By Preeti Bishop, HAC Senior Attorney
2025 heralds a renewed urgency for disability advocacy and our work.1
Confoundingly, incomprehensibly, our nation has elected Donald Trump, a convicted felon,2 for a second presidency (How did we get here?! Rhetorical, I know.)
From having practiced law in two vast democracies, I have seen firsthand, that “the Law” is a reflection of “the Society” (and vice versa; they influence each other, of course). The ever-increasing partisanship and polarization in our society is clearly, and painfully, reflected in the state of our federal legislature (certainly our last few elections have shown this), executive branch, and even our judiciary (including the Supreme Court) – the three pillars of our democracy.
Social Security, at nearly a fifth of total federal spending, is a lifeline providing ongoing monthly benefits to nearly 70 million retirees, survivors, and people with disabilities. As our country’s population ages, and birth rates decline, this safety net of our country is overburdened3 and already facing an historic funding crisis.4
On the other hand, increasing homelessness and poverty, compounded by social isolation, mental illness, substance dependence, and increasing challenges in accessing relevant health care are real issues that need serious and urgent attention.
The question at the top of our minds is what will this regime change mean for social security, disability, and poverty law?
As we step into 2025, the question at the top of nearly all our minds – disability law practitioners and advocates, the 20% of American population reliant on these benefits, the array of providers (social workers, mental health and medical professionals), and concerned citizens – is, what will this regime change at the federal level mean for social security, and disability and poverty law?
Without meaning to sound like a doomsayer, post Covid (and consequent challenges from the ending5 of pandemic relief), post Grants Pass6 (and emboldened encampment sweeps7 by cities), post yet another round of catastrophic wildfires in the West, intense winter storms in the East, and an expected record-setting hurricane season in the South (you know, those 100-year events that are now a recurrent annual feature), post the staggeringly Ex Machina style omnipresent AI, making it harder to even measure just how good it is getting, and with unsurprisingly record levels of homelessness,8 a Trump 2.0 administration presents a real and imperative threat.
Public musings about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, acquisition of Greenland, colonization of Mars, and a military force in space may seem like laughable gambits but are far from funny. In the past, contrary to his rhetoric of not cutting a penny, Trump has proposed spending cuts in Social Security while advocating cutting taxes on Social Security (i.e., giving tax breaks to the rich but further restricting Social Security’s dwindling corpus), which thankfully never made it through Congress. Now, with DOGE,9 that oversight may be lost.
Cruelty Masquerading as Government Efficiency
Trump announced DOGE in the early days following the election results. Dodgy as it sounds, the “Department for Government Efficiency” is a new, unofficial government department to streamline costs and slash regulations, much of it likely implemented through Executive Orders. (A lot of litigation will likely follow, moving through the circuit courts, all the way to SCOTUS, but many question the objectiveness and political neutrality of our highest court. Surely a sign of the times.) The DOGE is headed by billionaire Elon Musk, who (in)famously owns Tesla, X (formerly Twitter), and Space X. As a trillion dollar budget item – the single largest US government spend – Social Security is one of the lower hanging fruit for an agency like DOGE.
Quite apart from DOGE, three of Trump’s announced plans may bear unhappy news for Social Security funding:
- tax cuts for Social Security benefits (directly reducing10 the funding to Social Security, although increasing benefits for some baby boomers);
- steeper tariffs (increasing prices in the domestic economy, reduced revenue, potential retaliations, and a potentially shrinking economy); and
- deportation of more than a million undocumented workers who pay billions11 in payroll taxes and never get a cent in return (shrinking the economy both by reducing the number of potential workers and their ability to pay for goods and services).
2025 will have the smallest Social Security cost-of-living adjustment since 2020 (2.5%, down from 3.2% in 2024). This arguably means a lower increase in prices of groceries, utilities, and basic necessities but offers no relief against already-too-high current prices that many are struggling to meet.
We are already seeing longer wait times in case processing, reduced access, and worsening staffing challenges.
Burdening this COLA will be a 6% increase in Medicare Part B, from $174.50 to $185, which covers doctors and other outpatient treatment, and which are deducted from monthly SSI benefits.
SSA recently announced transitioning to a system of appointment-based services,12 requiring people to visit field offices only by prior appointments, with implementation starting in December 2024. Designed to reduce wait times, we (practitioners) are ironically already seeing longer wait times in case processing, reduced access even via phone, disappearing in-person appointments at field offices, and worsening staffing challenges.
2025 will see a continuation of changes over the past several years – the annual two-month increase in Full Retirement Age, an increase in the amount of income subject to Social Security taxes (up to $176,100 in 2025 from $168,600 in 2024), and an increase in how much income you need to earn to qualify for a Social Security credit ($1,810 in 2025, up from $1,730 in 2024).
A Direct Threat to the Most Vulnerable People
This real and imperative threat to the country’s biggest social program is a direct threat to our most vulnerable population, who are often least able to advocate for their protection. History has repeatedly shown that such a threat is the beginning of the downfall of the mightiest societies.
There is no doubt that Social Security needs bipartisan and meaningful reform, and there are no easy solutions on the horizon. While that slow reform (hopefully) moves, our work at the Homeless Action Center is urgent and important, now more than ever, in the face of this threat.
The fact of the matter remains that people experiencing homelessness, disabilities, and poverty are not a problem to be bussed off or swept away. They have to be seen and secured for who they absolutely are – a part of us.
In the face of all this, being at HAC – our commitment, our leadership, our values, our people – keeps me going and keeps my hope up. Over the last decade, we’ve not only strengthened our Benefits Advocacy and Drop-in Services at HAC but also introduced incredible new programs like Outreach and most recently, Almost Home, HAC’s transitional housing facility. All this while building our organization and strengthening our staff programs with engaging, participative committees, mentorship, training, and DEI, to name just a few.
At the time of writing this, we are in process of moving our Berkeley office from Shattuck Avenue (which I will nostalgically miss) to Dwight Way. In the coming weeks, HAC will review our progress over the past year, celebrate our wins, showcase our clients’ successes, and enjoy some fun and food.
One foot in front of the other, slowly but surely, is the only way forward, and you can bet we are on it!
- https://homelessactioncenter.org/about-us/ ↩︎
- https://www.npr.org/2025/01/10/nx-s1-5253927/trump-sentencing-new-york ↩︎
- https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/admin.html ↩︎
- https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/ ↩︎
- https://stateline.org/2023/01/23/as-pandemic-rent-relief-ends-states-struggle-to-prevent-homelessness/ ↩︎
- https://homelessactioncenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/HAC-Grants-Pass-Statement.pdf ↩︎
- https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/12/california-homelessness-2024-review/ ↩︎
- https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2024-AHAR-Part-1.pdf ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Efficiency ↩︎
- https://www.fool.com/retirement/2024/12/14/trump-social-security-plan-unintended-consequences/ ↩︎
- https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/ ↩︎
- https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/reference.nsf/lnx/12042024013818PM ↩︎