SSA ‘Applauds’ Big Beautiful Bill For Cutting Social Security Taxes. But It Doesn’t.

The Social Security Administration may have confused beneficiaries with its response to Congress’s tax and spending bill.

In a press release issued on Thursday, the administration said it “applauds” the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. The administration said the bill is important to Social Security recipients because it ensures that 90% of beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits. However, experts say that claim is misleading.

Instead of eliminating income taxes on benefits, the Big Beautiful Bill, which President Donald Trump signed into law on Friday, offers some seniors 65 and older a temporary deduction of up to $6,000 on their federal income taxes, whether they are claiming Social Security benefits or not. 

However, many beneficiaries are left out of this “senior bonus,” including lower-earning and higher-earning Americans or those who claim their retirement benefits early.

The bill did not eliminate taxes on benefits because the reconciliation process lawmakers used does not allow lawmakers to make changes to Social Security’s funding structure. The claim that the bill eliminates income taxes paid on benefits echoes recent social media posts by Trump.

The SSA reportedly repeated the claim in an email sent to beneficiaries last week. The administration has not sent a correction to the email and did not respond to Investopedia’s request for comment.

The administration corrected a portion of the press release on Monday that said the elimination of income tax on benefits was in addition to the tax deduction for those over 65. However, the administration maintained language that says the bill “includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries.”

Social Security advocates said the messaging may have confused beneficiaries.

“It’s important for people to know the correct information, and it just seems improper for an agency with a track record of just doing its job–which is to manage the benefits of [about 69] million Americans and not to engage in this partisanship–to do something like this,” said Dan Adcock, director of government relations and policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.