5 Ways AARP Is Fighting for Social Security Right Now​

Here’s a look at how AARP has been fighting to protect Social Security:

1. Defending against cuts to Social Security’s phone services  

​​Twice this year, AARP successfully fought proposed changes that would have negatively impacted Social Security customer service. Our advocacy helped defeat the SSA proposals that would have cut routine telephone services, forcing millions of Social Security recipients into local field offices instead.   ​​

The SSA’s most recent proposal, released July 18, would have blocked recipients from submitting a change of address or from requesting a benefit verification letter, certain tax forms or an update on a pending benefit claim by phone. Instead, callers would have been required to access their online My Social Security account to generate a one-time security authorization PIN while on the phone in order to proceed. Those who couldn’t access an online account would have had to go to a local office to obtain such services. 

AARP urged the SSA to reverse course, noting in a July 29 letter to the SSA commissioner that the cuts would place even more strain on already overburdened field offices and would disproportionately affect older adults who live in rural areas, have mobility issues or lack computer skills and internet access. The change would have driven more than 3.4 million more recipients into field offices annually, according to SSA estimates.

​​“For many older Americans, the phone is how they access Social Security services without having to rely on complicated technology or long, difficult or costly trips to field offices,” wrote Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer. “Limiting phone-based services would remove the primary way they are able to get the help they need from the Social Security Administration.”   ​​

Just days after AARP issued its letter, the SSA withdrew its proposal.   ​​

• Read our story on the SSA’s recent proposal to cut certain telephone services and its walk back . ​
• Read our July 29 letter to the SSA commissioner.  ​
• Read our story on the SSA’s earlier March proposal and how it was walked back.

2. Demanding better customer service from Social Security 

 ​AARP has long called for better customer service from the SSA. The agency has struggled to address long waits: waits for in-person appointments, waits to speak with SSA representatives by phone, waits for disability applications to be processed. This year, amid more workforce reductions and even longer wait times, AARP has amplified its demands.   ​​

Despite historically low staffing levels, the SSA announced plans in February to slash its workforce by a further 12 percent — from about 57,000 employees to 50,000 — and reduce its number of regional field offices from 10 to four. The SSA then reported on April 19 that 2,500 workers left their jobs with “voluntary separation incentive payments,” and of that group, nearly 80 percent worked in field offices directly serving the public. In July, SSA officials reported that roughly 4,600 employees in total have left since March.   ​​

As the SSA workforce shrank, reports of SSA website outages, longer waits at overwhelmed field offices and increasing phone hold times ballooned, as AARP’s LeaMond outlined in an April 7 letter to the SSA commissioner. LeaMond wrote that she was “deeply troubled by the startling and sudden decline” in customer service and urged the SSA to “ensure every American who interacts with the SSA gets the help they need quickly, accurately and respectfully.”   ​​

The SSA said in a July statement that the agency had addressed some of these shortfalls under the new leadership of Frank Bisignano, who was sworn in as commissioner in May. But in June, the agency changed how it reports certain publicly available customer service metrics and stopped reporting some metrics entirely, which makes tracking improvements difficult. AARP’s members continue to report delays, while the SSA’s own data shows that more than half of all callers are waiting more than two hours to have their calls answered. ​​

AARP continues to press the SSA for more information and transparency around its efforts to better the agency’s customer service. In LeaMond’s July 29 letter regarding the SSA’s latest plan for telephone service cuts, she urged the agency to make any changes through “a careful and deliberate process, soliciting input from the public and with a clear communications strategy and a timeline for implementation that minimizes confusion.”   ​

• ​Read our story on customers’ recent experiences at Social Security field offices.​
• Read our story on AARP's calls to fix the SSA’s customer service crisis. ​
• Access all our recent letters to the SSA regarding the customer service crisis via AARP's Government Watch Financial Security page. ​

3. Keeping more Social Security income in your pocket

 ​​Millions of taxpayers ages 65 and older secured a bonus tax deduction of up to $6,000, effective this year, thanks in part to AARP’s support of a provision in the federal tax and budget bill that was signed into law in July.  ​​

The new tax law does not change how Social Security benefits are taxed, but for some seniors the additional bonus deductions it creates will help offset some — or even all — of the federal income tax charged on Social Security benefits. “For millions of older taxpayers, it will help ensure more of their Social Security benefits stay in their pockets — where they belong,” Bill Sweeney, AARP’s senior vice president for government affairs, wrote in a May 13 letter to House lawmakers.   ​

Social Security recipients with a total annual income of more than $25,000 for an individual or $32,000 for a couple filing jointly owe federal income taxes on part of their benefits. Those income thresholds have not changed for more than 40 years, which has “increasingly burdened” older Americans, Sweeney noted in his letter, “especially as they face rising costs for housing, health care, and family caregiving.”  ​​

Under the new law, individuals with an income of up to $75,000 ($150,000 for spouses filing jointly) can now subtract a full $6,000 from their taxable income. The deduction phases out at higher income levels. ​

• Read our full explainer on how the new bonus tax deduction for those 65-plus works.  
• Read our story on AARP's backing of the new bonus tax deduction.   ​

4. Calling on Congress to secure Social Security’s financial future

 ​​For 90 years, Social Security has never missed a payment to its recipients, but the program’s long-term financial health needs addressing. Americans are worried, with just 36 percent of those surveyed in AARP’s latest Social Security poll saying they felt very or somewhat confident about Social Security’s future. AARP is, therefore, calling on Congress to act swiftly to secure the program’s future.  

​​The trust funds Social Security uses to make sure recipients get their full benefits are projected to run out of money by 2034, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees’ latest report, released in June. Once the trust funds are depleted, beneficiaries will receive only 81 cents for every dollar they should be receiving — if federal lawmakers don’t act, which is unlikely.

​​“It’s something that Congress needs to fix, but it’s an absolutely fixable problem,” said AARP’s Sweeney in a May tele-town hall on Social Security. He pointed to President Ronald Reagan’s changes to Social Security , passed in 1983, which addressed a looming shortfall back then.  

​​It is unknown when and how Congress will next address Social Security’s solvency — “That’s the question we’ve been asking Congress for a long time now,” Sweeney said — but AARP is urging lawmakers to tackle the issue sooner rather than later. “The longer Congress waits, the worse their options are, so we’ve really been pushing [them] hard … to get focused on this.”   ​​

AARP’s Minter-Jordan echoed these sentiments in June, noting that Social Security has near-universal support. “AARP members and older Americans nationwide consistently say that the future of Social Security and Medicare are the issues they care about most, and they stand ready to hold politicians across party lines accountable to strengthen these programs for the long term,” she said. 

• ​​Read our story on AARP's latest Social Security survey.  
• ​Read our story on the latest report from the Social Security Board of Trustees.   ​
• Read our story on the future of Social Security to learn more about its financial status and options for fiscal stability. ​

5. Opposing the privatization of Social Security

As Congress searches for solutions to Social Security’s solvency issues, AARP continues to take a vocal stance against any efforts to privatize the program.   ​​

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in July during a live panel event that the “Trump accounts” — government-sponsored investment accounts for children, created in the recently passed federal tax and budget bill — are a “back door for privatizing Social Security.”   ​​

AARP’s Hishta condemned the secretary’s comment in a statement that same day and called on President Donald Trump to stick to his recent promises that Social Security “won’t be touched” and that he is “not going to touch Social Security.”  

​​“Any form of Social Security privatization is unacceptable,” Hishta wrote. 

AARP has long opposed efforts to privatize Social Security, arguing that doing so would put a reliable and essential part of Americans’ retirement income at risk. Currently Social Security recipients get fixed amounts of money each month — guaranteed — from the federal government, based on their lifetime earnings and the age at which they start claiming the benefit. Privatized accounts, on the other hand, would not guarantee a payment amount and would instead be based on the whims of the market. 

Facing backlash, Bessent later that day posted on X that “Trump Baby Accounts are an additive benefit for future generations, which will supplement the sanctity of Social Security’s guaranteed payments. … This is not an either-or question: our Administration is committed to protecting Social Security and to making sure seniors have more money.”   ​​

• Read our story on AARP's condemnation of the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s “back door” comment.  ​
• Read AARP’s July 30 press statement on the comment.   ​