“The increase in immigration, we project from 2021 to 2026, will result in about $1 billion in additional revenue” over a ten-year period, said Dr. Phillip Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). , to lawmakers during a hearing on Tuesday.
Members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security met to review the current and projected financial status of the dwindling Social Security Trust Fund as the program moves toward potential cuts more than 21% in individual benefits by 2035.
The House will go through the appropriations process, which will once again bring lawmakers into debate over Social Security funding this month. As Democrats and Republicans continue to fight over two solutions to the program’s declining funding, tax increases on the wealthy or benefit cuts to the program, a third consideration emerged during the meeting — immigration.
Republicans — including former president and presidential candidate Donald Trump — have increasingly pointed to immigration as a drain on social safety nets for seniors in recent months, including Social Security and Medicare.
Top budget experts countered those claims during Tuesday’s panel by arguing that immigrants could have a positive impact on Social Security.
Representative Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) first linked the hearing’s topic to immigration reform when she asked witnesses whether increasing legal pathways to immigration would put the “Social Security Trust Fund in better shape,” which everyone the three stated.
“This would make a significant difference,” noted Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary at the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Immigrants to the US could solve one of Social Security’s biggest burdens – population stagnation. During his testimony, Goss attributed Social Security’s growing deficiencies, in part, to declining birth rates in recent decades, which in turn has meant fewer workers to alleviate the large Baby Boomer generation now profiting from its benefits.
Swagel revamped the 2024 CBO discoveries that immigrants would contribute $1 billion in tax revenue over a ten-year period, prompted by a question from Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.). Although Swagel acknowledged that the CBO projection would need to be reevaluated regularly, Goss continued to affirm the positive role of immigration in financing Social Security.
“There are cases where they have declared income,” he said, noting that employers sometimes report payroll taxes on their undocumented employees. “They probably won’t receive any benefit credits, but payroll taxes will still accrue at that point.”
Undocumented immigrants are unable to receive Social Security benefits, although they may unknowingly contribute to its coffers. In 2013, the SSA published a reportled by Goss, who revealed that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $13 billion in Social Security taxes that year alone.
This reality reflected in the numbers is at odds with the Republican Party’s message. In a March publish told Truth Social, Trump linked undocumented immigrants to the decline in Social Security funding.
“Unlike the Democrats, who are KILLING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE by allowing MIGRANT INVASION,” he wrote. “I will NOT, under any circumstances, allow either of these two precious GEMs to be even touched under the Trump administration.”
Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) pressed Goss on whether SSA accounted for the “impact of illegal immigrants” in its annual report.
“Absolutely, we always have,” Goss responded. “The bottom line is that immigration in any form is actually a positive in the realm we are in now, where birth rates in the country are so low.”
Bolstering immigration as a solution to the Social Security problem is another opportunity for Republicans and the Trump campaign’s messaging around Social Security. At the end of March, the campaign backed away from the former president’s remarks about the “cut” of Social Security.
As the House begins the appropriations process, in the middle of the election season, Social Security and immigration should be at the top of lawmakers’ concerns, just as they were among voters in the period leading up to November.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
