Last week the Social Security Trustees’ Report was released, which confirmed other estimates that the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted in 2033. Once exhausted, all retirees receiving Social Security Benefits will see a 23% cut in benefits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In addition, the Trustees’ Report also says that the disability insurance trust fund will be depleted the following year, leaving additional Americans with fewer benefits. This Trust Fund Cliff represents one of the country’s most significant crises if nothing is done.
Under current law, whenever the Social Security program brings in more revenue than is needed to pay benefits, the excess funds are loaned to the federal government to collect interest. Since 2011, payable benefits have exceeded payroll taxes, and since 2021 payable benefits have exceeded all revenues, including interest incurred on the funds loaned to the federal government. Since then, Social Security has been redeeming the bonds issued by the Treasury Department and getting back the trillions of dollars the government has borrowed. However, this latest announcement by the Social Security Trustees puts the timeline for the total amount to be paid back to Social Security in 2033, at which point the Trust Fund will be insolvent.
The bottom line from this announcement is that if nothing is done, as President Biden has proposed, millions of Social Security beneficiaries will see their benefits cut, and a large portion will fall into poverty. Unfortunately, President Biden has an incentive to do nothing to avoid this problem: the longer Democrats wait, the more likely the only solution is tax increases. However, the CBO and Social Security Chief Actuary have shown that increasing taxes will not solve the problem. Sadly, millions of voters believe that simply removing the income cap on Social Security taxes will solve the problem. However, this turns Social Security into a welfare program where recipients will never recover the amount paid into the program. Currently, a person paying the maximum amount in Social Security taxes will be repaid the total amount paid by them and their employer in less than ten years, and the average life expectancy for someone reaching age 65 is to live an additional 13 years. Someone making a middle-class income will receive full benefits in less than three years of retirement.
With only a decade before the Trust Fund is depleted, it is time for seniors to demand action from their elected officials. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle should come to the table and find a solution to Social Security insolvency. It has been done before under President Reagan and can be done again. AMAC has developed the Social Security Guarantee as a road map to achieving solvency and ensuring the program retains its role as an anti-poverty program rather than follow the Senator Bernie Sanders route of becoming a socialist welfare program.
AMAC Action will continue to fight for responsible changes to guarantee the program for current and future retirees. Learn more about the Social Security Guarantee here.
We hope you've enjoyed this article. While you're here, we have a small favor to ask...
Support AMAC Action. Our 501 (C)(4) advances initiatives on Capitol Hill, in the state legislatures, and at the local level to protect American values, free speech, the exercise of religion, equality of opportunity, sanctity of life, and the rule of law.
Donate Now
Copyright © 2024 AMAC, Inc. / AMAC Senior Resources Network. All rights reserved.
Write your representatives & tell them to act on solidifying SS benefits now . Congress has been aware of fund & keeps kicking it down the road to the next administration. And do not let them put this fund into the General Fund as some have suggested or it will be lost . Congress was very smart in 1935 when they put the SS taxes into a separate fund & not General Fund. This fund has +$22 Trillion dollars & can be shored up to continue the benefits to retirees.
Hey Congress, have you ever hear the saying, “charity begins at home?” We cannot feed the world while our children go hungry. Yes! I’m asked every day to give to some cause that helps poor Americans. Our poor do have more than some countries poor but that does not justify sending millions to other parts of the world and neglecting our own, Once again we see the slogan, it’s a crime for thee but not for me play out. While working for a government subcontractor, I ask for a badly needed part replacement. I was told that money was allocated for specific areas at the beginning of the fiscal year and those monies could not be used for anything else. REALLY! So what was the money in Social Security allocated for, on open purse for congress to play with. Many in my generation were alive in 1935 so the Social Security pot hasn’t even lasted one full generation. This sure is being fiscally responsible guys.
Washington moves at a glacial pace. Don’t expect any movement, one way or another, from Washington until the clock strikes midnight on the last day before the so-called SS fund is depleted. Then a massive bill, which will have been cobbled together in secret behind closed doors by a handful of politicians will be dropped at Congress’ feet. With literally no time to read any of it, they will be told “Vote for this bill right now or you will have to explain to the people of the United States why their benefits will be cut by 23% tomorrow morning.” Of course, Congress will do what it has always done and they will all vote in unison for the bill, with absolutely no idea what is in it. Only afterward will the country learn that the vast majority of the bill had NOTHING to do with SS and EVERYTHING to do with something else entirely. That is how Washington works.
Think this can’t happen? Look at how many massive bills, to supposedly address so many different issues, have been handled in this exact same manner by Congress over the last few decades. The better option for most seniors today is to be honest with their children and grandchildren that they should save and invest with the idea that SS may be a substantially smaller portion of their overall retirement income. That way, no matter which way the winds blow with SS, their retirements will be fine. Just a suggestion of course.
This should not be… when persons on social security die and there isno beneficiary. What happens to that money? Seems someone has been stealing from that fund or misapropreating same.
And yet they keep sending billions of dollars to places like Ukraine. So I have to say, I’m not worried. They can just print up the money like they do for everything else.
There’s plenty of money for Social Security.
Defund Foreign Aid from receiving over a $Trillion Dollars a year. Defund ALL Global Warming program Lies.
Defund that ESG GARBAGE.
Defund the EPA.
Get Out of the WHO,
Get Out of Paris Accord.
Defund Funds for the U.N..
Defund the FBI, DOJ, IRS and ALL the rest of the Socialist programs and Agencies including FIRE ALL Bureaucrats.
There’s plenty of money for Social Security and Infrastructure by eliminating ALL that Waste mentioned.
Tell your Congressmen and Senator’s that you have had enough of this and Demand that your tax dollars that are being wasted to be put into Social Security.
Great Info.
FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR, TO MANY illegals RECIEVING BENEFITS THAT SHOULD NOT BE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SOS! Same old stuff! run out of money … threaten to take what has been paid for to put in someone elses pocket. Balony
decades ago, it seems to me that I heard Congress had done away with the Social Security “trust fund” and transferred the funds and future receipts into the general fund. If there is any danger of SS funds being depleted, it will just be a “paper” book keeping notation and in the history of our overspending deficit ridden government, the shortfall will be covered by more fiat money creation.
Stop giving ILLEGAL REFUSEGEES our tax money. They’ve done jacks**t to deserve a damn thing from us. Better yet, round the REFUSEGEES up and deport their worthless selves back to the crap they came from.
FJB.
If congress had left it along and not used it for their pork spending and had not given it to people who didn’t pay into it, there would be enough to take care of those who have paid into the system.
Don’t you worry! Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia, and China are working to replace the petrol dollar with the China Yuan, thanks to Brandon and Democrats they will fund Social Security and Medicare, I’m sure. LET’S GO BRANDON!!!!
Being on social security and paying into it for so many years I am totally disgusted. We are forced to pay into the program and the government mismanages that money. We have no choice. If I had a choice I would have opted to have that money put into a 401k instead with me managing it. If I figured out how much my money would be worth now if I had it in a 401K I would be far better off. I doubt it would have taken any more workers to moniter that than it does to moniter a regular 401K or an IRA. Same with medicare. Montana has a health saving account that works so much better than medicare and can be used for dental and eye care. Our government is “of the people by the people and for the people”. What a joke.
I remember a time when the government borrow some money from Social Security and oh yeah we’ll pay it back with interest no problems you can count on us.
Didn’t think they have, do you ?
CUT Hq bureaucracy alone
Gen Z retires at age 80
Millenials age 90
Streamline process
Cut labor
Automate more
If we can send money to all those other countries, especially when we’re broke, we can pay back the money the government took out of Social Security years ago. We seem to take care of everyone else but not our own citizens.
This is absolutely asinine! I paid into this scam for over 45 years. This is not an “entitlement “, it’s MY money!!
The money in Social Security was NEVER suppose to be ‘touched’ by anyone other than the retirees that paid into it. Yet Congress took it upon themselves to ‘borrow’ from it but never paid back. Make them pay back all that was ‘borrowed’.
Just like what’s happening in France, the United States is going to have to raise the age of receiving benefits.
Make politicians pay it out of their pockets and make them “participate” in socialist security instead of having their own govt retirement program.
Has there ever been a time when SS benefits were reduced or eliminated since it’s inception in the 1930’s? Also, if we can afford to send BILLIONS to other countries, we can afford to keep SS benefits as there are or better!
WELL, WELL, The Ponzi Scheam has come home to roost. Kyle L.
Current Social Security benefits are supposed to be paid out of current SS tax income, and only paid to those citizens who have paid into the system throughout their working years, and according to whatever the calculation is. Higher earners will receive a higher benefit, they’ve paid in more. Great care must be taken that no SS benefits are paid to non-citizens or other unqualified persons in the USA who just steal a SS number, like Barack Obama did. If the SS tax income is insufficient to the required payments, the tax must be increased to meet the need. The retirement age might also be raised, since we’re living longer.
How are you fighting for responsible changes to guarantee the program for current and future retirees. Are you in the representative’s faces every week or are you just spouting reform to the members of AMAC. I’ve been a member of AMAC for over 5 years and have seen the same articles over and over. Time to make a meaningful stand for the members of AMAC.
Is it frue that the Social Security trust fund only draws 1%return,there is the problem