During its first 100 days, the Trump Administration has subjected the Social Security Administration (SSA) to a barrage of mischaracterizations, seeking to erode trust in a service that is both reliable and necessary.

Elon Musk, de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and fraud. Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek stated an intention to shut down the SSA in response to a judicial ruling limiting DOGE’s access to sensitive SSA data, later walking it back after further clarifications. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick downplayed the importance of Social Security in a podcast interview, claiming, “Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”

In reality, Social Security is a critical safety net that is heavily relied upon by 72 million Americans to pay rent, buy food, and refill essential medications. Approximately 40 percent of elders count on Social Security for more than half their income.

Social Security is not broken; it’s being broken through systemic neglect followed by swift resource reductions and public demeaning. This assault includes:

Drastic layoffs. On February 28th, the SSA announced plans to reduce its staff by 12 percent, from about 57,000 to 50,000. Since then, about 3,000 employees have resigned – impeding the management of field offices and SSA’s toll-free helpline, and stripping the agency of years of expertise.

Office closures. Sections of SSA devoted to equal employment and disability rights and to modernizing SSA’s digital system have been dissolved and, SSA statements to the contrary notwithstanding, DOGE-proclaimed closures of field offices throughout the nation remain distinctly possible.

Restriction of access. On March 18th, under the guise of preventing fraud, the acting SSA commissioner announced plans to require identify verification either online through the “My Social Security” program or in person at a field office, eliminating the option to complete the process by phone. After significant backlash, this was revised eight days later.

Resumption of harsh payment recovery methods. Effective March 27th, the SSA has adopted a policy of withholding 100 percent of overpayments – meaning that future payments will be withheld in full until the overpayment is repaid. Sometimes described as “clawback cruelty,” this replaces a previous policy of withholding payments in 10 percent monthly increments. (In actuality, the Office of the Inspector General has reported that improper payments amount to three-tenths of one percent of the total, and the agency is quick to identify and correct both over- and under-payments.) The agency has also authorized garnishing Social Security checks to recover other forms of federal debt owed.

Removal of external oversight. One of the acting commissioner’s first actions was terminating cooperative agreements with the Retirement and Disability Research Consortiums (RDRCs) – independent researchers based at universities across the country conducting in-depth research on effectiveness of different components of the SSA and providing essential external analysis to help improve its operations and efficiency. By ending these agreements, the SSA gave up a valuable resource.

Damaging existing infrastructure. DOGE has committed to rewriting the SSA’s codebase from COBOL to Java in a few months. The process of migrating old codebases to more contemporary languages is extremely delicate and challenging. Attempting such an overhaul after laying off experienced staff already working on modernizing SSA systems could result in systemic failures. It also raises serious privacy and data security concerns, as has been testified to by former staff.

Figure 1: Diagram of how beneficiaries are affected by the changes to Social Security

Source: Produced by authors based on Social Security Administration.

These changes compound longstanding issues faced by SSA. One such issue is the consistent decline in staff numbers, which have fallen from nearly 68,000 in 2010 to just 57,010 in 2024, even as the number of beneficiaries has grown from more than 54 million to 68.5 million during the same period. The number of beneficiaries per staff has thus increased significantly from 800 in 2010 to 1,198 in 2024, and will increase to 1,369 in 2025 assuming all staff cuts are implemented and the number of beneficiaries stays the same. This means that an already overburdened staff will be stretched even thinner.

Figure 2: Beneficiaries per SSA Worker

Source: Produced by authors from Social Security Administration data.

Meanwhile, benefits are at risk, as the system will only generate enough revenue to cover about 78 percent of current monthly benefits in just five years. Meaningful solutions include raising revenue through easy solutions like removing the cap on Social Security contributions, increasing SSA’s workforce, and implementing meaningful and planned upgrades to services. Instead, the response of the current administration has been the opposite: reducing the workforce and disrupting planned improvements.

To be clear, Trump and DOGE have not cut or delayed payments to date. The Social Security Administration has not missed payments in its 89 years of existence. And while Commerce Secretary Lutnick and others suggest that delays wouldn’t matter, the data tell another story.

Social Security is the foundation of retirement security for most American seniors. According to the SSA, nearly 90 percent of Americans over age 65 receive benefits, making up an average of 31 percent of their income. But for many, the reliance is much deeper: 37 percent of elderly men and 42 percent of elderly women count on Social Security for more than half their income. Even more sobering, 12 percent of older men and 15 percent of older women rely on it for at least 90 percent of their income.

It would be an emergency for most people if they missed a Social Security check. The average Social Security check for retirement beneficiaries in January 2025 was $1976. According to one recent report by the U.S. Federal Reserve, one in three older Americans would be unable to pay for a $2000 emergency, which a missed Social Security check would represent.

Congress and the president should move fast to restore the Social Security system’s capacity before any damage becomes irreversible and creates a crisis for families and communities. Key steps that need to be taken include:

Reversing layoffs, including dismissals of cybersecurity officers and thousands of experienced field representatives. Instead, there is a need to hire more workers to fully operationalize the SSA and reverse the general decline in staffing numbers.

Canceling planned office closures and expanding call center staffing to reduce wait times.

Restoring public trust, with the first step being stopping the attacks on SSA and rebuilding capacity.

If there is a positive aspect to be found in this attack on what may well be the nation’s most trusted public institution, it’s that there is a renewed and widespread appreciation for Social Security. Congress must rebuild trust, and maintain and expand Social Security. Millions of lives depend on it.

Teresa Ghilarducci is a professor of economics and policy analysis at The New School and is director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) at The New School. She is a nationally recognized expert on retirement policy. This Urban Matters is adapted from a SCEPA policy paper published earlier this month that is part of its “Tracking the Retirement Crisis” series.

Photos by: media.tpt.cloud

Social Security Isn’t Broken, But It’s Sure Being Undermined.