The Quiet Math Behind Immigration and American Stability
The claim that Social Security is going bankrupt is repeated so often that it feels inevitable, almost natural. It is framed as a warning about fiscal irresponsibility or demographic decline, and it is often paired with the suggestion that immigrants are a burden on the system. The numbers tell a different story. Social Security is not solvent because its problems have been solved. It is solvent because millions of people continue to pay into it. A meaningful share of those people are immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, who contribute billions of dollars every year while being legally barred from receiving benefits in return.
As of 2025, the undocumented population in the United States is estimated at roughly 11.5 million people. Most are of prime working age. Many work using false or mismatched Social Security numbers or Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which still trigger automatic payroll withholding. In 2022, undocumented workers paid an estimated 25.7 billion dollars into Social Security and about 6.4 billion dollars into Medicare. Broader estimates that include later years put their annual payroll tax contributions closer to 40 to 43 billion dollars by 2023 and 2024. These payments flow directly into federal trust funds. In almost all cases, the workers who paid them will never be eligible to claim retirement, disability, or survivor benefits.
The Social Security Administration tracks these unmatched wages in what is known as the earnings suspense file. Over decades, this file has accumulated trillions of dollars in credited earnings that do not correspond to eligible beneficiaries. This is not a loophole or an accident. It is the mechanical result of a labor force that is good enough to tax but not good enough, in the eyes of the law, to protect in old age. The system benefits financially from this arrangement even as it denies that benefit publicly.
None of this means Social Security is healthy in the long term. The 2025 Trustees Report projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be depleted around 2033 if Congress does nothing. At that point, incoming payroll taxes would still cover roughly 77 to 79 percent of scheduled benefits. The problem is not that money disappears. The problem is that fewer workers are supporting more retirees. In 1960, there were more than five workers for every beneficiary. Today there are about 2.7. By the mid-2030s, that ratio is expected to fall to roughly 2.3 workers per beneficiary.
Immigration directly affects that ratio. Social Security’s own long-range projections assume net immigration of about 1.2 million people per year. If immigration falls below that level, the trust fund deficit grows. If it rises, the deficit shrinks. This is simple math. Immigrants are younger on average than the native-born population, more likely to be working, and more likely to be paying payroll taxes rather than drawing benefits. Without immigrants and their U.S.-born children, the prime working-age population would already be shrinking instead of growing.
The same pattern appears across the broader economy. As of 2025, the United States still has millions of unfilled jobs across sectors that cannot easily be automated or outsourced. Health care, elder care, agriculture, construction, logistics, and manufacturing all report persistent labor shortages. These jobs generate wages, consumption, and tax revenue. When they go unfilled, economic growth slows and the tax base narrows. When immigrants fill them, payroll taxes rise, Social Security revenue increases, and pressure on public finances eases.
Immigrants are not only economic participants. About five percent of the U.S. armed forces are immigrants, including naturalized citizens and lawful noncitizens. More than forty thousand foreign nationals serve in active or reserve components. Many cannot vote. Some do not yet have permanent status. They serve anyway. This is not symbolic. It is another example of contribution preceding recognition.
The political debate often collapses these realities into slogans. “Come the right way” is repeated as if a functioning system already exists. In many cases it does not. Legal immigration backlogs stretch decades. Some applicants wait twenty or thirty years for a decision. Some die waiting. A line that does not move is not a line. It is a wall built out of paperwork. When lawful entry is effectively closed, people still come, because the labor market demands them and because survival leaves little room for patience measured in generations.
At the same time, the fixation on border crossings obscures where enforcement actually matters. The vast majority of fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities enters through ports of entry, not across open stretches of desert or river. Ports are understaffed and under-equipped. They lack the technology and manpower needed to inspect commercial traffic at scale. Border theater absorbs political attention while real vulnerabilities remain underaddressed.
None of this requires choosing between immigration and security. Most Americans support both. The failure lies in political institutions that refuse to govern the space between extremes. A functional system would move quickly, prioritize workers needed to fill real labor shortages, protect asylum seekers with legitimate claims, and invest in the judges, officers, and infrastructure required to process people efficiently and humanely. That is not radical. It is administrative competence.
Social Security’s future will be decided by demographics and policy, not by rhetoric. The system already relies on immigrant labor to stay afloat. Pretending otherwise does not strengthen it. It only deepens the contradiction of a country that quietly depends on people it publicly refuses to acknowledge. Immigration is not a threat to American stability. The refusal to adapt institutions to economic reality is.
