Four Trump-Musk Threats to Social Security; Can Dems Dodge DOGE?; Pensions Lose Fiduciary Protection; Social Security Fraud, Abuse Below 1%; Study: Men Die Ever Younger Than Women; Long Trauma Impact on Refugee Children; KALW’s Coping with Grief Series; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
March 10, 2025 — Volume 32, Number 4
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply send a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, we’ll email the table of contents and links to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: Welcome to the Tariffble Twenties!
1. THE TRUMP-MUSK AGENDA (PART 2) Social Security, Pensions at Risk:
*** Social Security’s Once Untouchable “Third Rail” of US Politics;
*** Are They “Dumb Enough” to Cut Benefits;
*** Four Threats To Social Security From Trump Policies;
*** NYT Exposes DOGE Math Problem
2. SOCIAL SECURITY STORY LINKS
*** “Four Threats To Social Security From Trump Policies,” by Teresa Ghilarducci, PhD, Forbes;
*** “Social Security has never missed a payment. DOGE actions threaten ‘interruption of benefits,’ ex-agency head says,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC;
*** “DOGE Has a Math Problem,” New York Times “The Daily” podcast, David A. Fahrenthold;
*** “Trump Vowed To End Surprise Medical Bills. The Office Working on That Just Got Slashed,” by Noam N. Levey, KFF Health News.
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Men Die Younger Than Women. Is it time for a focus on men’s health?” by Ashley Milne-Tyte, NPR News;
*** “After the Darién: Venezuelan migrant children and the mental health challenge the face,” co-written with photography by Clavel Rangel and Katie Scarlett Brandt, and edited by Tibisay Zea, El Tiempo Latino and Chicago Health Magazine.
*** PLUS Fellowship in New York — Apply by March 24 for “How to Cover Aging,” at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism.
4. GOOD GRIEF : *** “Coping With Grief” series, KALW San Francisco public radio’s “Your Call,” by host Rose Aguilar (Feb. 11-13, 2025).
5. LETTER TO GBONEWS: Hollywood Not Old-Old Enough, Plus Lists of Top Movies and Docs.
1. THE TRUMP-MUSK AGENDA (PART 2): SOCIAL SECURITY AND PENSIONS
Not unlike many journalists trying to cover the Trump-Musk debris flow and figure out where to start, GBONews’ editor finally dropped my hands from the side of my head, like Munch’s “The Scream,” and took a breath. I called or emailed a few seasoned generations-beat reporters for their ideas. Part 1, in our previous issue of GBONews, drilled, baby, drilled into the substrata of issues, such as Medicare Advantage and the impacts of mass firings and layoffs on the older, well experienced federal workforce and those they serve.
But our respondents sent enough worthwhile suggestions for GBONews to add this Part II, and there may be more to come. Your editor would also welcome specific angles and recommendations from our readers on where reporters might look for stories likely being missed in mainstream coverage.
One footnote here: An essential background tutorial (25 mins.) details what you need to know about where Trump-Musk’s found the know-how to monkey-wrench the inner gears of the federal government. “Stephen Miller’s Return to Power,” which ran on the New York Times podcast, “The Daily,” with reporter Jonathan Swan, on Jan. 27, 2025, examines the path to the Ov.al Office of right-wing extremist Miller. Swan and other NYT staffers also joined for this written discussion of Miller’s role.
Following are a few choice thoughts on what lies ahead for Social Security, the health insurance industry and other concerns, with suggestions of sources that may help reporters get on top of critical issues.
*** Social Security –- Could Trump Derail the “Third Rail of Politics”?Politicians have long called Social Security the “third rail of politics” – It’s so popular across age groups that politicians who touch it have been said to watch their political careers sizzle to a crisp.
In 2005, President George W. Bush’s initiative to partially privatize the program, aiming to slice off a portion of its Trust Funds for Wall Street investment, was crushed by public opposition. (Presidents Bill Clinton before him, and Barak Obama after Bush, also intended to compromise the program in deals with the GOP — and the Dem’s Wall Street donors — that would have effectively weakened Social Security’s finances in the name of “bipartisanship.”
So, although touching Social Security may present politicians a predictable risk, its danger continues to be tested by officials of both parties. Why? The entitlement’s protective Trust Funds for citizens still gleam as pots of gold for major investors.
For the current round, reporters will need to keep their eyes peeled, as the DOGE-ocrats might shift around their pea (for privatization) among their corporate shell strategies. Already the administration has announced it would cut 7,000 jobs (15%) of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) workforce. Those firings are likely, despite the Social Security Commissioner’s claim of increasing efficiency, to weaken services, and public confidence in the program.
Watch for proposals to revive past plans to cut benefits, such as by raising the eligibility age, or ‘improving” its revenue with (not so) “prudent” investments. Another tried and untrue ploy has been to propose changing the formula for calculating the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, to the Consumer Price Index. That calibration was rejected in the past, because the CPI would fail to keep millions seniors ahead of the cost of living.
SSA “has been grappling with a customer service crisis for years, resulting from budget cuts imposed by Congress at a time when an aging population’s demand for services is growing,” said Mark Miller, a frequent contributor the NYT’s Sunday Business “Retiring” column, Miller, and whose respected Retirement Revised blog runs on Substack.
In an email to GBONews, Miller added, “Social Security has emphasized online services for most of the last decade. But the field offices and the teleservices operation are critical for people without internet access and for those dealing with complicated questions or problems.”
Furthermore, he said, “The pandemic also impacted SSA, making it much tougher for some people to apply for benefits. Now we are seeing signs that the administration wants to shrink the SSA further. DOGE already has tagged 10 SSA field offices for closure, and there is talk that they plan to shrink the physical footprint much more dramatically — and possibly also go after the teleservice operation.”
Miller stressed that although Trump hasn’t released an explicit plan for addressing Social Security’s looming solvency problem, “the clock is ticking. Social Security’s combined retirement and disability Trust Funds are on track to be depleted in 2035, according to the program’s trustees. If the reserves are exhausted, current workers’ payroll tax contributions would only be enough to pay 83% of the benefits promised to current and future beneficiaries.”
His Retirement Revised blog for March 7, went further, asking, “Is Privatization the End Game on Social Security?”
Are They “Dumb Enough” to Try?
In an email, Rodney A. Brooks, author of Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap, remarked, “People are worried about reduction in benefits; I don’t think this administration is dumb enough to cut benefits for people already receiving Social Security, but they might for people who haven’t filed yet. Watch for them increasing the age for full benefits retirement, and maybe increasing the age for filing for early benefits (age 62).” As a modest trade-off, he said, “They may also increase the income cap for Social Security.”
Right now wage earnings over $176,100 are not taxed for Social Security. Democrats have variously proposed increasing that amount variously up to $250,000, or $400,000. (Those numbers have to do with actuarial calculations for maintaining the program’s solvency.)
By the way, not subject at all for Social Security or Medicare are non-wage types of income, such as millions paid to top corporate executives through instruments, such as stock options, used mainly to limit income tax obligations for very affluent people.
As former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich in the Clinton administration and UC Berkeley emeritus professor, has explained, top executive can use those holdings as collateral for bank loans, to yield ongoing income as loans, taken at much lower interest rates than income and related taxes would cost them. Reich has told of his being “in the room” when, against his advice, the decision was made leading to Clinton’s allowing this practice, thus resulting in today’s astronomical CEO compensation.
Regarding current congressional action on the program, Brooks went on, “If they do nothing, the fear is that Social Security will not be there. It’s supposed to run out in 2037. People are worried that benefits will be reduced. I don’t think they will reduce benefits for people already receiving checks, but they might look at cutting benefits for people who are filing later.”
Pensions: What’s a “Fiduciary,” Again?
Mark Miller, also author of Retirement Reboot: Common Sense Strategies for Getting Back on Track (Agate Publishing, 2023), further surmised, “The Trump administration could roll back the Department of Labor’s [DOL] fiduciary rule that protects investors’ best interests around IRAs. Savings in 401(k) accounts are protected by the fiduciary protections of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which has been in place since 1974. But IRAs fall outside that rule because they aren’t managed by employers, and they hold more money than defined-contribution plans.”
He continued, “The DOL’s fiduciary rule requires more financial professionals to act as fiduciaries when they advise people on investments that roll over from workplace plans to IRAs. The rule took effect in September, although it faces ongoing litigation challenges, and some of its requirements don’t kick in until September 2025.”
Miller stressed, though, “The first Trump administration unplugged an earlier fiduciary standard that had been promulgated by the Obama administration, and DOL officials have acknowledged that the new rule could face a similar fate.”
In the meantime, President Trump, in his March 4 address to Congress, continued his practice of repeating falsehoods about fraud in Social Security, which reporters need to counter with hard facts. A handy fact-check for those is a report issued by report by SSA’s Inspector General in July 2024, titled, “Preventing, Detecting, and Recovering Improper Payments.”
This audit report, which is critical of the government for not adopting previously recommended measure to crack down on errors and abuses even more than it does, states that less than 1% of program funds are lost. The audit found, “SSA issues over $1 trillion in benefit payments annually. Even the slightest error in the overall payment process can result in billions of dollars in improper payments. For example, from [Fiscal Years] 2015 through 2022, SSA paid almost $8.6 trillion in benefits and made approximately $71.8 billion (0.84 percent) in improper payments, most of which were overpayments.”
The Trump-Musk “efficiency” measure of eliminating at least 7,000 workers, about 15% of the agency’s workforce, and closing local Social Security offices around the country, would be predictably counter-efficient. Included would be some of the “most senior leaders, a mass exodus of institutional knowledge and expertise,” according to Alex Lawson, executive director of the Washington advocacy group, Social Security Works.
Reporters trying to field the Trump-Musk fusillade of falsehoods need to keep in mind the classic “complex question” taught in philosophy 101 classes. The old version, “Do you still beat your wife?” could well be framed now as, “Are you still cheating the public?”
This original gotcha trap forces those confronted with it to bury themselves in complexities, thus losing the argument by becoming tongue tied. Conservatives opposed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s anti-Depression hiring programs, such as the very successful Civilian Conservation Corps, smeared it as “featherbedding.” That term for presumably soft, “do-nothing” government jobs, stuck in the national idiom (and mind) for decades.
2. SOCIAL SECURITY STORY LINKS
*** “Four Threats To Social Security From Trump Policies,” by Teresa Ghilarducci, PhD, Forbes (March 5, 2025): Ghilarducci, a Forbes Senior Contributor, chairs the Economics Department at the New School for Social Research, where she also directs the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. Her latest book is Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
The Lede: “There is a good chance someone you know will not get their Social Security check in the next one to three months. The Trump administration – just a few weeks old – has already undermined Social Security with four threats: checks may not be sent on time; drastic cuts in service are planned; transparency and accountability are reduced; and Social Security insolvency is coming sooner.”
Ghilarducci continued, “Social Security (SSA), without doubt, is our most important social program: 72 million retirees, spouses, people with disabilities, children – according to SSA data– receive a check each month and the vast majority depend on it for most of their livelihood. Social Security lifted about 16.1 million older adults above the poverty line.”
*** “Social Security has never missed a payment. DOGE actions threaten ‘interruption of benefits,’ ex-agency head says,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC (Updated March 3, 2025): “Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago. But the recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner . . . Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.”
Konish rightly states, “The Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, is not a federal department.” Other reporters are shortening this to phrases, such as “the so-called department . . . .” These qualifications are critical to the public’s understanding that the use of “Department” by this White House falsely identifies Elon Musk’s effort as equivalent to congressionally approved cabinet-level Departments of the United States government’s executive branch.
Although a president can appoint a variety of committees or commissions by executive order, it is deceptive to establish a “Department” by decree. Journalists and news organizations should continue the ethical practice of calling attention to the questionable designation of the term “department” in the presidential context. Mr. Trump’s party majorities can consider his request to create DOGE officially, one hopes with its functions and purposes clearly described for public scrutiny and comment.
Editor’s note: In the meantime, GBONews’ editor would welcome reader’s recommendations of more apt titles to fit the DOGE acronym. Perhaps, Deception of Government Efficiency, or – I’m sure you can do better than that. Drop me a note with your DOGE brain teaser to pfkleyman@gmail.com.
*** “DOGE Has a Math Problem,” New York Times “The Daily” podcast, David A. Fahrenthold, (March 4, 2025, 28 minutes): More than expose the bogus claims of billions saved by Musk’s “technical support,” many were due DOGE staff’s “sloppy” practices, such as claiming $8 billion for one account when it was actually $8 million. The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and his team raise fundamental questions about the political, not budgetary, nature of their imposed cuts—and their violations of trust that their actions are truly “efficient.”
*** AND – “Trump Vowed To End Surprise Medical Bills. The Office Working on That Just Got Slashed,” by Noam N. Levey, KFF Health News (March 4, 2025) — The Lede: “As President Donald Trump wrapped up his first term in 2020, he signed legislation to protect Americans from surprise medical bills. ‘This must end,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals totally accountable.’ But the president’s wide-ranging push to slash government spending, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is weakening the federal office charged with implementing the No Surprises Act. Some 15% of those working at the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, or CCIIO, were fired two weeks ago.”
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Men die younger than women. Is it time for a focus on men’s health?” by Ashley Milne-Tyte, NPR News (Feb. 19, 2025): The Lede – “Life expectancy for an American man is almost 76, versus 81 for a woman. But it’s not just older men dying sooner: those numbers are influenced by other deaths that come earlier in the lifespan. Derek Griffith, . . . at the University of Pennsylvania, would like to see far more attention paid to men’s health.”
A Quote: “’Women’s health has been understudied,’ Griffith says. ‘We don’t understand women’s health because we haven’t invested in it. I’m also saying the only thing we understand with men’s health is biology and genetics.’ On the other hand, Griffith says, we know very little about how the economy, stress and other factors affect men’s health.”
Widening Gap: “‘It’s not a zero-sum game,’ Griffith says. ‘We can promote women’s equality, equity, opportunities, while actually focusing on the health and well-being of men.’”
He has been researching men’s health for decades, with a special focus on Black and Latino men. He is alarmed that the longevity gap between men and women in the U.S. has grown wider.”
*** “After the Darién: Venezuelan migrant children and the mental health challenge the face,” co-written with photography by Clavel Rangel and Katie Scarlett Brandt, and edited by Tibisay Zea, El Tiempo Latino and Chicago Health Magazine (March 6, 2025): Richly produced in English and Spanish (see “Español” link in upper-right corner of opening screen) this two-part series provides a sobering reminder that aging does not begin at 65. Human development, with adverse childhood experiences, affect the very young throughout their lives.
The reporting team use interviews, photography and graphics to follow traumatized groups of children and their parents, from their journey to Texas through the treacherous Darién Gap out of Panama. There, they were then deceived into bussing to Chicago or New York, cities that had to scramble to assist them along with thousands of other migrants.
While these kinds of treks were devastating for so many refugees, this two-part series also shows how caring social services and school programs can stabilize children’s mental health and wellbeing.
We were especially gratified to learn about this collaboration, because Rangel, Brandt, and Zea have all been Journalists in Aging Fellows, the collaborative program of GBONews publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations, and The Gerontological Society of America.
Brandt emailed, “Our partnership on the project did in fact come about from our fellowship. I’ll always be thankful for that! Clavel and I met at the fellowship [training in Tampa in November 2023], and during the fellows’ dinner gathering, she told me she was starting a project on migrant kids’ mental health.
I told her about the volunteer work I’d been doing with the newcomer students at my son’s school [in Chicago], and from there we went. Clavel knew Tibisay separately, and the three of us started meeting regularly to figure out how to tackle this.” Tibisay had reported her fellowship project on aging for El Planeta newspapers in Boston.
Additional support for the Darién series came from Futuro Media, producer of NPR’s “Latino USA,” and “Reveal,” via Clavel’s fellowship with Investigative Reporters and Editors. Brandt added, “We also applied for and were awarded a grant through the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Clavel secured additional funding through her fellowship with International Women’s Media Foundation.”
That this stunning Darién series is about children, its having gelled from our fellowship on aging is exactly the kind of intergenerational outcome we hope for. It reminds this editor of that old SNL line, “Give ‘em a topic, and let the talk among themselves.”
*** Fellowship in New York — Apply by March 24 for a seminar titled, “How to Cover Aging: From ‘Healthspan’ Disparities to Age-Friendly Cities,”being held at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in New York City, June 4-6, 2025. “Open to journalists who have at least three years of full-time experience or the equivalent. . . . Participants will be reimbursed for their transportation to and from New York City. Lodging and food will be provided.” Those with questions may contact agingbeat@journalism.cuny.edu.
4. GOOD GRIEF
*** “Coping with Grief” series, KALW San Francisco public radio’s “Your Call.” Long-time call-in host, Rose Aguilar,” returned to the microphone Feb. 11-13, after taking three months to care for her father. In processing her intense grief following his death in hospice, she decided to open the lines of her hourlong program over three days to this under-covered issue. Working with producer Nina Kissinger, Aguilar’s trio broadcasts with excellent sources for reporters, included:
* “Coping with grief after losing a loved one,”: “Grief expert David Kessler joins us to discuss how people cope after experiencing loss. In his latest book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, he writes: “Grief grabs your heart and doesn’t seem to let go. But if you can manage to find meaning even in the most senseless loss, you can do more than get unstuck. . . . You can keep growing and finding ways to live a good and someday even joyous life, one enriched by the lessons and love of the person who died.” David Kessler is the author of six books, and founder of grief.com, coauthored two books with the late hospice champion, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
* “Navigating the death of a parent and transitioning to a new identity,”: “Fewer than half of US adults have lost at least one parent by age 49, but nearly 76 percent have by age 59, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Losing a parent at any time in your life is a significant event and can have lasting impacts. Debra Umberson, PhD, wrote Death of a Parent: Transition to a New Adult Identity, which explores changes in beliefs, behavior, goals, and sense of self. She writes that losing a parent in adulthood can be profoundly transformative.”
* “How the stress of loss can be an opportunity for healing” Says the website with grief expert and neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, discussing her new book, “The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing.”
Other Recommended Resources: National Institutes of Health: Coping with Grief; New York Times: One Thing to Never Say to a Grieving Friend; Grief.com: The Best and Worst Things to Say to Someone in Grief .
5. LETTER TO GBONEWS
Hollywood Not Old-Old Enough
Dear GBONews:
I appreciated your recent article in Next Avenue, “At 97, Oscars Show 50-Plus Successes,” [linked to in the March 1 issue of GBONews], but I do wish though that you had added some critique of the trend to focus on “vibrancy” in films that have 50-plus characters. Hollywood, in all of its monetizing fervor, has begun to recognize the “young old” as long as they still act young. Old-old? Not so much.
When the old-old do get attention they are still usually stereo-cast as “cute” and a bit addled. Even in a show as wonderful as A Man on the Inside [starring Ted Danson] this is apparent. Here is how I described it in my recent review in The Gerontologist.
Most of the “laughing at” humor in A Man on the Inside happens during the little side story scenes involving some of the residents—stories that accompany the main plot and help fill out the length for an eight-part series. In those scenes, it feels like the script and dialogue were written by someone still ensconced in the dominant cultural/societal perception of older adults as slightly inept and “cute.”
Jim Vanden Bosch, executive director and founder of Terra Nova Films, Chicago
James Vanden Bosch is a veteran documentary filmmaker and film distributor of programs on aging. His reviews appear in The Gerontologist, a journal of The Gerontological Society of America. See his list of the “Tops 12 Films on Elderhood and Aging,” along with a comparable selection of documentaries reviewed by his colleague, Rick Scheidt, at www.moviesaboutaging.org).
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2025 Paul Kleyman. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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