EMOTIONAL! On Social Security’s Anniversary Cory Booker Reads Constituent Stories That Will Move You

But this president, just with his rhetoric alone about social security, is driving my constituents to write me notes like this. I continue with the letter from my constituent from Cherry Hill. I hope you will convince both Democrats and Republican colleagues to prevent this from happening. Trump lied when he promised during his campaign he would not touch the Social Security Administration. But now we see threats and already some actions towards making severe cuts and making the program less accessible. I urge you to continue to fight for us. Pennington, New Jersey. My sister and I are older Americans who are each disabled. One from a severe accident because of a drunk driver and the other from a life-changing illness. We are alone and take care of each other. For me, SSDI is my one and only income. I have a few years before I am at full retirement age. Even with my check and splitting rent costs between us, it is taking right under 50% of my monthly check for rent alone. 50%. This does not leave much to cover even the bare necessities of health, vehicle insurance, utilities, foods, medicine, even a tight budget, especially with costs on everything continuing to rise. Senator, as seniors, we are petrified about what's happening to SSA. I must ask you, Senator, what do we do if our monthly SSA benefits are interrupted? How do we keep a roof over our heads as disabled seniors? With very limited savings, it would only take a few months before the roof over our heads would be in jeopardy. We just spent a small fortune for us to move into a smaller, lower-cost apartment because we could not afford significant ongoing rent increases. I realize we are far from alone in our fears, but that is of very little comfort as we spend our nights unable to sleep, fearful we do not lose our only income along with the roof over our heads. This is our elders. Here's a constituent from Egg Harbor Township. My husband and I live social security check to social security check. Without those checks we earned, without those checks we earned, we are dead. Please don't let this outrageous administration take our benefits away. This is a constituent from Runnymede, New Jersey. I am a 75-year-old New Jersey resident. I received my working papers in 1964 at the age of 14. I worked continuously until I reached the age of 70 in 2020. I enlisted in the United States Navy in 67 and retired in 99. I was on active duty from 1970 to 77. I finished my career in the Naval Reserve for 56 years, paid my taxes, and contributed to social security. I have collected my social security for four years, and as you are no doubt aware, the amount of money paid me monthly by Social Security Act was calculated by them based on my contribution. I am currently a full-time 24-7 caretaker for my invalid wife and do not have the luxury of earning a supplemental income. My sole income is from social security and a small Naval Reserve pension. My total health care comes from Medicare and TRICARE for Life. The contract I made with the United States government was that they could use my money during my working life with the understanding that they would take care of me when I could no longer earn for myself. I have kept my part of this bargain for 56 years. Now, after only four years, the government is threatening to renege on our agreement. Please, sir, do not let this happen, Senator Booker. That is my money. I earned it. I earned my social security by my contributions, and I earned my pension by my service. Another constituent named Sarah. I have been a teacher in Atlantic County for 26 years. My husband is a 100% disabled veteran who receives VA disability payments as well as SSDI. We depend on the VA and SSDI for approximately half of our income for our family of five. We are currently preparing our oldest for his first year at college and awaiting financial aid packages from several schools. We are petrified that Trump and Musk's agenda is dangerous and will have life-altering consequences for families like ours. We are counting on you, Senator Booker, to do the hard work to protect the essential benefits. The destruction of the Department of Education is another completely horrifying situation. We need to protect our special needs students and federal financial aid for college-bound students. We need to protect the idea of education is for all. Education is for all. Education is for all instead of a few elites who could just afford it. Rosie is another constituent. She starts off proudly. I am a senior, 84 years old. God bless you, Rosie. My mom is 85. My only income is Social Security. She generously gives me confidential information. My only income is Social Security, $1,179 per month. And I am terrified that the current gang of thieves in the White House will tamper with it under the guise of, quote-unquote, saving money. Social Security is cut off. I am on the streets. I can't keep harping enough on the traditions of our country where presidents, whether you greet with them or not, whether they're from your party or not, Ronald Reagan didn't whip up fear in bedrock commitments like Social Security or health. Barack Obama didn't shake people so that Republicans and Democrats in my state would write me letters using words like fear and terror. Wouldn't use worries about losing sleep when you have enough things to stress over. Here's Deborah. I am a retired widow. I depend on Social Security to pay bills each month. I'm concerned about the reports that Elon Musk is to revamp and, in my opinion, ruin the Social Security administration. I'm worried that payments will be disrupted. There are many other things going on in the government today that I'm also concerned about. I hope that the seniors and congresspeople, along with the judicial system, can stand up to him and take back control of government. Look, it's going to revamp and ruin Social Security. This is just somebody simply saying, it's like, be plain. Don't make up lies about false payments. Don't call it a Ponzi scheme. Give us a bold vision of how it's going to help more seniors. How are you going to serve more seniors? How are you going to improve the system? How are you going to make it better? How are you going to serve the dignity of our seniors? This is Holly. Holly is a constituent too. I am one of your constituents who's retired and relies 100% in order to live on my earned Social Security benefit in which I paid throughout my entire working career. I call on you to maintain Social Security program as it stood before the ascension of Trump and Musk. You must ensure that there are no missed earned benefit payments or late payments made to recipients, especially accessible Social Security offices must remain open and fully staffed with trained, experienced Social Security employees in order to provide the kind of regular necessary customer service by phone, online, and in person. And the Trump-Musk administration's endless terrorist threats of dismantling the Social Security administration, insidiously calling it a Ponzi scheme, working in order to privatize it, it must cease and desist immediately. Moreover, you, Cory Booker, must reverse and or stop whatever draconian changes are being made to destroy the Social Security administration with thousands of cuts to needed employees, with almost no notice and no public import. Social Security is being dismantled by an unelected billionaire, at least for now, Musk and his band of doge boys, not a real government department, who have illegally and callously rifled through our most private personal information and done God knows what with it, with their ultimate goal to risk and or steal the retirement funds of older Americans by placing the Social Security trust fund in the hand of private corporate equity firms. Seniors do not agree to this. Such action is a legal and completely unacceptable exclamation point. This constituent continues. Furthermore, I'm deeply concerned that the ceaseless chaos will invite criminals to exploit confusion around identity verification. Ironically, while the administration claims these changes are meant to combat fraud, they may very well do the opposite, hastily introducing new unfamiliar technology and verification steps without any real public education campaign will create the perfect environment for criminals to deceive and defraud. This late and ill-conceived change also comes at a time when the Social Security administration is already struggling with a customer service crisis, long hold times, low staffing, delayed callback systems, confusing announcements about possible office closures. This chaos has to be stopped now, Senator Booker. I urgently ask you to please use your congressional power to reverse these changes which are creating more confusion for older Americans. Senior Americans earned Social Security through a lifetime of hard, honest work. I know I did. The money is ours and we deserve a properly run Social Security administration which continues to be administrated honestly through the federal government as established in 1935. In fact, the narrative of the Social Security Act running out of money could be easily fixed if Congress wrote laws that slightly increased the amount that high net worth individuals, the wealthiest of the wealthy, paid into the program. Holly, God bless you. My mother in her senior community is seeing this rise in scammers trying to steal people's money and she's amazed at the technology they're using. Scams that involve the voices of their relatives asking them for help. They're in a crisis. All that technology and the wisdom of my mom, she's like, why aren't we using the technology and innovations to make Social Security easier to use, easier to engage with? Common sense questions. Carly, a constituent from New Jersey, please include disabled people when you talk about Social Security and Medicare, Senator Booker, if you don't mention us every time. I paid into Social Security for 16 years. I work full-time. I was sick almost every day. I finally had to leave my job in 2015. I was granted SSDI and I'm on Medicare and until I was injured last year, I had a part-time job where I continued paying into the system. I fear that the first people they will go after are the disabled. We are not as capable of fighting. People see us as lazy or fakers and we're almost never included in the conversations about marginalized communities. Please don't let me be erased. Carly, you are not. I see you and I'm standing here for as long as I possibly physically can so that I can elevate your voice and others. Patricia, a constituent from New Jersey, I am 65 years old, a senior. I've worked my whole life and paid into Social Security. Will you please work hard and push back to preserve these benefits? Without Social Security monies and Medicare as well, I will not survive. I am outraged, Patricia writes, to see what is happening recently. Help. If there's anything you request of me, if there's anything you... My constituent says, if there's anything you need of me, please let me know. It's one of the most beautiful sentiments in America is that people in crisis who are wrapped with fear and worry, they still are standing up to volunteer. Retired, seniors. I'm always moved when a constituent just not only tells me what's on their mind, how they're angry, how they're worried, what their concerns are, but they also say, let me help you.