John,

The walls of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which lies blocks from the U.S. Capitol, are decorated with stunning New Deal-era murals.

The most famous of these murals, The Meaning of Social Security, depicts life before and after Social Security. On one side are images of suffering people, including seniors and children. On the other are people living in dignity. The mural shows the best of America, what we can do when we all come together to build our Social Security system.

Thanks to Donald Trump, The Meaning of Social Security — along with everything it represents — is now in grave danger.

Social Security Works was founded to answer a grave threat to our Social Security system. We succeeded then, but our earned benefits are still in grave danger. Wall Street billionaires fund campaigns to dismantle Social Security, and it’s up to us to fight back. Can you chip in $7 to Social Security Works today?

The Trump administration is making moves to demolish the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, inevitably destroying The Meaning of Social Security in the process.¹

Trump plans to take a wrecking ball to this key piece of Social Security’s history, just as he did to the East Wing of the White House. But this is about more than just a mural. Trump might wait until 2026 to take a literal wrecking ball to the priceless depiction of Social Security, but he spent 2025 doing everything in his power to demolish our invaluable Social Security system itself.

Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security.² Not surprisingly given his past history, he betrayed that promise over and over again in 2025.³ (Notably, he made the same promise in 2016, then proposed cuts to Social Security in every one of his budgets⁴ during his first term.)

On November 22, 2024, months before he was even sworn in as president for his second term, Trump chose Russell Vought to be his powerful head of the Office of Management and Budget, which has control over the entire government. Vought, the lead architect of Project 2025, made the Trump administration’s agenda plain, infamously declaring:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work…

The Trump administration may want to traumatize the people who make sure Social Security checks go out in full and on time every month, but we’re standing with them. Social Security Works fought to protect Social Security offices and Social Security workers in 2025, and we’re ready to keep going in 2026! Donate today!

Trump gave Elon Musk’s DOGE unprecedented power over the federal government, including Social Security, immediately after assuming office. Musk and his henchmen used that power to:

1. Force out thousands of the dedicated civil servants who run Social Security, disproportionately those with the most experience and institutional knowledge. That despite the fact that the Social Security Administration was already extremely understaffed and overburdened, with 12,000 Americans turning age 65 every day.

2. Illegally copy the American people’s private Social Security data to an insecure server for an undisclosed purpose. The data is now vulnerable to hackers — including foreign governments.

3. Promote lies about Social Security. Musk and his acolytes claimed that Social Security is full of fraud and improper payments, a claim Trump repeated to a huge national audience during his televised March 4th address to Congress. In fact, Social Security has a payment accuracy rate of over 99 percent — far better than private sector retirement programs.

In short, Trump, Vought, and Musk created chaos, havoc, and trauma. They changed longstanding procedures arbitrarily, often only to change them back. They created general uncertainty for the dedicated civil servants, always with the threat of more firings hanging over their heads. They got rid of those most knowledgeable about and experienced with Social Security’s systems, making the likelihood of a catastrophic crash much more likely.

Elon Musk is no longer officially in government, but Vought still is, and Musk’s DOGE minions can still be found at SSA and elsewhere throughout the executive branch.

The stain Musk left on Social Security will take decades to come off. But we’re ready to start scrubbing. Will you make a $7 donation to stand with us today?

Trump’s choice to lead Social Security, self-described “DOGE person” Frank Bisignano, is carrying on Musk’s sabotage. Bisignano has no expertise in Social Security. He even admitted that when Trump offered him the job, the first thing he did was google “Social Security.”⁵ But Bisignano does have expertise in hollowing out companies — and in lying about it.

Before running Social Security, Bisignano was the head of Fiserv, a financial services company, where he laid off thousands of workers. Fiserv’s stock recently dropped by 40 percent. The company’s current CEO blamed Bisignano, saying that “many of the assumptions and projections set by prior leaders were too rosy.”⁶

That’s the kind of person Trump wants signing off on Social Security’s annual Trustees Report. Do you??

Here’s what happened at Fiserv: When Bisignano joined the government, he was required to sell his shares of Fiserv. Doing so before the 40 percent drop allowed him to avoid over $200 million in losses. Bisignano was either very lucky, or intentionally fleeing a sinking ship. Bisignano is now a defendant in several lawsuits brought by Fiserv investors. In addition, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are currently conducting a probe into what Bisignano knew, and when.

Bisignano appears to have brought his Fiserv tricks to Social Security. Under his leadership, the Social Security Administration has removed longstanding metrics from its website.⁷ Bisignano is touting rosy new metrics, but the truth is that he is cherry picking data and comparing apples to oranges.

For example, Bisignano says that wait times on Social Security’s 1-800 number are down. What he doesn’t mention is that calls may be picked up by a glitchy AI chatbot or by workers who have been diverted from already understaffed field offices.⁸ It doesn’t matter how quickly a call is answered if the caller does not get the help that they need.

We’re called Social Security Works because it does. But this administration is doing everything it can to make our name a lie. We’re fighting back, and we’re not going to stop. Can you chip in $7 today?

Between pushing people out and reassigning others to the 1-800 number, field offices are increasingly understaffed. That means longer waits to get in-person help. Essential work is not getting done.

That means millions of Americans may get hit, in six months or a year, with official notices informing them that they have been overpaid, and demanding that within the next month, they pay the government thousands of dollars.

Millions more will likely be underpaid but never know it.

Importantly, Social Security is facing a shortfall in less than a decade. Rather than addressing it by requiring billionaires like himself to pay their fair share, Trump is doing everything he can to make the shortfall worse. His tariffs, record deficits, and other policies are leading to high inflation, which means Social Security is paying out larger amounts. Those policies, together with his deportation of hard-working immigrants, are also leading to unemployment and stagnant wages, so less is being contributed to Social Security.

Though the shortfall is manageable, Trump’s actions give Congress less time to act and increase the chances politicians will go behind closed doors to cut working families’ benefits in the dark of night.

We are vigilant, and we are fighting back. Together, we will save Social Security from Donald Trump. It won’t be easy, but it is essential. Can you pitch in $7 today?

In Social Security’s ninety-year history, no president has come close to undermining it the way Donald Trump has done in less than twelve months. President George W. Bush sought to privatize Social Security, but to his credit, he was totally transparent about his proposal. Appropriately, the more he campaigned for it, the more unpopular it became.

In stark contrast, Trump is seeking to destroy Social Security in the dark. The very sense of security that lifted us out of the Great Depression is what Trump is destroying — and he wants to erase the memory that another way is possible. He wants a second American gilded age, with gold-plated everything for elites and suffering for the rest of us.

Together, we will stop him. We will make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, and we will protect our earned benefits for generations to come. Rush a donation today!

Thank you,

Nancy Altman
Social Security Works

¹ https://newrepublic.com/article/204201/trump-bulldoze-new-deal-murals
² https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-trump-has-promised-for-his-2nd-administration
³ https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/politics/trump-desantis-social-security-ponzi-scheme
⁴ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/09/trump-desantis-biden-social-security-medicare/
⁵ https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-head-social-security-hired-wall-street-tells/story?id=122075152
⁶ https://www.wsj.com/business/c-suite/fiserv-erases-30-billion-in-market-value-after-new-ceo-pulls-guidance-63c8ba9f
⁷ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/20/social-security-wait-times-cuts/
⁸ https://www.businessinsider.com/social-security-field-staff-reassigned-phones-call-wait-data-vanishes-2025-7