WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Aug. 14 in the Oval Office honoring the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act into law.
“I made a pledge to our seniors that I would always protect social security, and under this administration, we’re keeping that promise and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” Trump said.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will protect economic welfare for millions of people across the country, including the 72 million receiving benefits, according to the president.
Included in the bill are provisions that eliminate taxes on Social Security income, a campaign promise Trump ran on in 2024. Another element increases tax deductions for seniors to $6,000 from $4,000 per individual.
“These Americans have paid into the system and deserve leaders in Washington who are going to protect the benefits they’ve had and protect Social Security,” Trump said.
He highlighted anomalies discovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), including 12.4 million names of individuals marked as eligible for benefits that were older than 120.
According to the president, nearly 275,000 illegal immigrants were removed from the benefit system in the first 200 days of his second term.
“These are people, many of them have already left the country, and yet we were sending them checks all the time,” Trump said.
Questions about the integrity and sustainability of the social security program have lingered for decades, with lawmakers repeatedly warning of a precarious future.
“I’ve been hearing about it for years, long before I came to office, that it was really going to die very shortly, and I had to put somebody outstanding in,” Trump said while motioning to Frank Bisignano, a financial industry executive the president appointed as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
Bisignano said: “We are serving more people and delivering more than was ever delivered before in a manner with the highest possible quality, and we’ve just begun. My commitment to make this happen is as deep as the president’s commitment to [making] the world a great place.”
Accountability efforts have amassed more than $1 billion in savings, with billions of dollars more in improper payments halted.
An overhaul of the administration’s phone, transcription, and processing systems is currently underway.
“By massively improving the customer service experience through technological improvements, preventing illegal aliens from accessing benefits, and delivering no taxes on Social Security through the One Big Beautiful Bill, President Trump has Made Social Security Great Again,” Liz Huston, White House assistant press secretary, said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
Improved efficiency is minimizing wait times—reducing them to six minutes from 30—and bolstering the Social Security Administration’s efforts to process claims, with 70 percent more calls answered this year compared to last, according to a fact sheet from the White House.
The Social Security Act, which Trump dubbed “one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever signed into law,” was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Aug. 14, 1935, as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal framework, aimed at providing economic safety nets for American citizens.
Nearly $50 million was appropriated to states at the time to fund the program, which offers benefits for the elderly, unemployed, and disabled.
The first pension program was passed by the Continental Congress in August 1776, covering the Army and Navy. Expanded benefits for widows and orphans followed in 1780.
Conditions during the Civil War precipitated the founding of the nation’s first official social security-style program, known as the Civil War Pension. Expenditures for military pensions ballooned to $165 million in 1893, the largest ever made by the federal government at the time.
“In the aggregate, military pensions were an important source of economic security in the early years of the nation,” according to a history of the program on the Social Security Administration’s website.
These benefits did not extend to the general population, however.
Some states began passing legislation to offer old-age benefits in the years during and after the Great Depression.
After six years of economic uncertainty and insecurity for millions of Americans following the stock market crash in 1929, the federal government voted to enact the Social Security program known to Americans today.
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