U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he attends the premiere of the documentary film Melania at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. (REUTERS)
President Donald Trump’s changes to the Social Security program, implemented under the guidance of X CEO Elon Musk, will cost many families $500 a year.
The new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) projects that benefit checks will be cut by $500 a month on average if the program is allowed to hit its “go-broke” date by late 2013. If these cuts were not imposed, the CRFB found, the absence of the 24 percent benefit cut in the Social Security Administration’s payments will cause the fund to be entirely exhausted.
“Applying this projected reduction to current state-level data, we estimate an across-the-board monthly cut would range from $459 to $556 across the 50 states and the District of Columbia,” the report explained. It identified the 10 states that will have the highest average cuts as Connecticut ($556), New Jersey ($554), New Hampshire ($553), Delaware ($549), Maryland ($541), Washington ($531), Minnesota ($530), Massachusetts ($527), Michigan ($523) and Utah ($523).
“The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) believes any discussion of Social Security solvency must be grounded in the reality that millions of older Americans depend on these earned benefits to pay for housing, food, healthcare, and other essential expenses,” Senior Citizens League spokesperson Shannon Benton told Nexstar. “Acting sooner rather than later can help restore the program’s long-term solvency while minimizing the impact on beneficiaries and avoiding sudden benefit reductions that millions of Americans can simply cannot afford.”
The CRFB added, “No state would be spared from the potentially devastating effects of insolvency.”
According to a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Trump has weakened the Social Security program by gutting its staff.
“In just 15 months, the Trump Administration has pushed out more than 8,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) workers — causing SSA’s largest one-year staffing reduction on record,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “This 14 percent cut has compromised SSA’s ability to reliably serve seniors, bereaved families, and people with disabilities. By January 2026, SSA had fewer employees than at any time since 1967, when the agency was not yet responsible for administering Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and served 52 million fewer beneficiaries.”
Speaking with AlterNet last month, former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley disputed the widespread argument made by fiscal conservatives that the program faces the threat of insolvency.
“This isn’t true — but it is often repeated,” O’Malley told AlterNet at the time. “Social Security is a pay as you go program. It is not funded by deficit spending. It is more akin to an insurance company. People premiums and benefits are paid out from those premiums. Even the surplus — which because of income inequality is being depleted sooner (2032) than thought in 1983, even that was built up by payroll tax, not borrowed money. “
O’Malley added, “An utter devaluation of the dollar — which Trump is causing and risking in so many reckless and self/serving ways (bitcoin), would be really bad for everything in US including Soc Sec, it is not true that Social Security depends on deficit spending for its support or benefits. (Except a small portion of admin expenses).”
