Trump Offers Seniors Lies & Empty Promises in State of the Union Speech

Last night, Donald Trump delivered a bloated, hyper-partisan spectacle that did nothing to reassure the concerns of older Americans. In fact, the president attempted to mislead seniors about the administration’s policies that most seriously affect them. “The state of the union speech was theatrics over substance. And it was brazenly partisan,” said NCPSSM president and CEO, Max Richtman. “Trump’s brand of political performance art is no substitute for leadership that improves the lives of Americans of all ages, including our nation’s seniors.”

Cato Really Wants to Cut Your Social Security Benefits

Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia is back at it, peddling the trope that Social Security doesn’t work and must be “re-designed.” In a recent post on Cato’s blog, she rolls out the “greatest hits” from a time-worn catalogue of conservative talking points. We asked our senior Social Security expert, Maria Freese, to fact-check some of Boccia’s key claims.
2026-02-06T12:06:04-04:00February 5th, 2026|Categories: Congress, Payroll Tax Cap, Social Insurance, Social Security|

Trump & Musk Created a Culture Where Social Security Data Could be Abused

The latest evidence that DOGE abused Americans’ private Social Security data should come as no surprise. We have warned from the beginning that DOGE had no business accessing this data and that no good could come of it. Last June, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court order that barred DOGE from accessing Americans’ Social Security data. This gave DOGE carte blanche to misuse Americans’ personal information that it never should have had in the first place.
2026-01-22T11:21:17-04:00January 21st, 2026|Categories: Social Security|

Trump & DOGE Wreaked Havoc at SSA, New Reporting Confirms

As the year ends, new reporting confirms that customer service at the Social Security Administration (SSA) has tanked since Trump took office last January – despite the administration's claims to the contrary.  A new investigative report by the Washington Post -- based on a thorough analysis of agency data and interviews with SSA employees -- reveals that “long-strained customer services have become worse by many key measures.”
2026-01-09T15:18:51-04:00December 30th, 2025|Categories: Social Security, Social Security Administration (SSA), Trump|

Thanks, Cato, But Let’s Not “Re-Imagine” Social Security (It’s Been Working for 90 Years)

What do you get when a libertarian think tank publishes a book proposing to radically change Social Security in collaboration mostly with other right-leaning organizations? You get something like “Re-imagining Social Security,” authored by the CATO Institute’s Ivane Nachkebia and Romina Boccia (who more than once has called the program a ‘legal Ponzi scheme’). Not surprisingly, to these authors, “re-imagining” the program that some 70 million Americans depend on for financial security essentially means altering the program beyond recognition and cutting benefits for future retirees. To which we say:  better not to let their imaginations run away with our earned benefits. The libertarian Cato Institute (which never met a federal program it liked) appears to be on a crusade to undermine the existing Social Security program. Just this week, Boccia published a post in Cato’s ‘Debt Dispatch’ blog, claiming that Social Security “operates on the Robin Hood principle in reverse.” This is, pardon the expression, quite rich coming from a think tank whose funders include the Koch network and mega-corporations like Google, Facebook, Philip Morris, the American Petroleum Institute and Chevron.

Latest Social Security Website Crash a Symptom of Trump/DOGE Mismanagement 

Seniors trying to access their earned benefit information hit a snag when the Social Security Administration's (SSA) website crashed on Wednesday morning. These sorts of incidents have unfortunately become commonplace since the Trump administration took over, as DOGE’s crusade at SSA has left the agency in chaos.  "We continue to get reports of glitches on SSA's website. It looks like this was one of them," said NCPSSM President and CEO, Max Richtman. 
2025-12-23T13:07:54-04:00December 19th, 2025|Categories: President Biden, President Trump, Social Security, Social Security Administration (SSA)|

New Senior Poverty Data Disproves ‘Greedy Geezer’ Myth

Conservative think tanks have been pushing a false narrative that older Americans who collect Social Security are somehow ‘ripping off’ younger adults. This propaganda ignores the facts — pitting hardworking Americans (of all ages) against one another. While right-leaning analysts push the argument that younger workers shouldn’t have to pay into Social Security while wealthy ‘greedy geezers’ collect benefits, the data tells a different story. New statistics show that poverty among seniors is on the rise, reaching 15% in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). 
2025-10-30T15:06:08-04:00October 30th, 2025|Categories: Social Security, Social Security Disability Insurance|

Trump Shutdown Could Snag Social Security, Medicare

In normal times, a government shutdown --- while unfortunate --- would not be cause for immediate alarm for people on Social Security and Medicare. But these are not normal times. The Trump administration has made the shutdown more perilous for the most vulnerable Americans because of its campaign to undermine the delivery of both programs --- not to mention the President’s recent threat to cut benefits.
Go to Top