From the Washington Post:
A new report projects that the Social Security Trust Fund might run out of money within six years under a Donald Trump presidency, while Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposed policies would not meaningfully change the current trajectory.
Social Security faces a looming funding crisis in an aging country, with trustees most recently predicting that the retirement and disability program’s trust fund will become insolvent in 2035. Many of Trump’s campaign proposals would accelerate that timeline, potentially by years, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that opposes large federal deficits.
In a report released Monday, the organization concluded that many of Trump’s proposed second-term agenda items all work in the same direction when it comes to the Social Security Trust Fund. The budget group did not produce a similar report on Harris’s policies because they would have a negligible effect measured only in weeks or months rather than years, said Marc Goldwein, CRFB’s senior policy director. ...
Most directly, Trump has promised that no Social Security recipients should have to pay federal income taxes on their benefits. Under current law, 40 percent of beneficiaries pay taxes on some portion of their Social Security. The tax they pay on their benefits goes directly back to the trust fund, and getting rid of it could cost the program almost $1 trillion over 10 years, the report forecast.
Other Trump policies might have indirect effects. Trump’s pledge to deport millions of undocumented workers could cost the trust fund hundreds of millions of dollars, the CRFB said. Many undocumented immigrants have payroll taxes taken out of their paychecks for the Social Security Trust Fund, but never become eligible to claim benefits, so they are a net positive for the program. ...
14 comments:
“The government you elect is the government you deserve.”
Thomas Jefferson
This is hack journalism at its finest, which is the staple of the propaganda media. The factual errors discredit their prognostication.
First: the taxes on Social Security are NOT FICA/SECA and do not contribute to the trust fund. Say what you will about tax cuts and whether they are wrong, but this portrayal is factually incorrect.
Second: Undocumented workers are exactly that... Undocumented. They don't have SSNs. How exactly do they deduct FICA when there is no corresponding SSN. Sure, there are some workers that use fraudulent/stolen SSNs and some others that get legal work authorization to get SSNs. These folks would have FICA withholding. Most workers get paid cash (which abusive employers like, because they can skirt around all kinds of worker protections) and no FICA is deducted not do they have to pay the employer match.
Make a case on the future of the trust fund. It is a HUGE issue that needs immediate attention. But, make the case with real facts and in a way to get Congress to act on a solution.
The authors are making their case with accuracy facts. You’re the one spouting lies you heard on Fox entertainment programming disguised as news.
Income taxes on benefits do go to the trust funds, and contributed $51 billion in most recent year of data. This is explained at https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html
Undocumented workers paid $25.7 billion in Social Security contributions in 2022, see https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/
@10:47
First, Social Security benefits tax is returned to the trust funds as of 1983. https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/taxbenefits.html
If you want to see the actual figures, 4th column in this chart. It's about 50 billion a year.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a3.html#income
Second, Undocumented workers often fraudulently use SSNs, or they lawfully obtain an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). It may seem odd for the IRS to not check for citizenship, but the government likes money and they would prefer unlawful workers to pay them money. Having either an SSN or ITIN is sufficient to pay FICA taxes, and if you are ineligible for an SSN but have an ITIN, and in the future become eligible for an SSN (say for example, an asylee who converts their status), then the contributions they made using the ITIN are transferred onto their SSN. If they don't, the FICA paid taxes still pay into the trust funds. Employers use either an ITIN or SSN to deduct and match for FICA. Employers are interested in making sure their employees have one or the other, cause it's illegal not to. As to employers paying undocumented workers in cash, sure, there are certainly employers willing to just exploit undocumented workers but quite a few states have E-Verify, basically AZ, UT, and the entire deep south. Notably TX or OK, and quite a few other republican states which oddly limit E-Verify to only public employees and public contractors. There's also the fact that a lot of undocumented workers are aware that they can be exploited if their employer thinks they are undocumented, so they lie that they ARE documented.
I have had many clients pay into Social Security who will never be able to receive benefits. If undocumented, you can still pay in using another's SSN, etc. But you can't draw benefits on that person's SSN.
Undocumented immigrants most definitely pay ss taxes and never collect. How does that happen? It happens as a result of the employment verification requirements. They need a ss# to work and there is a very brisk secondary market selling ss numbers. I cannot tell you how many times someone applying for disability made ongoing sga that they knew nothing about. They could not be approved and were told to go to the DO to get it straightened out. This is a very common letter.
I cannot speak to the rest of your comment except to say DJT was not overly concerned about SS or people in need during his previous administration. He favored the rich and continues to favor the rich. Anyone earning under 300k who believes he is on their side is going to have a rude awakening should he be elected.
Agreed, we all only can vote only once, so though our part is small, it must be done. Especially this election! Too much at stake!!
Mr. Trump is not saying much about SSA this time around, last time he promised not to touch it, and for the most part did not. Unfortunately, when politician's talk about SSA, they are referring, mostly to old age retirement and not disability. I'll never forget the line "They're lazy...their a little bit anxious, or their back hurts, that happens to all of us." That has been the coldest, most absurd thing I've heard out of the GOP, and that was a few years ago. SSA needs protected regardless of who is president, who is in congress, or any other agency. Taxes? Meh... as long as it goes back into the trust fund. No taxes would be nice, but is that going to help the situation? As far as undocumented immigrants? Using someone else's SSN is identity theft and they should be thrown out of the country. I read a story about if Trump is president again, he'd deport millions. Those that depend on them (contractors that build houses in this case) that the workforce will plummet , causing housing prices to skyrocket. Is it right to hire undocumented immigrants? Absolutely not, but are there American's willing to do some of the jobs they do? Our immigrants tend to do jobs American's don't like to do. Legal or not, a lot of them work laborious jobs that require little skill, and some of those jobs American's just don't want to do. (For instance, we hired a cleaning company for a 55,000 square foot building, they were all from Guatemala on work visa's (so they said) because the owner of the company couldn't find enough American's to take the job). It's all up in the air, as it has been for years with SSA.
It’s not even journalism. It’s from a report published by a non-partisan (but very fiscally conservative) nonprofit organization. And the statements made in the report are identical to conclusions drawn by Congress’s own internal research staff. If you’re truly this warped, please just secede already and let us get back to working on a more perfect (rather than more stupid) union.
n another interview in 2020, which he again walked back, Trump said he’d be cutting entitlements.
When a Fox News host noted that trimming the national debt would require cutting entitlement programs, Trump responded that it would be happening along with economic growth.
“Oh, we’ll be cutting, but we’re also going to have growth like you’ve never had before,” Trump said.
You really need to do research on taxes paid by undocumented workers before you post anything else. Maybe start with googling what an ITIN is. Jeez.
Under a Trump presidency, the economy will boom and so will contributions to the Trust! Although, we should be discussing ways to shore it up, because no matter who wins, there will still be a shortfall.
Because nothing spurs growth quite as effectively as increasing the number of Americans living in poverty.
I can’t believe people believe this guy. In fact, I think most don’t, but love the thinly veiled racism and sexism enough to overlook all the damage his idiocy promises to leave in his wake.
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