President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that money is being paid to millions of centenarians that are in the Social Security Administration's database — a claim that Social Security advocacy groups say is a lie.
“Tonight, Donald Trump brazenly lied about Social Security," Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, said Wednesday in a statement. "That’s because he doesn’t want the American people to know the truth: Trump and his co-president Elon Musk are in the midst of breaking Social Security."
President Trump's speech before Congress "should be highly alarming to the 70 million Americans on Social Security and by anyone who is earning benefits by paying into the program," added Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "His speech was full of lies about Social Security, including false claims about ‘probable fraud’ at the Social Security Administration (SSA) that already have been thoroughly debunked."
Trump "made the absurd claim tonight that people up to 360 years old are on the Social Security rolls and many may be collecting benefits," Richtman continued. "Just because someone may be in SSA’s database, doesn’t mean that they are receiving benefits unless they are alive and eligible — something Elon Musk and his DOGE minions should have learned before propagating these claims."
SSA's Inspector General has reported that it distributed almost $8.6 trillion in benefit payments between 2015 and 2022. Of that amount, approximately 0.84%, or $71.8 billion, were improper payments, most of which were overpayments to legitimate beneficiaries.
Social Security, Lawson continued, "has vanishingly low rates of fraud, far less than private sector retirement programs. Lying about it is a convenient way to justify cutting off benefits to people deemed enemies or undeserving under the guise of 'fraud.'"
SSA said Friday that it plans to reduce its staffing to 50,000 from its current level of 57,000 employees and reduce its 10 regional offices to four.
Former SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley told CNBC that recent actions at SSA by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency were putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk. “Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said in an article published Saturday. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”
'Bullying' of SSA Workers
"Social Security anticipates that much of the staff reductions needed to reach the target of 50,000 will come from retirement, [voluntary separation incentive payments], and resignation," the agency said.
The agency sent a letter to employees detailing their employment options and warned that it would soon implement "massive reorganizations" that will include "significant" workforce reductions. Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek instructed employees interested in being voluntarily reassigned to fill out a questionnaire by March 14.
"The firings, bullying of SSA workers to induce them to retire early, and the closing of field offices and divisions within SSA are ultimately intended to undermine the agency’s core function of delivering benefits — and public confidence in Social Security overall," Richtman said Wednesday.
Added Lawson: SSA has "already forced out many of the agency’s most senior leaders, a mass exodus of institutional knowledge and expertise."
Dudek said Monday that SSA has identified more than $800 million in cost savings or cost avoidance for fiscal year 2025.
Savings thus far has been in "payroll, information technology, contracts and grants, and space savings (i.e., real property), and other savings through new, common-sense approaches to printing, travel, and purchase card policies," Dudek said.
Social Security Fairness Act Payments
Meanwhile, SSA said on Feb. 25 that it is "immediately beginning to pay retroactive benefits" and will increase the monthly benefits of those who were affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), which were repealed under the Social Security Fairness Act.
As of Tuesday, SSA said it has already paid 1,127,723 people more than $7.5 billion in retroactive payments. The average retroactive payment so far is $6,710.
Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons
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