“In 2022, Social Security’s cost is projected to exceed total income (i.e., tax revenues plus interest income). Trust fund reserves are projected to decline steadily from their peak of $2.9 trillion to zero in 2035.
Following the depletion of trust fund reserves, scheduled tax revenues are projected to be sufficient to pay 80% of scheduled benefits initially, declining to 74% by 2096....
Over the next 20 years, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio is projected to decline as the baby-boom generation moves into retirement and is replaced with workers from lower-birth-rate generations.
Although projected increases in life expectancy play a role, the trustees point to the shift in the population’s age distribution due to lower birth rates as the dominant factor in increased program cost over the next 75 years....
To illustrate the magnitude of changes needed to maintain Social Security solvency over the next 75 years, the trustees point out hypothetically two options that it would take:
1 - an immediate 3.24 percentage point increase in the payroll tax rate (from 12.40% to 15.64%) or
2 - an immediate 20.3% reduction in scheduled benefits for all current and future beneficiaries (or a 24.1% reduction for newly-eligible beneficiaries only).
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10522.pdf
Doing NOTHING means the pain is deferred, but will be greater when it arrives. Minor changes NOW might do a lot - such as ending SS for anyone who entered the USA illegally, cutting the “disability” (fraud) payments, etc. Changing retirement ages that are 20 years out - by a year or two - would help. That has been done in the past.
Heck, it could be solved if AMERICANS started having BABIES again!
NO ONE is talking about cutting benefits immediately. But they will be cut in 12 years (when I’m in my 70s) if nothing is done now.
But they will be cut in 12 years (when I’m in my 70s) if nothing is done now.“
Why are cuts in Social Security the only possible fox? Why not more revenue - ie taxes? I’m no longer a robotic supporter of tax cuts. I would be fine with repealing the Ryan tax cuts for woke corporations. If Walmart has enough money to fly employees out of right to life states in order to get a California abortion, then I’m fine with taxing Walmart more and using the money to shore up Social Security. Target too. And NFL and NBA and Disney and so many others. Why should conservatives defend “low taxes” for these woke corporations when they’re at war with us culturally? And when we need money - at least a few years down the line - for Social Security for middle income Americans?