Economists claim border crackdown will speed up social security insolvency for US citizens

Economists have claimed that President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration will hasten Social Security’s inevitable insolvency.

Economists, specifically with the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) — a University of Pennsylvania project that evaluates public policy proposals — have theorized that the loss of money from illegal aliens no longer paying into Social Security will make it go bankrupt quicker.

“Unauthorized immigrants paid about $24 billion in Social Security taxes in 2024 despite being ineligible for future benefits,” the economists reported last month.

“Replacing the lost revenue from permanent deportation would require increasing payroll taxes, or some other equivalent, to collect an additional $180 per year from the median U.S. household in 2025, growing at around 3.5 percent each year in the future,” the report continued.

Critics have already begun to cast doubt on these numbers, not to mention the underlying premise.

Penn must have done some Olympic level mental gymnastics to calculate this.

Illegals can’t contribute to social security without committing social security fraud. So….

Also, SS, being a Ponzi scheme by definition, is already insolvent. https://t.co/dSHFA1k93o

— Andrew (@FinanceTX) July 1, 2025

“This is a stupid report,” one critic tweeted. “Why would illegal aliens choose to pay taxes? How can they get an SSI number to pay taxes? The program will be insolvent because the government spends our money illegally!!!!!”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors anyway,” another critic added. “A Government shouldn’t base solvency of a fund based on illegal activities.”

Meanwhile, Unleash Prosperity, a group that’s purportedly conservative, has claimed via a new study of its own that without an increase in legal immigration, the Trump administration may not be able to hit a goal of 3 percent or higher GDP.

“The study highlighted the role played by immigrants in the innovation of new technologies as well as entrepreneurship,” according to Fox Business Network.

“It also detailed how children of immigrants typically have incomes higher than their parents, along with the total U.S. population, due in part to higher rates of attaining graduate or professional degrees,” the report continued.

There’s No 3% Growth Without Immigration! With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring daily and birth rates plummeting, our labor force hinges on LEGAL immigration.

Nearly half of recent net labor growth came from immigrants.

Expanding work visas—H1B, seasonal, ag workers—is… pic.twitter.com/jDnyjrYNvD

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) June 18, 2025

“Immigrants tend to be net contributors to the public fiscal because they pay payroll taxes, but they don’t have parents who collect benefits,” Unleash Prosperity co-founder and economist Stephen Moore told the network. “Their children pay for their benefits.”

“The two main economic benefits of legal immigrants is they come when they are young and just starting their working years, and they and their children tend to be highly entrepreneurial — starting new businesses at a rapid rate,” Moore added.

This study is also facing criticism.

Look:

If we can’t have 3% growth without immigration, then we don’t need 3% growth

— Theophilus Chilton (Scots-Irish Supremacist) (@Theo_Chilton) June 18, 2025

What’s the point of GDP growth if real wages and standard of living for 90% of US citizens are in decline?

— Nobody Special (@JG_Nuke) June 19, 2025

We need 250K jobs per month just to cover legal immigration, we are no where that number. That already includes the 10K boomers retiring daily. We have 1M unemployed tech as they are systematically replaced. We need zero more immigration.

— H. Smith – Anti H-1B (@HSmith24993512) June 19, 2025

One day you people talk about welfare and how 40% don’t work and the next you say there’s so much need that we need to import a bajillion people. Meanwhile, literally across America, people are saying their kids cannot find work and their applications are being rejected. Stfu

— 4FoxSake (@ffs2022) June 19, 2025

I continually hear stories of people sending out hundreds of resumes and not even getting a call back.

Screw corporate interests, I want individual US citizens to have some leverage in the job market.

We should have a complete moratorium on immigration.

— dregs (@dregs_of_soc) June 19, 2025

These studies come as the Trump administration is tripling down on its crackdown on illegal migration and also beginning to target even legal immigrants as well.

“The Trump administration has codified its efforts to strip some Americans of their US citizenship in a recently published Justice Department memo that directs attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes,” The Guardian has confirmed.