The plans of Elon Musk — the richest man on Earth — to slash Social Security and force mass layoffs will cause tens of thousands more Americans to die while waiting for their disability benefits to be approved, a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has found.
Right-wing cuts to Social Security have already caused an erosion in services over the past decades, and in recent years, the number of people who die during the wait time for benefit determinations has risen drastically, to 30,000 people.
But if “shadow president” Musk and President Donald Trump’s plans to cut the Social Security Administration by up to half are fully realized, the wait time could more than double to 412 days — resulting in nearly 67,000 people dying this year alone while waiting for an initial decision on their eligibility for benefits.
This is an average of nearly 190 people per day, the analysis finds.
“President Trump and Elon Musk have suggested that ‘millions and millions’ of dead people receive Social Security checks. That is an outrageous lie designed to undermine Americans’ faith in Social Security,” said Sanders.
“Instead of slashing Social Security’s staff, closing down Social Security field offices, we should be making it easier, not harder, for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the Social Security benefits that they have earned and deserve,” the senator went on.
The wait time to be approved for benefits is often extremely burdensome for would-be recipients. Sanders’s office conducted a survey asking people about experiences waiting for benefits, and uncovered mass suffering imposed by the already eroded system.
“The stories they shared paint a picture of daily hardship: the stress of affording health care, food, and gas; the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck; and the feeling of hopelessness that comes from constant financial strain, including from seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security,” the report says.
One person, Monique, of Florida, said: “I’m unemployed and trying to get on disability. My life is all pain and stress. I’m down to my last few hundred dollars. I desperately need to see several specialists for my ongoing care, but I’m freaking out that I will no longer be able to pay my costs of living. I take multiple prescriptions and they’re costly.”
The Trump administration is already well on its way in its plans for cuts. The Washington Post has reported that Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) has already laid off 7,000 workers within the agency since February, and has plans for far more cuts to the remaining 50,000 staff within Social Security.
Musk, seemingly in charge of these decisions, has a net worth of over $360 billion. Unlike working class Americans, he doesn’t pay fully into Social Security with every paycheck — in fact, since the wage cap on Social Security is just $168,000, Musk stopped paying into the program four minutes into 2025, according to back-of-napkin math.
Meanwhile, Musk’s plans elsewhere in the government are driving record layoffs, pushing hundreds of thousands more American workers and their families into uncertainty. A Challenger report published Thursday found that, with over 275,000 layoffs, March was the third worst month in U.S. history for layoffs, only behind April and May of 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was largely driven by Musk’s announcement of DOGE’s plans to eliminate over 216,000 positions within the federal government, with over 280,000 job cuts outlined over the past two months. Over 4,000 jobs outside of the government, meanwhile, have been cut due to grant and other funding cuts — many of which legal experts say are against the law.
At the same time, more cuts could be on the way, with growing fears that the U.S. will soon go through a recession due to the sweeping tariffs Trump implemented on Wednesday. The tariff announcement led to the largest one-day drop in the DOW and S&P 500 since the outbreak of COVID.
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