Key Points and Summary – Despite President Trump’s repeated promises not to cut Social Security, his administration is reportedly considering a regulatory change that could slash benefits for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
-According to the Urban Institute, a proposal to remove age as a factor in disability determinations could cut eligibility for up to 750,000 people, resulting in an $82 billion benefits denial over 10 years.
-The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warns this could be the largest cut in the program’s history, disproportionately harming older workers in the South, Appalachia, and Rust Belt states that voted for Trump.
Trump Promised to ‘Protect’ Social Security. A New Report Says Otherwise
President Donald Trump has promised, many times over the years, not to cut Social Security benefits.
Trump also issued a statement on the occasion of August’s 90th anniversary of the program, in which he touted “bold improvements to customer service, technology, and efficiency have positioned the agency to provide quicker access and greater value for the beneficiaries it serves.”
President Donald Trump is joined by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Vice President JD Vance, British Ambassador Peter Mandelson, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, while announcing a trade agreement with the U.K., Thursday, May 8, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
However, a recent report argued that the Trump Administration is actually about to strip a large number of recipients of their benefits through a small policy change.
According to the Urban Institute, in a recent report called “Updating Social Security Disability Regulatory Changes Could Significantly Reduce Eligibility for Benefits, Particularly among Older Workers,” a possible policy change may very well lead to “substantial reductions in program eligibility, particularly among older working adults.”
And cuts could be deep, the Urban Institute says.
“To illustrate the potential impact of the anticipated regulation, we estimate the effect of a policy that reduces SSDI eligibility by 10 percent and find that it would result in roughly 500,000 people losing SSDI eligibility by the end of 10 years, including 80,000 widows and children,” the report says. “In addition, another 250,000 beneficiaries would lose eligibility for some of the 10-year period. This would result in approximately $82 billion in benefits being denied over 10 years, as well as reductions in eligibility for Medicare, Medicaid or both.”
In a Los Angeles Times column this week that cited the Urban Institute report, business columnist Michael Hiltzik writes that the Trump Administration’s consideration of “removing age as a factor in disability determinations” could cost as many as 750,000 Americans their benefits.
Hiltzik writes that while disability rolls declined over the last few years, they’ve started to go in the other direction recently.
The Biggest Cut Ever?
A separate recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the issue is the Social Security Administration-administered program called Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).
“The rule would make it much more difficult to qualify for both SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Because it would dramatically change the eligibility criteria for older applicants, the losses among people over age 50 would be much deeper,” the CBPP report says.
This cut, that report says, could be the largest in the program’s history, even surpassing the deep cuts pushed through by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. And the CBPP report also concluded that the new rule, if passed, would likely hurt voters in areas of the country that voted for Donald Trump.
“The rule will likely cause disproportionate harm to people living in the South and Appalachia,” that report said, adding that other affected areas of the country would include Maine, as well as the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The last three are swing states that went for Trump in the 2024 election.
A Year of Social Security Chaos
The annual announcement of the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is scheduled for October 24, delayed by the ongoing government shutdown. It had originally been set for October 15.
The increase is tied to inflation, and experts, per CNBC, have predicted it will come in at the 2.7 to 2.8 percent range. This is less than in some recent years, when, during the high-inflation environment, the benefit increases rose along with it. The increase was 8.7 percent in 2022, followed by 3.2 percent in 2023 and 2.5 percent in 2024.
Some beneficiaries are worried, according to a Nationwide Financial survey this fall, as “over half of those currently receiving Social Security have had to cut back on discretionary spending due to rising living costs outpacing benefits.”
A Strange Year
It’s been quite a chaotic year for Social Security, as the program marks 90 years.
Early on in the second Trump presidency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “stormed” the Social Security Administration, got access to confidential databases, and began prioritizing uncovering “fraud” in the program, including the misleading claim that 40 percent of phone calls to Social Security were fraudulent.
Then-DOGE head Elon Musk also claimed that 150-year-olds were listed as fraudulently claiming benefits, but this turned out to be a misleading interpretation of the Social Security Administration’s data.
The DOGE effort also led to a major reduction in the Social Security Administration’s workforce.
This included an effort to shut down the program’s phone customer service, one which was later abandoned following an outcry.
“The last time the SSA had this few employees was 1967, when the agency served 480 beneficiaries for every staff member,” a CCPP report published this summer said.
“In 2025, the agency would be attempting to serve 1,480 beneficiaries for every staff member.”
There was also a seeming revolving door at the head of the agency. Following the departure of Biden-era SSA chief Martin O’Malley, 30-year veteran SSA employee Michelle King became acting commissioner, but then she resigned in February, in protest over DOGE gaining access to recipient information.
Leland Dudek then became acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and he first helped but later resisted DOGE’s efforts, ProPublica reported at the time.
Then, in May, Frank Bisignano, formerly of the financial services company Fiserv, was confirmed and sworn in as the new SSA commissioner.
“President Trump has been clear about Social Security. We will protect it,” Commissioner Bisignano said upon his confirmation. “We will make the Social Security Administration a premier organization.”
Running Out of Money?
Amid all of that, Social Security’s ability to pay out full benefits stands to run out in less than a decade.
This June, SSA released its annual trustees report, which showed that the main trust funds “are projected to have enough dedicated revenue to pay all scheduled benefits and associated administrative costs until 2034, one year earlier than projected last year, with 81 percent of benefits payable at that time.”
The OASI Trust Fund, meanwhile, is projected to become depleted in 2033, the same as in the previous year’s projection.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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