The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. The Social Security benefits that over 61 million retired Americans rely on are already in trouble. A recent report from the Social Security Board of Trustees finds that without action from Congress, retirement benefits could be slashed by 23% as early as 2033. Deporting undocumented immigrants will only exacerbate the problem.
Immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—offset the demographic factors that are straining the Social Security Trust Fund, namely fewer young workers paying into the fund and many more older Americans drawing from it. In 1960, there were 5.1 workers per beneficiary. By 2022, there were just 2.8, with this number expected to drop even further in coming years as more people age out of the workforce.
Helping Make up the Difference: Undocumented Immigrants
Undocumented immigrants fill labor gaps in essential industries like agriculture, construction, hospitality, and senior care, taking what are often physically demanding, labor-intensive jobs that may be unappealing to U.S.-born workers. Lesser known is that even if the U.S.-born did want to take these jobs, there simply aren’t enough young people to do all the work—and pay all the taxes—needed to support the economy and our rapidly aging population.
The number of Americans aged 65 or older is projected to rise 47% by 2025, reaching 82 million. At the same time, the U.S. population that is working age is projected to remain stagnant.
For years, immigrants—again, including undocumented immigrants—have offset this age imbalance, adding billions of dollars annually to the Social Security Trust Fund through payroll taxes. Immigrants in the United States are disproportionately working age compared with U.S.-born citizens. The Council estimates that 77.1% of foreign-born residents and 89.4% of undocumented immigrants are between the ages of 16 and 64, compared with just 60.9% of U.S.-born individuals.
This influx of working-age adults helps stabilize the labor force, and supports Social Security, Medicare, and other government insurance programs. Most undocumented immigrants will never collect these benefits. Yet in 2023 alone, undocumented immigrants paid $26.2 billion into the Social Security Trust Fund, just one part of the estimated $89.8 billion they paid that year in combined federal, state, and local taxes.
In fact, the Social Security Administration specifically analyzes how undocumented workers have been contributing to the trust fund for decades, writing that “the presence of unauthorized workers in the United States has, on average, a positive effect on the financial status of the Social Security program.”
As the baby boomer generation retires—significantly slowing already sluggish U.S.-born labor force growth—immigrants will become increasingly indispensable to the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund.
A Policy Crossroads
Working Americans have spent a lifetime paying into the Social Security Trust Fund with the assurance that these funds will be available to sustain them through retirement or disability. Saving Social Security will require a multifaceted approach that likely includes a combination of tax increases and benefit reforms. But we can’t ignore the demographics that drive the program: we need more workers.
Removing millions of workers through deportation and revocation of work authorization just as the Social Security safety net is risking collapse is nothing short of reckless. The Social Security Board of Trustees’ latest annual report estimated a larger undocumented population in the time period between 2022 and 2025 than in its 2024 report, because of the rise in border crossings in recent years. However, the report hasn’t taken into account the increasing immigration enforcement activities in 2025, reducing the number of undocumented immigrants and likely speeding up the Social Security Trust Fund’s insolvency.
If we want to preserve Social Security, not just for today’s retirees but for future generations, we need to reframe the conversation around immigration. The numbers are clear: undocumented immigrants are already helping to save Social Security. It is time our policies started recognizing it.
