@BarackObama falsely claims amnesty will strengthen Social Security over the long term

That claim, tweeted yesterday by Organizing For Action’s @BarackObama Twitter account, is based on the Social Security Administration’s “preliminary analysis” of the effects of amnesty on Social Security’s finances.

Unfortunately, as Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute observes,  the SSA analysis “measures Social Security’s finances over a short, 10-year window, in which new immigrants are paying taxes but largely prohibited from collecting benefits. Afterward, they will start collecting benefits. Counting only the first 10 years obviously doesn’t tell the full story. This is the same accounting problem conservatives spotted with Obamacare, and they shouldn’t ignore it here.”

According to Biggs, “we don’t really know” whether amnesty will improve Social Security’s finances, “and the SSA memo doesn’t tell us.”