A rumor that a United States senator made a comment about his desire to end Social Security due to seniors misusing it circulated online in August 2026.
Users on social media and Reddit claimed Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., once said, "Senior citizens have misused Social Security and that's why I want it to sunset."
The purported quote was shared along with an image that featured Johnson, a sunset and additional text that read, "How does that sit with you, seniors?"
The widespread nature of the claim led some Snopes readers to reach out via email and ask for authentication of the quote.
While our research found plenty of examples of Johnson critiquing the Social Security program throughout his political career, no evidence emerged that Johnson ever publicly said, "Senior citizens have misused Social Security."
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo returned no relevant results from credible media outlets about such a quote, which would have been widely reported if Johnson had truly said it in a public session. Snopes reached out to Johnson for comment and will update this article if we hear back.
A reverse image Google search only found results featuring other social media users sharing the same image. A reverse image search on TinEye revealed the earliest known use of the image in October 2022 as part a Tumblr page titled "Liberal Effects."
We also reviewed the video and transcripts of recent Senate sessions attended by Johnson in which Social Security was discussed and found no instance in which Johnson uttered the phrase shared in the claim.
In addition, a search of Johnson's social media pages on X and Instagram revealed no such comment.
Johnson's history of trying to reform Social Security is well documented. He has publicly called the program a "Ponzi scheme" and accused it of overpayment and widespread fraud.
In August 2022, outlets reported on Johnson's appearance on the conservative "The Regular Joe Show" radio show in which he suggested Social Security be reclassified as discretionary spending so it would be subject to review by Congress during the budgeting process each year.
Previously reported by Snopes, Johnson's full quote from "The Regular Joe Show" was:
Defense spending has always been discretionary. VA spending is discretionary. What's mandatory are things like Social Security and Medicare. If you qualify for the entitlement you just get it no matter what the cost. And our problem in this country is that more than 70 percent of our federal budget, of our federal spending, is all mandatory spending. It's on automatic pilot. It never ... you just don't do proper oversight. You don't get in there and fix the programs going bankrupt. It's just on automatic pilot.
What we ought to be doing is we ought to turn everything into discretionary spending so that it's all evaluated so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken that are going to be going bankrupt.
Responding to criticisms following reports of this interview and assertions that he wanted to defund Social Security, Medicare and Veterans Affairs, Johnson posted to X in September 2022:
Democrats may have broken a record for the number of lies told about me in one day.
I want to save Social Security, Medicare and Veterans benefits.
The greatest threat to these programs is the massive, out-of-control deficit spending enacted by Biden and Dems in congress.
They can't defend the disastrous and destructive results of their failed policies, so all they have are false attacks, character assassination and the politics of personal destruction.
The American people suffer because of it.