All the Promises President Trump Has Made About Social Security — Is He Keeping Them?
Written by
Caitlyn Moorhead
Edited by
Chris Cluff
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Donald Trump, former and now the current President of the United States, has been inconsistent with his messaging around Social Security and his ideas for the plan’s future. In the past, Trump said that “cutting” could keep the Social Security program for retirement-age folks solvent.
“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” Trump told CNBC just last year. “And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements — tremendous bad management of entitlements — there’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
President Trump has also said, “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare. We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them … There’s so much cutting and so much waste in so many other areas, but I’ll never do anything to hurt Social Security.”
However, since returning to office in January 2025, the Trump administration has been systematically dismantling parts of the program that so many count on. Here are some key takeaways from what Trump has done to your benefit checks so far this term:
- He implemented the Social Security Fairness Act so the Social Security Administration (SSA) can pay retroactive benefits and increase monthly benefit payments to over 3.2 million individuals whose benefits were affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset.
- The Trump administration has given the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk the power to cut government spending. As a result, the SSA is reducing its staff to 50,000 employees, down from about 57,000 to cut back and save an estimated $800 million in fiscal 2025.
- This resulted in many SSA office closures that could greatly affect accessibility of services for beneficiaries.
- Trump is still actively trying to push no taxation on Social Security.
- He is also actively pushing for people to have to claim benefits in person rather than by phone, which could affect millions of elderly and disabled Americans.
Trump Has Been Critical of Social Security in the Past
Before becoming president, Trump called the Social Security program a “Ponzi scheme.” Musk has recently made similar statements.
“The truth is undeniable, the workers of America have been forced to invest a sixth of our wages into a huge Ponzi scheme,” Trump wrote in the 2000 book, “The America We Deserve.” “The solution to the Great Social Security Crisis couldn’t be more obvious: Allow every American to dedicate some portion of their payroll taxes to a personal Social Security account that they could own and invest in stocks and bonds.”
In the book, Trump also advocated for raising the Social Security retirement age. “We can also raise the age for receipt of full Social Security benefits to 70,” he wrote.
Trump Proposed Cuts During First Term but Not Second
Trump’s proposed fiscal 2021 budget endorsed cuts to the Social Security program, specifically disability benefits.
His budget advocated for a $75 billion decrease in spending for the two federal disability programs — Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) — over the next decade.
However, in a White House press release from March 2025, the Trump administration is claiming there won’t be any cuts. It stated, “The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it (over and over and over again). Elon Musk didn’t say that, either. The press is lying again.”
Trump’s Promise To Keep Promises
During a summer 2024 campaign appearance in Doral, Florida, Trump promised that he would not cut Social Security benefits or raise the retirement age.
“I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare,” he said. “And I will not raise the retirement age by one day.”
However, both things seem to be happening indirectly in the early months of his second term — and only time will tell if he keeps his word.
Editor’s note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
Gabrielle Olya contributed to the reporting for this article.
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