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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has announced that he will introduce legislation to reverse the Trump administration’s devastating cuts to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and expand the program which administers lifesaving benefits to almost 70 million Americans each month.
The announcement came on the week marking SSA’s 90th anniversary.
“Despite its popularity and despite its success, Trump and [Elon] Musk and others have been working overtime to try to dismantle Social Security and importantly, undermine the confidence that the American people have in it,” Sanders said in his remarks on the bill.
He continued: “Since Trump took office, his administration has fired at least 7,000 workers at the Social Security Administration, shut down social security field offices, and made it more difficult for seniors and the disabled to receive the benefits that they have earned over the phone.”
An investigation by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office (D-Massachusetts) found that some callers to the Social Security hotline are waiting hours to speak to a representative, if they’re able to speak with a human at all. The Social Security Administration has asserted, without evidence, that wait times are under 20 minutes.
Sanders’s bill, called the Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act, prohibits the closure of SSA offices without congressional approval, requires staffing levels to remain at least as high as before President Trump’s cuts, and increases the agency’s funding by $5 billion. The legislation also removes the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) authority over SSA and prohibits the department from accessing any of SSA’s information. More than a dozen Democratic senators are co-sponsoring the legislation, including Chuck Schumer (New York), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Jack Reed (Rhode Island), Andy Kim (New Jersey), Ed Markey (Massachusetts), and Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota).
Sanders said that it is not enough to reverse Trump’s cuts — lawmakers must expand Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income “so that the wealthiest Americans start paying their fair share.” Social Security taxes are not collected on income over $176,000.
“A billionaire pays the same amount into the Social Security Trust Fund as somebody who makes $176,000 a year,” the senator said. “If you lift that cap, we can substantially increase benefits, which is what we’ve got to do, and extend the life of Social Security for many, many decades.”
Social Security provides cash assistance to senior citizens, widows, dependent children, and people with disabilities. An analysis of 2024 data conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed that Social Security payments kept 22 million adults and children out of poverty and “lift more people above the poverty line than any other program in the United States.”
Despite the program’s success, Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who headed DOGE until he left in May, have gutted the agency and falsely claimed that the SSA is overrun with fraud.
“Trump and Musk have also absurdly and quite intentionally lied to the American people, by suggesting that millions and millions of people who are between the ages of 140 and 360 years of age are receiving Social Security,” Sanders said. “That, of course, is a lie. The reality is that well over 99 percent of Social Security checks go to the people who have earned those benefits.”
Sanders closed his remarks on the bill with a call to action: “This is a huge fight. We have the American people behind us. Let’s win it.”
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