Senator Murray: “I don’t think we can ignore the immediate threat to Social Security. And that really is President Trump. Because seniors right now, today—are having a very hard time getting their benefits. Why? Because Social Security has pushed out—without any kind of plan—7,700 workers since Trump took office.”
Los Angeles Times: ‘It’s a shambles’: DOGE cuts bring chaos, long waits at Social Security for seniors
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s remarks and Q&A at the hearing***
Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Social Security, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed the Trump administration’s cuts to the Social Security Administration (SSA) workforce and emphasized how it is making it harder for seniors to get the help they need to access their Social Security benefits. Senator Murray questioned witnesses on the very wealthiest Americans paying their fair share into Social Security and how to address SSA solvency—noting that tens of millions of hard-working Americans rely on Social Security for the majority of their income, and have paid their entire careers into Social Security—but could lose 24 percent of their benefits if Congress doesn’t act. Murray made clear there is no reason for working people to face drastic benefit cuts when the very wealthiest could simply pay their fair share.
In opening comments, Senator Muray said:
“Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. We absolutely need do need to talk about how we protect Social Security. But in addition to the long-term solvency that people are focusing on here, I don’t think we can ignore the immediate threat to Social Security. And that really is President Trump.
“Because seniors right now, today—are having a very hard time getting their benefits. Why? Because Social Security has pushed out—without any kind of plan—7,700 workers since Trump took office. We now have just one field office representative per 4,000 Social Security beneficiaries, and there are at least [40] field offices that lost more than 25% of their staff.
“And that’s just the beginning. The Trump administration wants to cut field office visits in half. That would mean over 15 million people who were able to go to a desk and speak to a person last year—would be out of luck this year. This is really a slow moving trainwreck. Last summer the Social Security Administration moved 1,000 field office employees to the phone lines. At the end of the year it moved 500 more. In January—it moved nearly 800 more employees from the processing centers and the field office support and workload support—to phone duty—often with very little training.
“That’s trying to fix one problem they created—worsening telephone service—by creating new problems and backlogs everywhere. This is really hurting seniors—who can no longer get an SSA meeting close to home when they need it. It is hurting people with disabilities—as people who could be processing their claims, are now answering phones. And it’s burning out the hardworking staff Trump hasn’t pushed out.
“But this is all the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Trump’s Social Security sabotage. Because there was the attempt to punish a state by revoking contracts to report births and deaths. There was a proposal to end many of the phone services—an idea that was quickly reversed because it was so bad. And then there was the DOGE purge—which wrongly kicked seniors off Social Security—including a constituent of mine they incorrectly declared as dead!
“And mind you—that’s just the sabotage in the light of day. But thanks to a whistleblower report, and ongoing internal investigations, we know there was even more damage happening in the shadows. Like when Trump let Elon and DOGE muck around with highly sensitive, Social Security data. That is private, personally identifiable information on hundreds of millions of Americans.
“We are talking about potentially unprecedented data breaches here. Blatantly unqualified people getting practically unfettered access—even after court orders. Private data copied onto unauthorized third-party servers, or, according to reports even copied onto a thumb drive!
“Believe me: I want everyone to know; I’m watching this investigation closely and demanding accountability. If we want to protect Social Security for decades to come, yes, we do need to talk about solvency. But we also need to talk about the President who is gutting the Social Security Administration right now—today—and callously putting our seniors’ benefits, and their personal data—at risk.”
[BILLONAIRES PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE]
Senator Murray began her questioning by asking Dr. Molly Dahl, Chief of Long-Term Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office, about who is and isn’t paying their fair share into Social Security, “Now with that, Dr. Dahl, I want to turn to you, I do have a few questions, particularly about who is and isn’t paying their fair share into Social Security, and I want to make sure I have a few numbers right. Is it right that those making under $184,500, their effective payroll tax rate is roughly 12.4 percent?”
“That’s right, the statutory rate is 6.2 percent, but consensus view is that the employee pays, basically the employer cost is passed onto the employee, so the employee basically faces a rate of 12.4 percent,” responded Dr. Dahl.
“12.4 percent, for anybody earning under $184, 500. What is the effective payroll tax for someone making a million dollars a year?” asked Senator Murray.
“So, they would pay the 12.4 percent on that first $185,00 roughly and then would not pay additional tax on the labored income above that amount, and so that math would work out to about 2.2 percent,” answered Dr. Dahl.
Senator Murray replied, “Ok so, 12.4 percent for someone under $184,500, a millionaire would be about 2.2, what if you’re a billionaire—like Trump or Musk—your Social Security tax would be effectively, on my understanding—”
“Very, very much smaller,” Dr. Dahl interjected.
“0.002 percent?” Senator Murray finished.
“Yes,” Dr. Dahl replied.
“That just doesn’t make sense to me. I mean when the richest people in the country have the smallest effective tax rate—that does not seem to me like a very fair system. Especially when we are now six years away from retired workers facing this 24 percent cut in their Social Security benefits, so I hope we all understand that and focus on that,” Senator Murray concluded.
Last year, Senator Murray released a new report featuring testimonials from Washington state residents—including employees at the Social Security Administration who were recently fired through no fault of their own—and detailing how the Trump administration’s wide-ranging attacks on SSA risk depriving Washingtonians of the Social Security benefits they have earned and deserve. More than 70 million Americans, including 1.4 million—or one in six—people in Washington state rely on Social Security benefits. Half of seniors nationwide rely on Social Security for most of their income, and a quarter of seniors rely on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income. Senator Murray has an extensive record of protecting Social Security benefits and fighting to secure essential funding for the Social Security Administration—and she has been tirelessly raising the alarm about the threat Elon Musk’s DOGE poses to Americans’ hard-earned benefits. Last March, Senator Murray held a press conference to lift up the stories of SSA employees who are being pushed out by Elon Musk through no fault of their own and hear from Washington state residents who rely on Social Security. Last February, Murray released a fact sheet warning of the Trump administration’s plans to make it harder for Americans who’ve paid into Social Security to get the benefits they have earned.
Senator Murray has fought throughout her career—including as top Democrat on the HELP Committee from 2017-2022—to ensure a secure retirement for all Americans for decades. She was instrumental in establishing a special financial assistance program to the Central States Pension Fund in the American Rescue Plan, saving the pensions of over half a million workers and retirees in 2022. Murray has long held that we can protect and expand benefits for working Americans by responsibly rightsizing our tax system to ensure that giant corporations and billionaires simply pay their fair share.
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