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Most people really don't understand Social Security and how it works. As I recently turned 60 and my wife is now just old enough to collect (62), I've done a lot of reading on it. I recommend that others do as well.

First of all, Social Security is not going to run out of money in 2030, 2033, 2037, or any other the other years being bandied about.

Worse case scenario - if nothing is done between now and then - is that the Social Security cash reserves will be depleted. There will still be enough coming in from FICA taxes to meet 74% of the projected obligations.

So people who are in the system will not get no check at all. They will get a reduced check. So if your current benefit is $1,000 a month (to use a round number), your check would be reduced to around $740 come 2030, 2033, or whenever that cash reserve runs out.

Obviously that is not a great thing. But it's hardly what the alarmists are saying (that people will get no benefits at all).

Most likely there will be a "last-minute" solution to the problem. Raising the retirement ages for younger people is possible but that would not solve the problem in the short term as it would take years for that to start having an effect.

What I see happening is the cap being raised on FICA taxes. Currently, the "max FICA" income limit is set at $160,200 for 2023. So once you reach that income threshold, the FICA stops coming out of your paycheck.

Each year, that gets bumped a little, but you might see a proposal to have that raised a lot - maybe as high as $500,000. So that would capture more FICA taxes from those currently making between $160,000 and $500,000 (a LOT of money by the way) which would save the system for the forseeable future.

I'm not advocating any of the above. I'm simply stating what the likely solution to this will be. Yes, more TAXES!

And that should make everybody angry, especially when we are shoveling billions of taxpayer dollars overseas every year to other countries like Ukraine.

You make a good point about the FICA cap.
I remember when my first job was doing the payroll for a small manufacturing company back in the sixties. That’s when I realized that the Social Security tax I was deducting from the paychecks was the worst kind of regressive tax. The more you made after the cap on gross pay kicked in the less was the TAX PERCENTAGE RATE on your income you were paying. I felt then and I feel now that the SS tax should apply equally on every dollar a person makes. Otherwise the poor sap at the bottom is paying a higher percentage of his pay than the big guys. I think that will ultimately be addressed.