Krugman: The Clean Little Secret of Social Security: It's a pretty good program, and we can afford it. [View all]

[CousinIT]

It's behind a paywall. I can't afford the subscription. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-clean-little-secret-of-social

Social Security is in the crosshairs of the Musk/Trump administration. First Musk came out with the claim that tens of millions of dead people are still receiving benefits. This claim has been thoroughly debunked, but still made its way into deputy president Trump’s big speech Tuesday. Then Musk began declaring that the 90-year-old program is a Ponzi scheme.

The first claim seems to reflect the fact that the Dunning-Kruger kids — the mostly very young staffers DOGE sent into the Social Security Administration, too incompetent to see their own incompetence — didn’t know how to interpret SSA databases. The second claim showed that Musk doesn’t understand what Social Security is or how it works.

To be fair, however, Musk isn’t alone in his lack of understanding, although he may be unique in his combination of arrogance and ignorance. So I thought I’d devote this week’s primer to the basics of Social Security. Beyond the paywall you’ll find:

1. How Social Security works from workers’ point of view

2. How it’s financed

3. Why the challenge of keeping the system going isn’t as hard as you think