Trump’s Appointee for Social Security Raises Fears of Austerity and Cuts

Earlier this month, in a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump announced his incoming administration’s nomination to head the Social Security Administration (SSA). Should he be confirmed in the Senate, the SSA’s next commissioner will be the wealthy corporate CEO, Trump and Ron DeSantis donor and Wall Street “fixer,” Frank Bisignano.

Bisignano is currently the CEO of Fiserv Inc., a leading payment processing service; he has also held positions at Shearson Lehman Brothers and Citigroup, and was formerly the co-COO of JP Morgan Chase. In 2017, he was the second-most highly compensated CEO in the nation, earning over $100 million that year. Among Social Security experts, advocates and recipients alike, this résumé has not inspired confidence in Bisignano’s prospective tenure.

Republicans, of course, have long had designs on Social Security, and have sought ways to undermine the program and cut benefits at every turn. The next Trump presidency has presented an opportunity to press the matter and achieve cuts long considered politically impossible, thanks to the extreme unpopularity of such a proposal. There is no indication that Bisignano will refuse to aid Trump and the right as they test the waters and explore various means of sabotaging one of the nation’s most successful, longstanding and crucially important social programs.

The “Fixer”

In response to the news of Bisignano’s appointment, Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, released a statement with pointed criticisms of the nominee: “Nothing in Mr. Bisignano’s career suggests that he understands the unique needs of older and disabled Americans. His record in the private sector doesn’t instill confidence that he will protect beneficiaries from plans to dismantle and replace the SSA workforce, [or that he might act as] a cheerleader for risky schemes like allowing investment firms and crypto corporations to gamble with the trust funds and benefits that Americans paid for and earned[.]”

Fiesta is not alone in his disapproval of the pick. Truthout reached out to Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, the leading advocacy organization for the administration. Altman, who is also the chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, is a former tax lawyer and pensions expert, congressional adviser and faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

“He’s totally unqualified,” said Altman. “In terms of expertise, he has none. That’s the first issue.”

The first of many. In his corporate career, Bisignano has practiced a kind of slash-and-burn leadership: He oversaw multiple waves of layoffs and cuts at Fiserv in 2022. Pumping a company’s stock price can often be accomplished by announcing these sorts of drastic reductions in the cost of labor — the news of potentially increased profits causes an uptick, enriching shareholders. Fiserv also spent $3.7 billion on buybacks from 2017 to 2019, another costly tactic that boosts share value.

In other words, Bisignano delivers for wealthy investors and shareholders, at any cost; he is especially willing to sacrifice workers. What else can we anticipate of Bisignano’s leadership style? Perhaps the following may be instructive: On December 6, just two days after Bisignano’s nomination was unveiled, Fiserv (with him still at the helm), laid off another 1,500 employees. Both before and after that event, numerous Fiserv employees, commenting on the anonymous testimonial site The Layoff, expressed outrage over Bisignano’s SSA appointment along with utter disgust over his tenure at Fiserv, with many citing his insensitivity and his heavy-handed role in its culture of overwork and intensive surveillance. Glassdoor reviews bode no better for the CEO.

There is no indication that Bisignano will refuse to aid Trump and the right as they explore various means of sabotaging one of the nation’s most successful, longstanding and crucially important social programs.

Bisignano is poised to run a highly complex federal agency of immense size, with 1,200 field offices and around 60,000 employees. He has done no work in the field of social services or public policy. “What he has done,” Altman continued, “doesn’t give me any confidence — because he’s overseen what they would call ‘efficiency,’ and what I would call ‘cutting off the workers at the neck.’”

It is additionally difficult to imagine that Bisignano, a man who earns tens of millions of dollars a year (and reportedly has a net worth of almost $1 billion), would understand the needs of elderly retirees in a nation where around half of senior Americans struggle to afford basic living expenses. Social Security aids over 70 million people, many of them living solely on SSA benefits — which, in 2024, averaged $1,862 a month. (SSA also provides disability benefits, survivor benefits and Supplemental Security Income to the very poor.)

Diana Madoshi, 79, is a retired registered nurse, now living in a one-bedroom apartment in California. She shared some of her story with Truthout via phone: “I’ve been working since I was 17 years of age. I’ve been putting into Social Security system as part of my wages, and at one point in my life I had contributed to an IRA account.”

“But then thanks to illness — which is expensive to have — I ended up having to use my IRA early. It was an autoimmune disease, lupus. Consequently, what I had left was just Social Security. Social Security is my lifeline. That is the only income that I have. If I don’t have my Social Security check coming to me, I would be homeless.”

“It means a lot to me, and not only to me, but to a lot of other people. I really feel strongly, because this is something I’ve worked and I’ve put into. Social Security is not a welfare check. I worked hard and I paid into the system.”

Madoshi described how she finds it difficult to watch the wealthy and powerful propose, with cavalier attitudes, to take her sole livelihood away from her. A critical, load-bearing social program, of the utmost importance to the well-being of Madoshi and tens of millions of retired Americans like her, is under incessant attack. These threats are soon to be intensified under the incoming Trump administration — with the probable collaboration of the agency’s own new commissioner.

A Well-Protected Entitlement

Slashing millions of seniors’ aid outright, though, will not be easy. Social Security is so popular that cutting benefits is seen as politically anathema. It is the proverbial “third rail” of American politics — untouchable, and practically suicidal for any politician who ventures that way. (This fact alone attests to the power of universal public benefits; their institution creates a ratcheting effect, such that revoking them guarantees colossal backlash.) Even the most hell-bent Republicans are obliged to pay lip service to the program publicly and dance around their real intent (including Trump himself, who on December 8 said his administration is “not touching” Social Security). Congressional Republicans must seek more covert means of undermining it, or face a swift ousting.

In a call with Wall Street analysts that was quoted in Bloomberg, Bisignano predictably declared the same: “I have no objective to cut the benefit of any American, I’m going to fix it by doing other things. I hope you guys root for me to do that in the way that I did other turnarounds.” Bloomberg noted that he gave no other details on his actual plans.

Social Security has other defensive ramparts as well. Efforts to open SSA funds up to investment speculation would be difficult, though not impossible — there are legal barriers that would forestall a ransacking by private equity. The fund is forbidden from investing in anything other than federally backed treasury bonds; these investments make up 5.4 percent of SSA revenue. (The vast majority is from the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), a payroll tax, which is the familiar charge contributed monthly by employees and employers.)

It would require congressional legislation to change the treasury bonds investment requirement and open up funds to speculation. However, Altman notes, Bisignano “could certainly advocate for that [legislation], and try to get powerful people to push for it.”

But there are more feasible means of undermining SSA. She went on: “They’ve been unsuccessful in even cutting the program, much less terminating it, destroying it. But they wouldn’t do it [overtly], so that anyone could tell. Instead, they would decimate it” by indirect means. “It’s really death by a thousand cuts.”

Fixing What’s Not Broken

The House Republican Study Committee, which comprises a large majority of Republican House members, has proposed making harsh reductions in SSA benefits by increasing the retirement age to 69. Why is the right so eager to slash the beloved program? “One [reason] is ideological: their idea that government is the problem. But the other reason is, there’s about a trillion dollars flowing through Social Security each year. Of that, the wealthy get zero,” Altman explained.

“If the benefits were cut, to even have a chance of being able to retire, you’d have to accumulate the funds on your own. To do that, you’ll have to invest money in Wall Street, to buy stocks and bonds, and you’d have to pay high fees. There’s a lot of money to be made,” Altman continued. Eliminating SSA would essentially force the privatization of retirement. As such, “Conservatives have a solution in search of a problem. Every answer is, cut the benefits.”

Indeed, there has been a longstanding ideological effort to convince the public to consent to cuts. In the media, doomsaying analyses professing the imminent demise of Social Security are commonplace. (Bloomberg’s December 7 article uncritically parrots findings on the necessity of SSA cuts from the “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,” an ostensibly nonpartisan group that has links to the tobacco industry and multiple billionaires and advocates for the diminution of social welfare spending.)

“I did not anticipate celebrating my 79th birthday and being worried about some fools, who got more money than they need to, trying to cut Social Security, and being so blasé about saying we should all feel the pain.”

This narrative — of the imminent bankruptcy and failure of the agency — is as pernicious and persistent as it is baseless. Social Security cuts are often proposed in the name of “fixing the deficit.” This is a smokescreen. “The important thing to know about Social Security is: it doesn’t add a penny to the deficit,” Altman said. “That’s also true of the associated administrative cost. It’s completely self-financed. It has no borrowing authority. In fact, it’s a creditor, not a debtor to the United States. But that’s the argument they use.”

Credulous reporting and think-tank fearmongering have produced a narrative, widely believed, that Social Security is worsening the deficit, or is somehow insolvent or out of funds. The sleight of hand, Altman said, goes like this: “You tell old people, don’t worry, you’re going to get your benefits. You tell young people, you’ve got to retire using your private accounts [and can’t expect Social Security money].… This is how they’ll get people to turn against the program.”

In truth, said Altman, Social Security is self-funding and abundantly secure. If it ever actually went insolvent, “we’d have way more serious problems than Social Security. It would mean that nobody is working. And I mean zero. One hundred percent unemployment.”

Still, Social Security’s actuaries have predicted a potential shortfall in the 2030s — one that wasn’t supposed to occur until 2075. This is due to one of the actual impediments to Social Security: the rise of extreme wealth and income inequality. There is an earnings cap on Social Security’s funding payroll taxes, and high earners making over $160,200 (as of 2023) are exempt. This skewing of the tax structure, with the greater share of wealth going to the rich, is hurting Social Security’s FICA income, as the Economic Policy Institute has documented. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office released a policy option report exploring methods of keeping SSA solvent by raising the cap, so that higher earners would pay more.

“It’s destabilizing, this income inequality,” Altman said. But any shortfall could still easily be remedied — by taxing the high earners who have avoided contributing. “There’s a chance for meaningful tax reform by getting rid of the most egregious tax loopholes and giving that revenue to Social Security,” she went on.

Cuts, in other words, are not a foregone conclusion, as many claim. In the scheme of things, not all that much is required: “Whether we expand benefits or cut benefits is really a matter of values. Currently, the program costs about 5 percent of GDP. By the end of the 21st century, it’ll cost 6 percent of GDP. That’s all we’re talking about.”

A Thousand Cuts

What the right has been more successful in doing is in undermining the SSA’s effectiveness by limiting its administrative capabilities — with the aim of making it so frustrating to use that people turn on the program. “Already people die waiting to get their benefits.… Lots of Republican Congresses have starved the agency. It’s got large backlogs, it’s really understaffed, morale is very low,” said Altman. An inspector general audit of the SSA reported a backlog of 5.2 million pending actions, which are complex benefits decisions that must be processed by employees, not computers, at SSA processing centers (PCs). The backlog has resulted in delays and miscalculated overpayments and underpayments to beneficiaries. In August, the agency said that these problems are attributable to “unexpected staff reductions, increased workloads, and less than expected overtime funding that would have been used to pay employees to process more PC pending actions.” Bisignano’s favorite means of cost-slashing, the layoff, and his choice to forbid telework at Fiserv bode poorly for the chances of remediating these concerns.

Altman also worries that “deficit hawk” liberals — Joe Biden himself, for instance, has consistently advocated SSA cuts to “balance the budget” over the course of his career — might aid the right’s efforts. While many congressional Democrats do continue to advocate for SSA expansion, there is a demonstrated history of centrist liberals’ willingness to compromise on the issue, as in 2013, when President Obama offered Republicans a “Grand Bargain” that included recalculating SSA payments to disburse lower benefits, drawing the ire of his progressive supporters.

Should cuts be on the table, warned Altman, “centrist Democrats would say, ‘Oh, we’re concerned about the deficit, we hate this provision, but what can we do.’ That’s the real threat. That’s what our concern is: to make sure Democrats don’t agree in the name of deficits.”

The Beneficiaries

Social Security is one of the few remaining guarantees that the United States still makes to its citizens — the vestige of a time before the brutal austerity of the neoliberal consensus. It recalls the promise of the New Deal and a mid-century span of relatively fairer pay, social benefits and workers’ rights. Altman described Social Security’s centrality to the lives of working people, noting, “There are field offices in every neighborhood, and they’re like post offices. They’re really vital. They’re the face of the government to a lot of people. And that’s probably part of the reason I think Republicans have been starving it.”

Diana Madoshi’s story — when her savings were eradicated by illness, the social safety net caught her — underscores the program’s fundamental humanity.

“I’m very incensed that very well-heeled people, who’ve never done any decent work in their lives, like Mr. Trump, want to be going after Social Security,” Madoshi told Truthout.

“Tomorrow,” she went on, “I’ll be 79 years old. And I did not anticipate celebrating my 79th birthday and being worried about some fools, who got more money than they need to, trying to cut Social Security, and being so blasé about saying we should all feel the pain. Well, they’re not feeling no pain. I’m not no billionaire.”

“If I sound very passionate about it, I am. I’m scared. I am scared. I’m scared not only for myself, but for so many other people too.”