No matter what your opinions might be about President-elect Donald Trump, one thing that’s hard to dispute is his wealth. In 2023, his financial disclosures revealed over $160 million in income from his Miami golf course alone, alongside another $56 million from Mar-a-Lago. Throw in some extra revenue from additional golf courses, development projects, and book royalties, and Trump raked in over $700 million that year just from his business ventures.
One surprising aspect of Trump’s financial situation is his lack of worry over Social Security taxes for the rest of this year. Unlike most of us who pay these taxes right up until December 31st, Trump doesn’t have to. It’s not a perk of being a former president or president-elect; instead, it’s a Social Security provision that many workers and retirees wish the government would address.
Social Security draws its funds from three main sources: payroll taxes from workers, interest from the program’s trust fund assets, and taxes on benefits received by seniors. By far, the largest contributor is the payroll tax, which amounts to 12.4% for those who are self-employed. For employees, it’s split between them and their employers, each paying 6.2%.
Now, while most of us pay this tax on every dollar we make, the wealthier among us don’t. The Social Security Administration only taxes income up to a certain limit—$176,100 in 2025. For billionaires like Donald Trump, that’s just a fraction of their earnings.
Estimating Trump’s 2025 income, if it’s similar to 2023, he would average close to $2 million a day. In just after 2 a.m. on January 1, he’d hit that $176,100 cap, meaning any income he racks up beyond that contributes nothing further to Social Security, although it still gets taxed for income tax and Medicare.
This isn’t unique to Trump either. While very few will hit the cap as fast as he does, about 9 million other Americans earn above this threshold, and the Social Security Administration doesn’t see a cent from that extra income.
It’s important to clarify, though, if you don’t pay Social Security payroll taxes on certain income, the government does not count those earnings towards calculating your future retirement benefits. However, with their substantial incomes, the size of the Social Security benefit often isn’t a pressing concern for the wealthy.
Raising the Social Security taxable wage base is one of the more popular proposals to alleviate the program’s funding issues. By increasing or removing that cap, revenue would rise by taxing the wealthy more, sparing lower- and middle-income earners.
Envision what raising the taxable limit could achieve: take Trump’s $700 million income from 2023—if taxed at just 6.2% for Social Security, it would generate $43.4 million in revenue.
However, two significant points need consideration. With the current benefit formula, any income taxed for Social Security is also used to calculate retirement payouts. Hence, billionaires who pay more would likely receive larger retirement benefits.
More crucially, even if every dollar earned by all Americans were subject to the Social Security payroll tax, it would only cover about half of the program’s anticipated $23.2 trillion funding gap. This budget shortfall means that additional solutions, like increasing the payroll tax rate for everyone or finding new income sources, would be necessary to prevent benefit cuts.
Currently, the future of Social Security’s wage cap remains uncertain. The trust funds are projected to deplete by 2035, prompting Congress to likely enact reforms within the next decade. Meanwhile, all we can do is wait and see which path lawmakers decide to take.
