Trump proposes eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that seniors shouldn’t pay taxes on Social Security, a departure from decades of tax policy.

Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform. He wrote: “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”

Social Security can be claimed starting at age 62, although benefits increase the longer one waits to claim them, with benefits capping out at a retirement age of 70.

The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 with legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan. Seniors receiving Social Security income pay taxes on 50% of their income from the program, and in some cases, as high as 85% if their combined income from other sources pushes them above a certain threshold.

Seniors are a key demographic that Trump needs to win the election. His Social Security proposal comes soon after he also made an appeal to hospitality workers by calling for an end to taxation of tips.

At June rally in Las Vegas, Trump announced that he would move to exclude federal taxes from tips. Notably, the service industry-heavy Nevada is a key battleground state and has the highest concentration of tipped workers in the U.S. There are millions of tipped workers in the U.S. more broadly, and more than two million waiters and waitresses alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For his new tax proposals, Trump would have to get the approval of lawmakers in what could be a divided Congress.

Earlier this year, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) introduced legislation that would eliminate federal taxes on Social Security. The bill was sponsored by about a dozen other Democrats.

The bill would be paid for by raising the cap on the Social Security payroll tax for high earners.

The proposal by Trump, unless there were pay-fors associated with the tax’s elimination, would increase the budget deficit, which is projected to be $1.9 trillion this fiscal year. The national debt also hit $35 trillion this week, highlighting the fiscal challenges the country is facing.

Major deadlines for Social Security and Medicare are also coming in the 2030s unless something is done to stabilize the programs.

The combined Social Security trust fund will become exhausted in 2035, the programs’ trustees projected in May. The trustees predict that the combined Social Security trust fund and Disability Insurance trust fund will only be enough to pay 83% of scheduled benefits sometime in 2035.

“The most important thing we can do for seniors is to fix Social Security before the trust funds become insolvent,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the Washington Examiner after Trump made his social media post. “Pandering to them does nothing to avoid the across-the-board benefit cut we are currently heading towards.”

Trump has consistently pledged to seniors — who are a crucial voting bloc in the coming election — that he won’t touch Social Security if he is elected.