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elizabeth warren
Sanders Says 67,000 Could Die Awaiting Benefits Under Musk Cuts to Social Security Administration
"Instead of focusing on delivering benefits to seniors and people with disabilities, President Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk are systematically dismantling SSA."
Apr 01, 2025
As the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday prepared to advance Frank Bisignano, U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for Social Security Administration commissioner, a report from the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders warned that the number of people who will die waiting for benefits could more than double under a plan by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to slash SSA staffing by up to 50%.
"Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation's history. For more than 86 years, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay," states the report from Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member on the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy.
"Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation's history."
Noting that "Social Security lifts roughly 27 million Americans out of poverty each and every year," the publication asserts that "at a time of massive wealth inequality, our job must be to expand and strengthen Social Security. Yet, instead of focusing on delivering benefits to seniors and people with disabilities, President Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk are systematically dismantling SSA."
"Roughly 3,000 employees have already been terminated or accepted voluntary separations from SSA. [Trump and Musk] have made unsubstantiated claims that there is massive fraud in the program and are proposing reckless cuts to SSA's workforce upward of 7,000 workers," the report continues. "In March 2025, former Commissioner of Social Security Martin O'Malley stated that due to the efforts of Elon Musk and DOGE, Americans could 'see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits' in "the next 30 to 90 days."
According to Sanders' report, "average wait times for Social Security disability benefits will double, and—more startlingly—the number of people who will die waiting for benefits will double to roughly 67,000 Americans" under DOGE-proposed cuts to SSA's workforce.
Musk has zeroed in on both Social Security benefits and staffing under the guise of reducing "waste and fraud" in "entitlement spending" on social safety net programs. In addition to proposing the elimination of up to 50% of SSA's workforce, the world's richest person has said that up to $700 billion could be cut from programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
"If SSA cuts 50% of employees making disability determinations, this will result in a 412-day wait for an initial decision" on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims, the Sanders report states.
The publication cites the case of Sheryl, a disabled California woman:
Right now I'm waiting for approval from SSDI and getting feedback from my private long-term disability insurance company that they want to try to send me back to work, while I have 13 doctors overseeing my care. If I succeed in convincing these heartless vultures that I'm disabled enough to rest, I will continue to worry that my fixed income will go less and less toward being able to live. If I don't, I will be put in a position to ignore my health and go back to work long enough to kill myself and leave my kids with no one. Welcome to America! One thing that would relieve a lot of stress is getting an approval... so that I know what my income will be and not have to worry that I'll end up in an economic landslide into the abyss.
Musk recently referred to Social Security as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time," echoing Trump's claim that the vital lifeline is a "scam" and adding to a long list of lies about social safety net programs.
"President Trump and Elon Musk have suggested that 'millions and millions' of dead people receive Social Security checks. That is an outrageous lie designed to undermine Americans' faith in Social Security," Sanders said on Tuesday. "Here's the truth: 30,000 people die a year waiting for an understaffed Social Security to approve disability benefits. The Trump-Musk plan to cut Social Security's staff by up to 50% will make this tragic reality even worse, and Frank Bisignano is there to see it through. We cannot let that happen."
Critics say Trump's nomination of Bisignano, a financial services executive with a private sector reputation as an aggressive cost-cutter, belies the president's claim that he is "not touching" Social Security. Senate Democrats have urged Trump to rescind Bisignano's nomination, pointing to his alleged lies under oath regarding improper contact with SSA and DOGE officials and fears over the administration's suspected privatization agenda.
"Putting Bisignano as head of Social Security is hiring an arsonist to run the fire station, plain and simple," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said ahead of Tuesday's vote.
"I knew [Frank Bisignano] when he was a businessman in New York. Businesses would bring him on board if they wanted to cut, cut, cut. Putting Bisignano as head of Social Security is hiring an arsonist to run the fire station, plain and simple." - @schumer.senate.gov
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 1, 2025 at 8:40 AM
The Sanders report says that "the bottom line is this: Social Security belongs to the people who worked hard all their lives to earn their benefit. This is a program based on a promise—if you pay in, then you earn the right to guaranteed benefits. We cannot allow this promise to be broken."
In order to keep that promise, the report recommends actions including:
- Immediately ceasing the cuts from DOGE at SSA and across the government;
- Passing the Social Security Expansion Act to enhance Social Security benefits by $2,400 annually, ensure the program's solvency for the next 75 years by applying a payroll tax on higher-income workers, and increase the benefit to help low-income workers stay out of poverty;
- Passing the Stop the Wait Act to eliminate the Medicare waiting period for SSDI beneficiaries;
- Passing the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act to update SSI's asset limits to allow people to save without risking their essential benefits;
- Raising the minimum wage to at least $17 an hour to ensure that full-time workers can afford a healthy, stable life and phasing out subminimum wages for workers with disabilities; and
- Ensuring that all Americans have access to a pension.
"Instead of slashing Social Security's staff, closing down Social Security field offices, we should be making it easier, not harder, for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the Social Security benefits that they have earned and deserve," Sanders said Tuesday.
In a bid to "fight back" against the Trump administration's attacks, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on Tuesday launched a "Social Security War Room."
Warren's office said the initiative will "focus on coordinating messaging across the Senate Democratic Caucus and external stakeholders; encouraging grassroots engagement by providing opportunities for Americans to share what Social Security means to them; and educating Senate staff, the American public, and stakeholders about Republicans' agenda, and their continued cuts to service and benefits."
"Senate Democrats are united in saying: Trump and Elon, get your hands off our Social Security," Warren said in a statement ahead of a Tuesday press conference. "We're fighting back on behalf of every single senior, every single parent of a kid with a disability supported by Social Security, every single person currently paying into the program for later down the line, and every American who cares that seniors can retire with dignity."
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Musk Berated for 'Absurd' Social Security Fraud Lies
"Elon and his all-male team lie about Social Security like other people chew gum," said one former head of the agency.
Mar 28, 2025
Elon Musk, the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, was berated anew Friday after insidiously tarring millions of Social Security recipients as "fraudsters"—a tactic critics called part of an orchestrated Republican scheme to destroy the vital earned benefits program.
Musk and seven DOGE staffers—all of them men—appeared on Fox News Thursday, where the world's richest person called the Trump administration's crusade to eviscerate the federal government under pretext of improving efficiency "the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution" in 1776.
The DOGE staffers repeated unfounded claims that Social Security is riddled with fraud; that in some cases, 40% of calls to the Social Security Administration phone center are fraudulent; and that millions of people aged 120 and older are registered with SSA.
Acknowledging that DOGE's wrecking-ball approach to government reform is getting "a lot of complaints along the way," Musk said: "You know who complains the loudest, and with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters."
Musk's comments echoed those of billionaire U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who suggested on a podcast last week that only a "fraudster" would complain about a missed Social Security check.
Responding to what she called Musk's "absurd claim," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works (SSW), said Friday that "the truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
"It is Musk and DOGE who are inviting in fraudsters," she continued. "Scammers are already rushing in to take advantage of the confusion created by DOGE's service cuts."
Critics have denounced the Trump administration for sowing chaos at SSA and other federal agencies by planning to lay off thousands of workers, slashc spending, and implement other disruptive policies. Cuts in SSA phone services were reportedly carried out in response to a direct request from the White House, which claimed it is simply working to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse."
"The truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
This "DOGE-manufactured chaos," as Altman calls it, has already led to the SSA website crashing several times in recent weeks and hold times of as long as 4-5 hours for those calling the agency.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) on Thursday noted that while it would be clearly illegal for President Donald Trump and DOGE to cut Social Security benefits without congressional authorization, there are other ways for the administration to hamstring the agency.
Referencing a new in-person verification rule that was delayed and partly rolled back this week, Warren said:
Say a 66-year-old man qualifies for Social Security. Say he calls the helpline to apply, but he's told about a new DOGE rule, so he has to go online or in person. He can't drive. He has trouble with the website, so he waits until his niece can get a day off to take him to the local office, but DOGE closed that office, so they have to drive two hours to get to the next closest office. When they get there, there are only two people staffing a 50-person line, so he doesn't even make it to the front of the line before the office closes and he has to come back. Let's assume it takes him three months to straighten this out, and he misses a total of $5,000 in benefits checks, which, by law, he will never get back.
"This scenario is a backdoor way Musk and Trump could cut Social Security," the senator added. "That's what I'm fighting to prevent."
Democratic lawmakers and others argue that the Trump administration's approach is "a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity," as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said earlier this week.
"Improving Social Security doesn't start with shuttering the offices that handle modernization, anti-fraud activities, and civil rights violations," the senator asserted. "It doesn't start with indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers, and it doesn't start with restricting customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close field and regional offices."
These and other moves, including the nomination of financial services executive Frank Bisignano as SSA commissioner, belie Trump's claim that he is "not touching" Social Security, upon which 70 million Americans—including nearly 9 in 10 people aged 65 or older—rely for their earned benefits.
So do Trump and Musk's own words. The president has called Social Security a "scam" and Musk recently referred to it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
"No one who thinks Social Security is a criminal Ponzi scheme should be anywhere near our earned Social Security benefits or the sensitive data we provide the Social Security Administration," said SSW's Altman.
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'This Is Authoritarianism': Lawmakers Demand Release of Abducted Tufts Student
Rumeysa Ozturk's case is one of several "deeply troubling incidents," they wrote. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views."
Mar 28, 2025
Most of Massachusetts' congressional delegation and dozens of other Democratic lawmakers on Friday called for the release of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk and demanded answers from members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet about her "disturbing arrest and detention" by immigration officials.
Ozturk, a Turkish national, is a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a Ph.D. in child and human development. She was targeted for deportation after co-authoring a Tufts Daily op-ed critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip—like various other anti-genocide students recently "abducted" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"The rationale for this arrest appears to be this student's expression of her political views," 34 lawmakers—led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, all Massachusetts Democrats—wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and ICE acting Director Todd Lyons. "We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE's policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status."
The letter details how Ozturk was yanked off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday: "Surveillance footage of the arrest shows officers approach her in plain black clothing, with no visible badges. She screams as an officer grabs her hands. During the arrest, one officer pulls out his badge as other officers appear and cover their faces with masks. The surveillance video shows officers loading Ozturk into an SUV and departing in three unmarked vehicles. Bystanders observed that the incident 'looked like a kidnapping.'"
Rumeysa Ozturk was kidnapped in plain sight & sent to Louisiana to be locked in the same detention center Mahmoud Khalil was sent to. She's a peaceful protestor, grad student, & my constituent who has a right to free speech & due process. Now she's a political prisoner. Free her now.
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— Ayanna Pressley (@ayannapressley.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 6:56 PM
"While the Department of Homeland Security has not publicly specified the alleged activities that led to Ozturk's arrest, this arrest appears to be one of the latest examples in a string of ICE arrests of university students with valid green cards and visas because of their political views," the letter notes. "Tufts University was informed that Ozturk's 'visa has been terminated'—similar to other recent cases in which ICE agents have declared, without any judicial or administrative hearing, that they were 'terminating' or 'revoking' students' green cards and visas."
"These are deeply troubling incidents," the lawmakers asserted. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views. Absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk's release and the restoration of her visa."
They also demanded responses by April 5 to a detailed list of questions about Trump administration policies, Ozturk's case, and "health-related complaints" at the ICE facility in Louisiana where she was transferred, "including for denying food that appropriately accommodates detainees' religious views, serving undrinkable water, and not complying with protocols on the spread of infectious diseases."
The letter is signed by six other Massachusetts Democrats—Reps. Jake Auchincloss, Katherine Clark, Stephen Lynch, Jim McGovern, Seth Moulton, and Lori Trahan—as well as progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Absent from this list," notedZeteo reporter Prem Thakker, are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Many of the letter's signatories have already individually spoken out about Ozturk's case this week.
"This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released," Pressley said in a Wednesday statement, as reports emerged about her arrest. "And we won't stand by while the Trump administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms."
Markey shared the surveillance footage on social media Wednesday and wrote: "'Disappearances like these are part of Trump's all-out assault on our basic freedoms. This is authoritarianism, and we will not let this stand."
Warren also turned to social media on Wednesday, stressing that "this arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties," and calling out the Trump administration for "ripping people out of their communities without due process."
"We will push back," Warren pledged.
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