Social Security: Will It Survive Under Trump?

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency now has 10 staffers at the Social Security Administration as the Trump White House looks for evidence to support its claim that there could be millions of dead people receiving public benefits. 

Two sworn statements filed in federal court late Wednesday show that the SSA has staffed up in recent weeks to include four special government employees and six more DOGE staffers on loan from other departments.

Their mission: detecting waste, fraud and abuse in the nation’s 90-year-old social insurance agency.
Musk has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” and suggested this week that there could be as much as $700 billion a year in entitlement fraud. Critics have said he is setting up a move to cut the popular program. Others are concerned about Musk’s team having access to Americans’ most sensitive data.

Ernie Tedeschi, Director of Economics at the Yale Budget Lab, discusses the inflationary risks of rising federal deficits and debt, and explains why his team thinks the social security program will go broke if not properly addressed in the near-term. Ernie speaks with Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
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