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 weeks old – has already undermined Social Security with four threats: the timely issuance of checks; drastically cuts service; ends accountability; and brings insolvency closer.
Social Security, without doubt, is our most important social program. 72 million retirees, spouses, disabled persons, children 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.
Because of the takeover of Social Security system by amateurs, Martin O’Malley, the former head of the Social Security Administration warned: “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 of the milestones needing extra attention. Social Security service had been rated much higher than many government services. But the Trump cuts in staffing will delay answers to enrollment, key questions, and problem solving.
In 2009 each Social Security (SSA) staff member served 821 beneficiaries, enrollment and problem solving were easy. But staff levels have fallen since, and 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 College of New York (CUNY and The New School, Boston College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, 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 many beneficiaries are missing their checks due to administrative problems?
o How benefit disruptions affect retirees’ health and well-being.
o How will raising 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 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 Attacking Social Security?
I confess I don’t understand the attack on Social Security functioning and the trash talking about the systems when Social Security is so popular.
Polling 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. Undermining of Social Security has long been a goal of certain conservative factions. 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 slash service quality; not exploring policy options that would make the system work better; drain the system of revenue, and, yes, trash talk it.
When the 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. So, I am not sure why the Republicans are inviting the same hard wall of protest.
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