Trump is seen during the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday in Atlanta.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Former President Donald Trump said at least twice during the debate that President Joe Biden will destroy Social Security and Medicare by putting migrants entering the US on the benefits.
“These millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security. He will wipe out Medicare,” Trump said.
Facts First Trump is wrong. In fact, the opposite is true, particularly in the near term, multiple experts say. Many undocumented immigrants work, which means they pay much-needed payroll taxes, and this bolsters the Social Security and Medicare trust funds and extends their solvency. Immigrantswho are working legally typically won’t collect benefits for many years. As for those who are undocumented, some are working under fake Social Security numbers, so they are paying payroll taxes but don’t qualify to collect benefits.
The Social Security Administration looked at the effects of unauthorized immigration on the Social Security trust funds. It found that in 2010, earnings by unauthorized workers contributed roughly $12 billion on net to the entitlement program’s cash flow. The agency has not updated the analysis since, but this year’s Social Security trustees report noted that increasing average annual total net immigration by 100,000 persons improves the entitlement program’s solvency.
“We estimate that future years will experience a continuation of this positive impact on the trust funds,” said the report on unauthorized immigration.
Meanwhile, unauthorized immigrants contributed more than $35 billion on net to Medicare’s trust fund between 2000 and 2011, extending the life of the trust fund by a year, according to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
“Immigrants tend to be younger and employed, which increases the number of workers paying into the system,” said Gary Engelhardt, a Syracuse University economics professor. “Also, they have more children, which helps boost the future workforce that will pay payroll taxes.”
“Immigrants are good for Social Security,” he said.
However, undocumented immigrants who gain legal status that includes eligibility for future Social Security and Medicare benefits could ultimately be a drain to the system, according to Jason Richwine, a resident scholar at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration.
“Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, but amnesty (legalization) would reverse those gains and add extra costs,” Richwine wrote in a report last year.