The Social Security Question Congress Doesn't Have to Answer

I started asking a simple question: How many members of Congress are collecting Social Security while also collecting their congressional salaries? I expected to find the answer. I didn't. What I found was more troubling: the public isn't required to be told.

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics says senators do not have to disclose income they receive from the federal government, including Social Security income and retirement income, on their public financial disclosure reports. Think about that.

Members of Congress are among the highest-paid elected officials in the country. The average age of the 119th Congress is about 58 in the House and 64 in the Senate. Many members are old enough to qualify for Social Security retirement benefits. Yet we cannot look at their required financial disclosures and determine whether they are collecting those benefits.

Tommy Tuberville gave us one answer. During a 2024 Senate hearing, Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he had paid the maximum Social Security tax for 40 years and was receiving approximately $3,000 a month in Social Security benefits. He was simultaneously serving as a U.S. senator. Tuberville was not doing anything illegal. People can legally work while receiving Social Security, and after reaching full retirement age, there is no earnings limit that reduces retirement benefits because of wages.

So the question isn't whether Tuberville had the right to receive his benefit. The question is why he wasn't required to tell us.

That raises the bigger question: How many other members of Congress are doing the same thing? We don't know.

Then there is Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell is one of the most obvious people to ask. McConnell is 84 and has served in the Senate since 1984. He reached 62 in 2004 and 70 in 2012. So I want to know:

Has Mitch McConnell been receiving Social Security while serving in the Senate? If so, when did he begin collecting it? At 62? At full retirement age? At 70? How much has he received?

I am not claiming that McConnell receives Social Security. We don't know, and that is precisely the problem.

His age and more than four decades in the Senate make him an obvious subject of this question, not because he is necessarily doing anything wrong, but because Americans deserve to know whether one of the nation's longest-serving lawmakers is receiving the benefits Congress continually debates and warns may not be available to future generations.

Let's also separate fact from political rhetoric. Social Security does face a serious financing problem. The current projection is that the combined Social Security trust funds will be depleted in 2034. At that point, continuing program income would be sufficient to pay approximately 83% of scheduled benefits under current law.

That's serious. But "trust fund depletion" is not the same thing as Social Security disappearing. 

Americans deserve to know the difference. This isn't about taking anyone's benefits. I don't begrudge a member of Congress a Social Security benefit he or she legally earned. If they paid into the system and qualify, they have earned the right to collect it, but the American people have earned the right to know.

We are the people paying into Social Security. We are the people being told that changes may be necessary. We are the people being asked to consider benefit reductions, higher retirement ages and other reforms. And yet the people making those decisions don't have to tell us whether they are personally collecting Social Security. That is a transparency problem.

This shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue. If a Democrat receives Social Security while serving in Congress, disclose it. If a Republican does, disclose it.

Congress should require every federal elected official to publicly disclose whether they receive Social Security, when they began receiving it and the annual amount. Not because receiving Social Security is wrong, because hiding whether you receive it while making decisions about its future is unnecessary.

Americans who worked for 40 or 50 years and paid into Social Security deserve facts, not fear. If transparency is good enough for the people who elect Congress, it should be good enough for Congress too.