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Rallies are planned in Utah and across the country this weekend to support the federal Social Security program and protest the Trump administration's staff and budget cuts at the agency.

The program commemorates its 90th year this week.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has introduced the Social Security Expansion Act. As a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, he said Congress needs to do more than just preserve the status quo.

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"At a time when 22 percent of seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year and nearly half of older workers have no retirement savings," he said, "our job must not be simply not to cut Social Security. We have got to expand Social Security and extend its solvency."

Sanders said benefit payments to seniors and people with disabilities could be reduced or even eliminated if Congress doesn't take action.

The advocacy groups Social Security Works and Protect Our Checks are sponsoring rallies in more than a dozen cities, including a Town Hall meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Salt Lake City Library Auditorium. Information is online at ProtectOurChecks.org.

Speakers at a virtual Town Hall meeting this week pointed out that Social Security isn't a public assistance program; people earn their benefits by paying into the system for years. Speakers included Sanders, U.S. Representatives Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and John Larson, D-Conn., Keisha Bross with the NAACP and Martin O'Malley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

O'Malley said Americans need to voice their support for the program before it's too late.

"Social Security has never been more needed by the people of the United States than it is right now," he said, "and Social Security has never needed the people of the United States to speak up and stand up for this program more than she does right now."

Across the country, Social Security pays about 70 million seniors and other beneficiaries a total of $1.6 trillion a year. In Utah, more than 447,000 beneficiaries receive a total of $8.6 billion a year.