As the presidential election draws closer, a look into possible Social Security policies from a Harris-Walz or Trump-Vance administration
Social Security is proving to be a strong influence for voters when considering who to place on their ballot this coming November.
Recent polls and studies have shown that Americans are increasingly paying attention to Social Security and its potential insolvency. The 2024 Social Security Trustees Report in May estimated that Social Security would face depletion in 2033, with 79% of scheduled benefits being payable at that point.
As a result, voters are being mindful of which candidate could best shore up future funding, in order to continue receiving the maximum benefit.
Research from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) in July found that 90% of respondents to its survey want the upcoming administration and Congress to solve Social Security’s insolvency. This urgency was strong across all party lines, NIRS reported, with 90% of Democrats, 86% of Republicans, and 88% of Independents all supporting prioritizing Social Security.
In its annual Social Security survey, Nationwide Retirement Solutions found that 72% of adults are concerned the system could exhaust its funding, and even 23% believed they would never “see a dime” from Social Security.
Consequently, many respondents to Nationwide’s survey called for reforms in the upcoming general election, with 69% adding that a candidate’s stance on the topic would impact who they end up voting for. Others proposed key changes like raising the minimum eligibility age from 62 to 64 for future retirees ages 50 or under (66%) or increasing the full retirement age (FRA) from 67 to 69 for this group (51%).
“As economic inequality continues to grow, Social Security has become an increasingly vital source of retirement income for most older Americans,” said Tyler Bond, NIRS research director and research co-author, at the time. “Given Social Security’s central role in the financial security of so many seniors, it’s not surprising that our research finds enormous bipartisan support for the program.”
NEXT: Harris supports taxing high income, switching COLA formula
While Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris hasn’t yet adopted a formal plan for Social Security, past support on key proposals indicates how she plans to tackle the insolvency.
First, Harris has backed proposals introduced by policymakers that would reinforce taxes on high income earners. As vice president, she supported one proposal by President Biden that would add a 12.4% payroll tax on earned income, which includes wages and salary over $400,000. As California senator, Harris also backed the Social Security Expansion Act, a proposed legislation that would expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year and ensure Social Security is fully funded for the next 75 years by subjecting all income above $250,000 to the Social Security payroll tax. Currently, any wages above $168,600 are not taxed for Social Security.
If voted president, it is speculated that Harris would support recent Democratic proposals on Social Security insolvency, including Rep. John Larson’s (D-CT) Social Security 2100 Act and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, which both would require taxpayers who earn more than $400,000 to contribute to Social Security with earnings above that amount.
Other potential modifications include changing how the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment is calculated, from today’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). Supporters of the change say switching to the CPI-E could better track expenses for seniors, including increased spending on healthcare.
Failing to adequately protect Social Security benefits from inflation can lead to a loss of buying power in benefits over time and lower growth in Social Security benefit income throughout retirement. Recent findings from The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) show that Social Security buying power fell 20% since 2010, meaning that payments for retired workers would need to increase by $4,440 per year or $370 per month to rebuild their lost value.
TSCL has long supported a change in calculating annual Social Security COLAs—including altering the current CPI-W to the CPI-E. Last year, the organization stated that if the CPI-E was used instead of CPI-W to calculate the Social Security COLA, the 2024 increase would have been 4% instead of the 3.2% raise beneficiaries received for 2024.
The Social Security 2100 Act, which is speculated to be supported by Harris, would change how the COLA is determined by requiring the higher of the CPI-W or the CPI-E to be used in calculating the COLA.
As Minnesota governor, the new Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz increased the state tax exemption for Social Security in 2023, meaning that taxpayers grossing less than $78,000, or $100,000 for married couples who file jointly, could deduct Social Security benefits from their earnings.
Walz has previously supported eliminating Social Security tax for 90% of recipients. Instead, he supports taxes for the top 10% of earners.
“I don’t think those at the top of the line — millionaires and billionaires — are concerned about the Social Security tax,” Walz previously told MPR News.
Minnesota is just one of several states that currently tax Social Security benefits, meaning that Minnesotan retirees procure less of the benefit than retirees in other states.
This is on top of the federal tax that retirees pay towards their Social Security. Currently, Social Security beneficiaries with incomes below $25,000 individually are exempt from Social Security taxes entirely. Individuals with total income between $25,000 and $34,000 or couples filing jointly with combined total incomes from $32,000 to $44,000 may have to pay federal income tax on up to 50% of their Social Security benefits, while individuals with total income of more than $34,000 or couples filing jointly more than $44,000 may see up to 85% of their benefits taxed.
If elected, a Harris Walz administration could mean greater payroll taxes for high-income earners, rather than raising the retirement age or reducing benefits.
NEXT: Trump pushes tax elimination while Vance opposes cuts
Last week, in an all-caps post on conservative social media platform Truth Social, former President Donald Trump proclaimed that retirees should not pay tax on Social Security.
“SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!” was what the 45th President and current Republican presidential nominee posted without further explanation.
He doubled down on his stance in an interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning, calling for changing the federal rules on Social Security taxation for retirees. “We can do a lot of things to help the people,” Trump said. “People on Social Security are being killed, and one of the things I’m doing is no tax for seniors on Social Security, and I’ll get it done quickly.”
While Trump didn’t mention how he would change Social Security taxes, he proceeded to again put blame on undocumented immigrants for Social Security’s insolvency. “They are going to destroy Social Security because millions of people are coming into our country, and they’re putting them on Social Security,” Trump stated in the interview. “They’re putting them on Medicare.”
Currently, undocumented workers are ineligible for Social Security retirement benefits, and will instead use a taxpayer identification number (ITIN) instead of a Social Security number to pay payroll taxes.
Those who use a fake Social Security number to pay taxes could receive benefits, but past findings from the Social Security Administration (SSA) show that undocumented workers have paid more money into the SSA than received. A 2013 report from the SSA found that while $1 billion in benefits were paid out to undocumented immigrants in 2010, these workers had contributed $13 billion in payroll taxes during the same period.
Since calling for the elimination on Social Security tax, Trump has been met with criticism and pushback from economists who believe the change could negatively impact retirees in the long-term.
“The idea may make a great political rallying cry, but it actually does not make good policy,” wrote Forbes contributor Andrew Leahey, a tax and technology attorney, professor and podcaster, in a July 31 response to Trump’s Truth Social post. “The idea undermines the financial integrity of both Social Security and Medicare and will, in fact, disproportionately benefit higher-income individuals, directly contravening the program’s current progressively.”
Vance voices against cuts
While Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance had formerly implied supporting Social Security cuts in a 2010 blog post that accused the program of driving federal budget deficits, the Ohio governor has since changed his stance.
In a 2022 interview with the Huffington Post, Vance stated he does not support cuts to the program. “I don’t support cuts to Social Security or Medicare and think privatizing social security is a bad idea,” he told HuffPost at the time.
Vance again indicated his opposition to cuts in a May interview with The New York Times, prior to being selected as Trump’s vice president. He noted that much of the responsibility for funding the program falls on workers between the ages of 18 to 65.
“If the argument here is we have to cut Social Security, then what you’re effectively saying is we just have to privatize what is currently a public problem of who pays for the older generation,” he stated in the interview. “And I don’t know why people think that you solve many problems by taking a bunch of elderly people and saying, ‘You’re on your own.'”
Vance did not support raising taxes for middle-class workers or wealthy Americans, adding that it would only fix insolvency in the short-term. “Raising middle-class taxes — I don’t like that idea for obvious reasons,” he said to The New York Times. “You can get some revenue out of raising taxes on wealthy Americans, but there’s no way that you can run an economy at a structural growth rate of around 1 percent with demographics that are getting worse and worse and worse and solve the problem by taxing rich people. You have to fix the underlying issue.”
Instead, he advocated for increasing the number of workers to continue financing Social Security, noting in past interviews that the government had previously allocated much of its spending to welfare programs rather than to Social Security funding.
“Take those seven million prime-age men not in the labor force… You shift millions of those men from not working to working; you increase wages across the board; you increase tariffs; and I think that you buy yourself a whole hell of a lot more than the nine or 10 years that the actuaries say that we have,” Vance stated. “You get more revenue, yes, from tariffs, but from more people being in the labor force, from higher productivity growth, from higher wages, from transitioning young people who are not working into the work force.”