Yes, to an extent, though most don’t actually take that responsibility seriously.
We have Social Security, which will provide some amount of retirement based on how much you’ve put in, and it gives more weight to the first contributions (i.e. poorer people) than last contributions (i.e. wealthier people). Basically, it works like this (link w/ more details if you care:
90% of the first 1.2k/month taxable earnings
32% of the next ~$6k/month taxable earnings
15% of everything up to the cap
That’s not the amount of the benefit, but the amount of income considered for your benefit, and only for your top 35 years of earnings. This gets run through a calculation that determines your Social Security benefits. People who put in more get more, but people who put in less get a higher ratio of the amount they put in. It gets further complicated by marital status and whatnot.
Maybe? This is the data I see so far (here’s a related NBC article if you don’t trust Newsweek). If the Trump admin pisses off old people, they’re going to be screwed in the midterms. It seems the main change will be to service, not benefits (so longer call wait times, slower website updates, etc). SS was given a 2.5% COLA update this year, so AFAICT benefits aren’t being cut at all.
From the NBC article:
According to a May report from the Office of the Inspector General, people were already experiencing prolonged wait times working with the SSA. The report noted that in-office appointments could be completely booked up for more than 40 days in the future and that it could take months for promised services to be delivered. The report said 65% of Social Security beneficiaries were unaware that there were online services for the agency.
That seems to be the main impact, not actual benefits.
Process counts as much as benefits. Difficulty making payments is a form of sabotage. Even delaying payments counts as a cut because some ppl will die before having received a payment they would have.
Why else would Musk be messing with SSA? “Efficiency” ? Why not take him at his word? A couple choice quotes from that article:
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
"Musk said Monday that federal entitlements are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”
I didn’t see anything related to making payments, only customer support. So signing up for benefits, changing deposit accounts, etc. Those things can largely be resolved through the SSA’s self-service portal, so there’s a good chance states and charities will step up to fill in the gap.
But it’s still not clear what exactly the changes are. They claim to be targeting “fraud and waste,” but I haven’t seen a breakdown of the tangible changes other than “some offices were closed.” I generally don’t take Musk at his word, and haven’t for years (or even ever), so I’m looking for some credible journalism to go over it in detail. If it was a serious issue, we’d see a ton of highly credible news agencies making a big deal out of it. Given that we don’t, either the investigation is on-going (this was pretty recent) or it’s not an issue.
So I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the impact is. So far, it doesn’t seem like there have been any major impacts yet, other than some more wait times for getting an in-person appointment (which isn’t necessary at all to sign up for benefits).
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
Right, and that requires legislative action which Trump has repeatedly said he’s not going to consider, because that’s political suicide.
"Musk said Monday that federal entitlements are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”
That’s not how any of this works, and Musk knows it. To get SS, you need to have a Social Security number, which you can’t get on many legal visas, not to mention entering illegally. You also need proof of 40 quarters of paying into Social Security, meaning you need to have legally paid taxes for 10 years (non-consecutively). Voting is also constitutionally limited to citizens, not even permanent residents, so there’s absolutely no basis for that either.
In short, 100% of that statement is wrong. The best explanation for him making it is to justify additional ID checks on the Social Security system, which is honestly probably a good thing due to how much Social Security numbers get abused. So it might end up being a net positive long term, though it’ll cause some issues in the short term as people navigate any changes that get made (esp. poor and tech illiterate people who may not have the resources to navigate it).
I want to make it extremely clear that I’m not a fan of Trump, Musk, or DOGE, I just happen to like some of the side-effects of broken clocks being right twice/day (these changes should mostly go through Congressional approval, not EO).
The quotes are not there for their accuracy, but to illustrate Musk’s outlook and intentions. He sees all entitlements as a bad thing per se and will break whatever norms and rules he can get away with to get rid of them, citing great replacement lies as a justification to the far right and citing “efficiency” as a sop to the less-far-right. Whether he can get away with it remains to be seen, but my original comment was an off-the-cuff “Musk is trying to destroy social security”, not a detailed argument about what has happened so far. I think, given the experience of so many other government agencies with Musk and DOGE, that this is a fair statement for casual posting.
Whether he can get away with it remains to be seen
Sure, and Trump will be ultimately responsible for it. Musk is his lapdog, and ultimately the buck stops at the President’s desk. And that means issues in the mid-terms if Trump lets Musk get away with it.
Yes, to an extent, though most don’t actually take that responsibility seriously.
We have Social Security, which will provide some amount of retirement based on how much you’ve put in, and it gives more weight to the first contributions (i.e. poorer people) than last contributions (i.e. wealthier people). Basically, it works like this (link w/ more details if you care:
That’s not the amount of the benefit, but the amount of income considered for your benefit, and only for your top 35 years of earnings. This gets run through a calculation that determines your Social Security benefits. People who put in more get more, but people who put in less get a higher ratio of the amount they put in. It gets further complicated by marital status and whatnot.
The maximum Social Security benefit for someone starting taking it at 67 is $3,822/month, and the maximum for someone at 70 is $4,873 (data current for 2024). Your average retiree is probably seeing something closer to $2k/month though.
In other words, Social Security does exist, but you’ll want some of your own retirement savings as well for a more comfortable retirement.
Ofc Musk is trying to destroy social security as we speak
Maybe? This is the data I see so far (here’s a related NBC article if you don’t trust Newsweek). If the Trump admin pisses off old people, they’re going to be screwed in the midterms. It seems the main change will be to service, not benefits (so longer call wait times, slower website updates, etc). SS was given a 2.5% COLA update this year, so AFAICT benefits aren’t being cut at all.
From the NBC article:
That seems to be the main impact, not actual benefits.
Process counts as much as benefits. Difficulty making payments is a form of sabotage. Even delaying payments counts as a cut because some ppl will die before having received a payment they would have.
Why else would Musk be messing with SSA? “Efficiency” ? Why not take him at his word? A couple choice quotes from that article:
I didn’t see anything related to making payments, only customer support. So signing up for benefits, changing deposit accounts, etc. Those things can largely be resolved through the SSA’s self-service portal, so there’s a good chance states and charities will step up to fill in the gap.
But it’s still not clear what exactly the changes are. They claim to be targeting “fraud and waste,” but I haven’t seen a breakdown of the tangible changes other than “some offices were closed.” I generally don’t take Musk at his word, and haven’t for years (or even ever), so I’m looking for some credible journalism to go over it in detail. If it was a serious issue, we’d see a ton of highly credible news agencies making a big deal out of it. Given that we don’t, either the investigation is on-going (this was pretty recent) or it’s not an issue.
So I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the impact is. So far, it doesn’t seem like there have been any major impacts yet, other than some more wait times for getting an in-person appointment (which isn’t necessary at all to sign up for benefits).
Right, and that requires legislative action which Trump has repeatedly said he’s not going to consider, because that’s political suicide.
That’s not how any of this works, and Musk knows it. To get SS, you need to have a Social Security number, which you can’t get on many legal visas, not to mention entering illegally. You also need proof of 40 quarters of paying into Social Security, meaning you need to have legally paid taxes for 10 years (non-consecutively). Voting is also constitutionally limited to citizens, not even permanent residents, so there’s absolutely no basis for that either.
In short, 100% of that statement is wrong. The best explanation for him making it is to justify additional ID checks on the Social Security system, which is honestly probably a good thing due to how much Social Security numbers get abused. So it might end up being a net positive long term, though it’ll cause some issues in the short term as people navigate any changes that get made (esp. poor and tech illiterate people who may not have the resources to navigate it).
I want to make it extremely clear that I’m not a fan of Trump, Musk, or DOGE, I just happen to like some of the side-effects of broken clocks being right twice/day (these changes should mostly go through Congressional approval, not EO).
The quotes are not there for their accuracy, but to illustrate Musk’s outlook and intentions. He sees all entitlements as a bad thing per se and will break whatever norms and rules he can get away with to get rid of them, citing great replacement lies as a justification to the far right and citing “efficiency” as a sop to the less-far-right. Whether he can get away with it remains to be seen, but my original comment was an off-the-cuff “Musk is trying to destroy social security”, not a detailed argument about what has happened so far. I think, given the experience of so many other government agencies with Musk and DOGE, that this is a fair statement for casual posting.
Sure, and Trump will be ultimately responsible for it. Musk is his lapdog, and ultimately the buck stops at the President’s desk. And that means issues in the mid-terms if Trump lets Musk get away with it.