Key Points
Unauthorized immigrants paid about $24 billion in Social Security taxes in 2024 despite being ineligible for future benefits.
We consider a range of deportation scenarios, all of which reduce Social Security’s income and accelerate Trust Fund depletion. The permanent deportation policy, which includes 10 years of deportations followed by a permanent halt to unauthorized immigration, results in the largest decline in Social Security’s long-term balance, equal to 0.25 percent of taxable payroll.
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 Impact of President Trump’s Deportation Policies: The Social Security Program
At the beginning of 2022, there were an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., a value that has likely increased more recently. Most unauthorized immigrants entered the U.S. without inspection or overstayed temporary visas.1 PWBM estimates that unauthorized workers paid $24 billion in Social Security taxes in 2024, even though they were not eligible to receive benefits unless they eventually obtain legal resident status at the time of entitlement.
A simple straight-line projection of the 2024 estimate is not reliable over the usual 75-year planning horizon for Social Security. Immigration and emigration patterns for unauthorized workers vary significantly over time, including based on wage differentials between sending countries and the United States. Some unauthorized workers will later qualify for eligibility, and so the cost of their benefits must be subtracted. Still, using the PWBM microsimulation and our extensive modeling of Social Security program rules, we estimate that unauthorized workers make a material positive contribution to the financial status of the Social Security program.2
We analyze three deportation policy scenarios.
Policy 1: The government deports 10 percent of the current stock of unauthorized immigrants each year during President Trump’s four-year term, while preventing any new unauthorized immigrants from entering the country. After four years, immigration and deportation rates revert to baseline demographic projections.
Policy 2: The government deports 10 percent of the unauthorized population annually for ten years. After ten years, net unauthorized immigration returns to baseline levels.
Policy 3: Like Policy 2 except that future unauthorized immigration is halted once the remaining population has been removed. In effect, this policy permanently eliminates the presence of unauthorized immigrants in 10 years.
The current brief focuses on the Social Security program due to its longer-term obligations and complexity between taxes paid and benefits earned.
Table 1 presents 75-year projections of Social Security’s financial outlook under three deportation policy scenarios, compared to the baseline. The left panel shows the cost, income, balance rates as a percentage of baseline taxable payroll, along with projected year of Trust Fund depletion, while the right panel displays the change in those measures relative to the baseline.
| Baseline: 75-year summary measures as a percentage of baseline taxable payroll |
Policy: change in 75-year summary measures as a percentage of baseline taxable payroll |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Income | Balance | Depletion | Cost | Income | Balance | Depletion | |||
| Baseline | 18.66 | 13.93 | -4.73 | 2034 4Q | Baseline | |||||
| Policy1 | 18.62 | 13.85 | -4.77 | 2034 2Q | Policy1 | -0.04 | -0.08 | -0.04 | 2 quarters sooner | |
| Policy2 | 18.63 | 13.73 | -4.90 | 2034 2Q | Policy2 | -0.03 | -0.20 | -0.17 | 2 quarters sooner | |
| Policy3 | 18.55 | 13.56 | -4.98 | 2034 2Q | Policy3 | -0.11 | -0.37 | -0.25 | 2 quarters sooner | |
Under the Baseline, Social Security’s projected cost is 18.66% of taxable payroll, income is 13.93%, and the balance is -4.73%, with the Trust Fund projected to be depleted by the fifth quarter of 2034. A balance of -4.73% implies that an increase in revenue equal to 4.73 of taxable payroll each year over the next 75 years would be just sufficient to prevent the Trust Fund from being depleted over this period.
Policy 1 produces a slightly lower cost (18.62%) and income (13.85%), leading to a balance of -4.77% and trust fund depletion two quarters earlier (the second quarter of 2034). Compared to the baseline, this is a 0.04 percentage point decline in the balance.
Policy 2 (deportation over 10 years, then return to baseline inflows) produces a balance of -4.9%, also with a depletion date two quarters earlier. The change relative to baseline shows a 0.17 percentage point drop in balance.
Policy 3 (10 years of deportation followed by a permanent shutdown of inflows) results in the most negative impact, with a balance of -4.98% and a depletion date two quarters earlier. This is a 0.25 percentage point decline from the baseline.
Overall, all deportation scenarios result in lower program income, worsened long-term balances, and a faster depletion of the Trust Fund relative to the baseline.
Figure 1 shows the year-by-year change in Social Security's annual balance under three deportation policy scenarios, compared to the baseline, from 2024 to 2105. The values are expressed as a percentage of baseline taxable payroll. Changes in the balance are positive in some years in both the near and distant future—particularly under temporary deportation scenarios—when some undocumented immigrants receive benefits (after changing their status) or when their offspring become eligible for benefits. However, as shown in Table 1, negative changes still dominate, even under these scenarios. Policy 3 exhibits the most negative and persistent impact on the annual balance.
The Old Age Dependency Ratio is defined as the ratio of the population aged 65 and over to the working-age population (ages 20-64). A higher ratio indicates more retirees relative to workers, which places greater financial pressure on programs like Social Security.
As shown in Figure 2 the ratio increases steadily over time in both scenarios, reflecting population aging. Under Policy 3 (10 years of deportation with a permanent shutdown of unauthorized inflows), the ratio is higher than under the Baseline scenario, particularly after the mid-2040s. By 2105, the dependency ratio under Policy 3 reaches approximately 0.52, compared to about 0.50 under the baseline. This suggests that Policy 3 leads to a smaller working-age population over time, resulting in a heavier burden on the Social Security system.
We estimate that implementing large-scale deportation policies would significantly reduce net revenue to the Social Security program, thereby increasing unified primary deficits as described in Table 2. Under Policy 1, the deficit would rise by $73 billion over the next 10 years and $218 billion over the next 30 years. Policy 2 would result in a larger increase in deficits—$133 billion in the first decade and $656 billion over 30 years. Policy 3, the most extensive, would raise deficits by $133 billion over 10 years and $884 billion over 30 years.
| Net $ lost (in billions) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Next 10 years (2025-2034) |
Next 30 years (2025-2054) |
|
| Policy1 | -73 | -218 |
| Policy2 | -133 | -656 |
| Policy3 | -133 | -884 |
Sophie Shin produced this analysis under the direction of Kent Smetters. Mariko Paulson contributed programming support to the analysis and prepared the brief for the website.
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Source: https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024_0418_ohss_estimates-of-the-unauthorized-immigrant-population-residing-in-the-united-states-january-2018%25E2%2580%2593january-2022.pdf ↩
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Based on SSA’s Actuarial Notes, we assume that 32 to 44 percent of unauthorized workers pay Social Security taxes, and among them, 19 to 40 percent collect corresponding credits. Workers who earn enough credits and obtain legal resident status can receive Social Security benefits. Source: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_notes/note151.pdf ↩
Year Policy1 (4 years of 10% removal, back to baseline) Policy2 (10 years of 10% removal, back to baseline) Policy3 (10 years of 10% removal, no inflow afterwards) 2024 0 0 0 2025 -0.033 -0.022 -0.009 2026 -0.036 -0.01 0.007 2027 -0.07 -0.031 -0.007 2028 -0.091 -0.049 -0.017 2029 -0.105 -0.091 -0.05 2030 -0.13 -0.128 -0.089 2031 -0.16 -0.169 -0.127 2032 -0.167 -0.202 -0.162 2033 -0.182 -0.231 -0.195 2034 -0.206 -0.254 -0.223 2035 -0.199 -0.266 -0.255 2036 -0.188 -0.267 -0.266 2037 -0.178 -0.252 -0.266 2038 -0.173 -0.242 -0.263 2039 -0.156 -0.226 -0.249 2040 -0.157 -0.222 -0.234 2041 -0.168 -0.242 -0.249 2042 -0.152 -0.248 -0.249 2043 -0.126 -0.252 -0.257 2044 -0.106 -0.247 -0.264 2045 -0.08 -0.252 -0.266 2046 -0.054 -0.243 -0.264 2047 -0.041 -0.251 -0.272 2048 -0.029 -0.254 -0.281 2049 -0.034 -0.25 -0.29 2050 -0.038 -0.242 -0.306 2051 -0.028 -0.222 -0.301 2052 -0.017 -0.204 -0.296 2053 0 -0.183 -0.277 2054 0.027 -0.164 -0.257 2055 0.044 -0.158 -0.241 2056 0.04 -0.151 -0.247 2057 0.036 -0.141 -0.256 2058 0.027 -0.136 -0.271 2059 0.029 -0.128 -0.284 2060 0.037 -0.122 -0.287 2061 0.04 -0.118 -0.285 2062 0.035 -0.114 -0.274 2063 0.044 -0.094 -0.245 2064 0.035 -0.096 -0.235 2065 0.023 -0.084 -0.207 2066 0.026 -0.108 -0.206 2067 0.022 -0.126 -0.206 2068 0 -0.164 -0.232 2069 -0.018 -0.195 -0.253 2070 -0.033 -0.235 -0.293 2071 -0.041 -0.228 -0.295 2072 -0.057 -0.239 -0.312 2073 -0.077 -0.239 -0.32 2074 -0.09 -0.232 -0.32 2075 -0.087 -0.214 -0.317 2076 -0.089 -0.22 -0.322 2077 -0.074 -0.221 -0.32 2078 -0.068 -0.222 -0.339 2079 -0.056 -0.221 -0.35 2080 -0.057 -0.21 -0.352 2081 -0.052 -0.202 -0.371 2082 -0.052 -0.177 -0.375 2083 -0.032 -0.158 -0.368 2084 -0.021 -0.13 -0.361 2085 -0.003 -0.12 -0.367 2086 0.016 -0.106 -0.359 2087 0.03 -0.123 -0.374 2088 0.047 -0.144 -0.376 2089 0.064 -0.163 -0.39 2090 0.081 -0.18 -0.4 2091 0.09 -0.182 -0.396 2092 0.115 -0.155 -0.375 2093 0.143 -0.115 -0.362 2094 0.16 -0.093 -0.36 2095 0.181 -0.055 -0.354 2096 0.198 -0.019 -0.368 2097 0.224 0.03 -0.369 2098 0.213 0.059 -0.382 2099 0.219 0.096 -0.365 2100 0.202 0.122 -0.366 2101 0.188 0.148 -0.364 2102 0.161 0.142 -0.382 2103 0.149 0.156 -0.378 2104 0.139 0.164 -0.388 2105 0.137 0.167 -0.39
Year Baseline Policy3 2024 0.333 0.333 2025 0.342 0.342 2026 0.353 0.354 2027 0.359 0.361 2028 0.366 0.368 2029 0.372 0.374 2030 0.377 0.379 2031 0.381 0.384 2032 0.384 0.386 2033 0.386 0.389 2034 0.389 0.391 2035 0.392 0.393 2036 0.395 0.396 2037 0.395 0.395 2038 0.395 0.394 2039 0.394 0.393 2040 0.392 0.39 2041 0.392 0.388 2042 0.39 0.385 2043 0.389 0.383 2044 0.388 0.381 2045 0.387 0.379 2046 0.388 0.381 2047 0.387 0.38 2048 0.387 0.38 2049 0.387 0.381 2050 0.389 0.383 2051 0.393 0.387 2052 0.396 0.39 2053 0.401 0.395 2054 0.405 0.399 2055 0.411 0.404 2056 0.416 0.41 2057 0.42 0.415 2058 0.423 0.419 2059 0.426 0.422 2060 0.429 0.425 2061 0.431 0.429 2062 0.434 0.432 2063 0.438 0.435 2064 0.44 0.437 2065 0.443 0.441 2066 0.447 0.445 2067 0.451 0.449 2068 0.454 0.453 2069 0.458 0.458 2070 0.458 0.462 2071 0.461 0.465 2072 0.466 0.47 2073 0.471 0.475 2074 0.474 0.479 2075 0.477 0.483 2076 0.477 0.485 2077 0.48 0.488 2078 0.481 0.489 2079 0.481 0.491 2080 0.483 0.494 2081 0.485 0.496 2082 0.487 0.499 2083 0.488 0.5 2084 0.489 0.502 2085 0.489 0.502 2086 0.49 0.503 2087 0.491 0.504 2088 0.492 0.505 2089 0.493 0.507 2090 0.494 0.509 2091 0.495 0.51 2092 0.496 0.51 2093 0.496 0.511 2094 0.497 0.513 2095 0.498 0.515 2096 0.499 0.516 2097 0.499 0.518 2098 0.5 0.517 2099 0.499 0.517 2100 0.5 0.518 2101 0.502 0.52 2102 0.502 0.521 2103 0.502 0.521 2104 0.503 0.522 2105 0.504 0.522
