being?
o How will raising the retirement age affect workers and retirees?
o What are the consequences of inadequate long-term care insurance?
Eliminating scrutiny of the system undermines transparency and accountability, making it easier to justify cuts or neglect without challenge. It’s as if there is no appetite for reasonable policy making based on facts.
Threat 4: Insolvency Comes Sooner Under Trump’s Tax Plans
President Donald Trump has proposed two major changes to Social Security that will cause benefits cuts in as little as 6 years: eliminating the taxation of Social Security benefits for higher-income recipients and exempting tips from taxation. Lowering taxes always has allure; but the flipside causes significant losses to the Social Security program.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, these two tax proposals would drain Medicare and Social Security of revenue and move up the insolvency date of the Social Security retirement trust fund from 2034 to 2033 and accelerate the insolvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund from 2031 to 2025.
If these provisions are enacted, Social Security benefits could face a 21% across-the-board cut as early as 2033.
Why are Republicans Targeting Social Security?
Social Security is a popular program. Polling by Data for Progress in May 2024 showed that 70% of voters, including 74% of Republican voters and 73% Democrats, oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare to reduce the national debt.
Perhaps the answer to why the Republicans are doing it lies in the ideological history of Social Security. Reducing Social Security has long been a goal of certain conservative groups. In 1983, the libertarian Cato Institute researchers outlined how a serious attack on Social Security would succeed in undermining such a popular program. They called for a “Leninist” strategy to “prepare the political ground” for privatizing Social Security.
Undermining tactics include slashing service quality; not exploring policy options that would make the system work better; draining the system of revenue, and, yes, introducing rhetoric to cast suspicion on the popular program.
Elon Musk, President Trump’s pick to head DOGE repeated a shopworn characterization of Social Security used by detractors who want to privatize Social Security when he called is a Ponzi scheme last week. Charles Ponzi was a swindler in the 1920s who – for about 12 months ran a scam that paid early investors with funds from new investors (like Bernie Madoff).
In contrast, Social Security is a long-standing actuarially-funded federal program. Workers earn benefits which provides support for retirees, spouses, and disabled Americans.
When Republicans tried to shrink the system in 2005, they faced a massive resistance when President George W. Bush’s attempted to privatize Social Security. They lost badly. How will the inviting the same hard wall of protest work this time around?
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