Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking direct aim at President Donald Trump over Social Security. In a new report, Warren’s office accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies and misleading statements” about the program while quietly weakening the Social Security Administration (SSA).
If you rely on Social Security or care about its future, here is what you need to know about the back-and-forth.
What did Warren accuse Trump of?
Warren’s “Social Security War Room” released a fact-check pushing back against several claims made by the Trump White House. The Massachusetts senator argues that Trump’s policies have:
- Weakened the SSA’s ability to serve beneficiaries
- Misrepresented the impact of recent legislation on seniors’ taxes
- Exaggerated improvements in customer service and technology
According to Warren’s office, the administration’s talking points are meant to make people feel that Social Security is stronger, when in fact, the opposite is true.
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Did Trump really cut taxes on Social Security benefits?
One of the biggest points of debate is about taxes. The White House has claimed that Trump delivered the “largest tax break in history for America’s seniors” by making sure most Social Security recipients will not pay taxes on their benefits.
Warren’s team says that is not true. The law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, does not actually eliminate or reduce the federal taxation of Social Security benefits. Instead, it temporarily raises the standard deduction for seniors, which may shield some benefits from taxes. But according to Warren, fewer than half of older Americans will actually benefit.
So, while the administration framed this as a sweeping win for seniors, Warren argues it is much more limited.
What about Social Security wait times and service?
The Trump administration also claimed that the SSA had improved customer service by answering more calls and cutting wait times. The White House said the agency was “handling 70 percent more calls than last year” and reduced wait times from 30 minutes down to six minutes.
Warren’s office disputes those figures. They say:
- Call volumes went up only about 25 percent overall, not 70 percent.
- Many people reported being on hold for more than an hour, and some waited as long as three hours.
- The “80 percent” drop in wait times was based on cherry-picked data from a particularly bad period in 2024.
In other words, if you tried calling Social Security and felt the wait was long, you were not imagining it.
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Did Trump cut staffing at Social Security offices?
Another major point is staffing. The White House insisted that all Social Security field offices were fully staffed, with employees working five days a week.
Warren’s team says the reality is very different. They point to data showing that SSA offices lost about 20 percent of their workforce. According to the War Room, many staff were reassigned away from field offices, leaving fewer people to help beneficiaries in person. This, they argue, created more delays and lower morale among workers.
Are technology improvements working?
The Trump administration highlighted “vast technology improvements” at SSA, including new algorithms and AI-based tools to fight fraud and improve service.
But Warren says these rollouts have been messy and sometimes harmful. For example:
- An anti-fraud algorithm flagged only two suspicious claims out of 110,000 while slowing down the entire process by 25 percent.
- A new AI chatbot left callers disconnected or unable to reach a live agent.
Instead of making things smoother, Warren argues, these tools added new frustrations for people just trying to get answers.
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Did Trump really save billions by cutting waste?
Finally, the White House claimed the SSA saved more than $1 billion this year and cracked down on “billions of dollars in improper payments.”
Warren’s office pushed back, saying there is little evidence to back up those numbers. She also pointed to false claims made earlier this year, when Trump and others suggested millions of people over 100 years old were still collecting benefits. SSA later explained that those individuals were not receiving payments at all, they simply had incomplete records in the database.
For Warren, this is just another example of the administration spreading what she calls “misleading statements” about the program.
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