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If you’re not an American who watches for a monthly Social Security check to land in your bank account, you will be one day. Today, roughly 73 million people depend, in whole or in part, on Social Security benefits. The majority of recipients claim Social Security retirement. Others qualify for benefits due to a disability or qualify as survivors of people who worked and paid Social Security taxes before they died. I can personally attest to the relief and gratitude for the Social Security Survivor benefits that a mother of young children feels the first of each month for some years after her husband’s untimely death.

The official White House website assures Social Security recipients: “The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits.” But the word going around is entirely different. It’s impossible to doubt the buzz after watching Elon Musk invade and cut one federal agency after another.

Witnessing the federal bloodshed that has transpired since January 20th isn’t all that warns of Social Security manipulation. The wealthiest guy in the world, Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan that “Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,”  and that entitlements are what need to be cut. Over in the Oval Office (or on the golf course) President Trump has called Social Security a “scam.”

So when Musk says things like ‘let’s cut SSA manpower by 7,000, shut off the telephones, close field offices across the country, and require in-person identity checks’ even for the elderly and disabled and then the Trump administration announces the plan, Americans understandably become real worried. When the acting Social Security commissioner threatens to bar SSA employees access to its computer systems, troubled Americans who depend solely on that Social Security check may even pace the floor.

Former SSA commissioner, Martin O’Malley says that “cuts being carried out will result in widespread failures, including checks not being distributed.” He further suggests that DOGE, the acting commissioner, and the Trump administration “are intentionally driving the agency into collapse so they can claim it’s broken” and move to privatize Social Security. 

For at least the time being, ‘We the People’ are still in charge of our country. Make your voices heard– loudly and clearly. Call your congresspeople and demand “hands off Social Security.” Now is not the time to be silently passive, folks. 

Connie Mason Moss
Blackstone