Social Security is not “going broke.” It’s being deliberately drained — and if you’re Black, poor, or aging without wealth, the consequences are catastrophic.

Let’s get real. We’re told there’s a crisis. That the Social Security Trust Fund — built by decades of our labor — is drying up. The government projects that by 2033, the fund will be depleted and benefits will be automatically cut by 23%. That sounds bad enough — but here’s the truth: it was never built to sustain us anyway.

The mainstream narrative says the “average” retirement check is around $2,000/month.

But for African Americans, that’s fantasy.

Black men receive an average of $14,918/year — that’s $1,243/month.

Black women? $13,363/year — just $1,113/month.

And after the projected cuts? That becomes $957 and $857, respectively. That’s not a minor reduction — it’s economic violence, sanctioned by policy and driven by design. The Real Numbers Behind the Crisis

The Social Security system worked when it had a large workforce funding a smaller group of retirees. For decades, that created a surplus — the Trust Fund. But now, 11,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, and not enough workers are contributing. The money is being used faster than it’s being replaced.

But don’t be fooled — this didn’t just happen. Congress has known this was coming for 30 years. Yet instead of acting, they played politics while draining the fund for other government needs. And now, they’re telling us to brace for cuts — while billionaires and corporations pay less than their fair share or none at all.

There are three simple solutions Congress could act on today:

1. Lift the income cap — Currently, only income under $168,600 is taxed for Social Security. Remove or raise that cap and millionaires contribute more.
2. Slightly raise the payroll tax — Workers and employers pay 6.2%. Bump that to 6.5%, and the program is solvent for decades.
3. Reject raising the retirement age — The favorite of budget hawks. But for Black people in physical jobs with shorter life expectancies, it’s cruel and racist. Telling a 62-year-old construction worker to just “work longer” is policy violence, not reform.

So why won’t they act? Because the people in power don’t rely on Social Security. Their retirement is secure. Yours? Disposable.

Why This Hits Black America Hardest

This is where Real Talk cuts through the noise. The system didn’t fail Black folks — it was never designed for us in the first place.

Our communities have been excluded from the very benefits we funded with our labor:

• Redlined out of homeownership, which lowers our average lifetime earnings and Social Security payouts.
• Trapped in low-wage, no-benefit jobs that don't contribute meaningfully to retirement.
• Subjected to higher rates of disability, illness, and early death — reducing how long we even receive benefits at all.

When Social Security gets cut, it won’t be the wealthy who suffer. It will be the essential workers who held this country together. And disproportionately, those workers are Black.

Let’s be clear: these systems — Social Security, Medicare, even public education — are forms of control when we don't have our own infrastructure.

They give the illusion of support while keeping us dependent and divided. They’re conditional, bureaucratic, and disposable. We’ve seen it with welfare. With housing. With education. And now we’re seeing it with retirement.

This isn’t new. It’s just exposed.

This ain't about policy disagreements. It's about power. Control. Oppression. Republicans are not “reforming” — they’re stripping. Social programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and healthcare access have never been secure — they’ve always been leveraged as tools of control. Now, it’s just happening in the open

I don’t post content for clicks or clout. I post it because we — the working class, Black communities — need to unite and move together with purpose. It’s about building our own infrastructure .