Rumors that U.S. President Donald Trump's choice to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, E.J. Antoni, once called the Social Security program a "Ponzi scheme" circulated online in August 2025.
A Ponzi scheme is a method of financial fraud that boils down to using the investments from new investors to pay profits to earlier investors, such as in the Bernie Madoff scandal.
The rumor spread across social media on platforms including X (archived), Facebook (archived) and Threads (archived) following Trump's announcement of Antoni's nomination in a Truth Social post, thanks largely to posts by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who called the choice "a five-alarm fire."
At the time of his nomination, Antoni was the chief economist at The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank responsible for creating Project 2025. Trump nominated Antoni two weeks after he fired previous BLS head Erika McEntarfer, accusing her of manipulating job report numbers, claiming they "were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."
(Robert Reich on BlueSky)
Claims that Antoni referred to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme are correctly attributed. In Nov. 2023, he posted to his X account, "You can elongate a Ponzi scheme, but you can never make it permanent," referring to another user's post about Social Security.
Antoni repeated the sentiment during an appearance on "Houston's Morning News on KTRH" on Dec. 26, 2024, which can be listened to on a variety of podcast platforms. During his appearance, he referred to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme three times.
Around the 3:53 mark, Antoni answered a question about the Social Security Fairness Act, a bill aimed at giving more benefits to retired public workers that was later signed into law by then-President Joe Biden on Jan. 5, 2025.
Antoni said: "Social Security is rapidly becoming insolvent because it was basically set up as a Ponzi scheme, so it can't go on forever. … We're eroding the program by continuing to give more and more benefits, in this case to people who already have a heightened level of benefits, and so what you're effectively doing is decreasing the amount of funds that are available for the rest of the American people."
Then, around 4:45, Antoni explained his view on how most people believe the program works. "I work my whole life, I put in money, it goes into my own account and when I retire, I get those benefits. That's not true at all," he said. "Instead, you work today and that money goes immediately to pay today's retirees, today's beneficiaries. And so that's why I say it was set up like a Ponzi scheme."
This was an accurate, if basic, reflection of how Social Security works. According to the Social Security Administration:
The money you pay in taxes isn't held in a personal account for you to use when you get benefits. We use your taxes to pay people who are getting benefits right now. Any unused money goes to the Social Security trust funds, not a personal account with your name on it.
Antoni compared Social Security to "FTX or Bernie Madoff, where today's investors, their funds are being used to pay yesterday's investors. And unless you are going to grow the number of investors at an exponential rate, that system is eventually going to collapse."
Finally, Antoni concluded by suggesting the key problem is that because the "population is actually in a state of decline, you're not going to be able to sustain a Ponzi scheme like Social Security. Eventually you need to sunset the program."
"That doesn't mean you need to touch benefits for people who are retired today," he clarified. "There's plenty of money available to pay for folks who are already retired, but the people who are going to retire 10, 20, even 30, or certainly forty 40 from now — I'm sorry, but the program is not going to be viable at that time."
A White House official told Snopes via email that Antoni's comments about Social Security were made as a private citizen.
"The President has been unequivocal in his commitment to protecting Social Security," White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers wrote to Snopes via email. "As BLS Commissioner, EJ Antoni will carry out the policies of the president and protect these critical programs to ensure that seniors who have worked their entire lives will receive all of their benefits, when they're expecting them."
On Aug. 14, 2025, the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act being signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Trump released a statement claiming he was "recommitting" to the nation's financial safety net.
The president said his administration was "aggressively rooting out all fraud, waste, and abuse that rob our Federal programs of resources — including stopping payments to the deceased and eliminating benefits for those who do not legally qualify. These measures will save American taxpayers billions of dollars every year and ensure that future generations receive the benefits they spent their lives paying into."
According to a report in June 2025, the so-called "go-broke" date for Social Security was estimated to be 2034. The Associated Press reported, "after that point, Social Security would only be able to pay 81% of benefits." Recent legislation had an effect on the long-term viability of Social Security, including the aforementioned Social Security Fairness Act as well as Trump's 2025 budget bill, which could "accelerate insolvency" according to experts.
Trump previously compared Social Security to a Ponzi scheme himself. In his 2000 book, "The America We Deserve," he wrote: "The truth is undeniable. The workers of America have been forced to invest a sixth of our wages in a huge Ponzi scheme. The pyramids are made of papier-mâché. Is there a way out?"