Posted on 06/18/2025 12:04:51 PM PDT by DFG
The trust fund Social Security relies on to pay retirement benefits may be depleted in 2033, according to an annual report released by the Social Security Board of Trustees on Wednesday. That is unchanged from last year’s projections.
At that time, 77% of those benefits will be payable, according to the report.
Social Security’s combined trust funds — the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds — will have enough revenue to pay scheduled benefits and administrative costs until 2034, according to the report. That is one year earlier than projected last year.
At that time, 81% of the combined benefits will be payable, according to the new projection.
While the combined depletion date is used to gauge the Social Security’s solvency, current law prohibits joining those funds. However, Congress has authorized shifting of the funds in the past when there have been trust fund shortfalls.
The Disability Insurance trust fund will be able to pay full benefits through at least 2099, according to the report.
Medicare’s Hospital Insurance trust fund, which is associated with Medicare Part A and pays for certain health care services, will be able to pay full benefits until 2033, according to the Medicare trustees’ report that was also released on Wednesday. That is three years earlier than projected last year.
At that time, 89% of benefits will be payable.
Congress ‘must act’ to protect program
Social Security’s trust funds help pay for benefits when more money is needed in addition to ongoing revenue from payroll taxes.
Workers currently contribute 6.2% of their pay toward Social Security and 1.45% toward Medicare. Employers typically match those taxes. However, self-employed workers pay a 15.3% tax rate.
To shore up Social Security and Medicare’s trust funds, Congress may raise taxes, cut benefits or a combination of both.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I don’t remember seeing this stated as a done deal before.
It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they audited everyone on disability benefits, and kicked off the ones who are actually able-bodied.
This doesn’t refer to the money in my lock box right?
The Trustees:
Scott Bessent,
Secretary of the Treasury,
and Managing Trustee of the Trust Funds.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,
Secretary of Health and Human Services,
and Trustee.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer,
Secretary of Labor,
and Trustee.
Frank J. Bisignano,
Commissioner of Social Security,
and Trustee.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
They’ll keep your box locked right up.
Hear, hear! Same with military disability. I bet my ears ring louder than theirs and I don’t get any dough.
This is meant to shape news.
The 10 trillion in investments and the radically reduced trade deficits is going to increase US GDP growth to levels never seen before. That will grow the tax base out of the social security problem.
You may be taking that a bit too far there.
And all of that is off is we end up in another ME war of any length.
Everyone should take a hard look at the Social Security trust fund.
Here it is:
We are being played.
Check with Algore. He has the key to the Social Security lockbox.
Congress will play politics and raise general taxes in some way, and budgeting an amount from general taxes to pay for any social security deficit. In other words, they’ll essentially make working people pay more and avoid losing all the retired votes, which is possible if they adjust social security terms in any way that hits retired folks.
People are going to scream no matter what you do. To me, the least painful thing to do would be to raise the retirement age. Pushing it up to 70 would go a long way toward filling the gap. But of course, people will scream about that too, but just not paying or raising taxes to a crushingly high level are death sentences to any politician's career.
SS is a ponzi scheme, always has been. There is no trust fund. The poor kids voting Democrat and against privatization are going to be paying 10% of their paychecks to SS soon.
Agreed! And from what I've read in the past, it's the net SSD money flow (more disability payments going out that FICA SSD taxes coming in) that's the real drain on the SS account than is the SSI (SS pension check).
I think half the population is on SS disability, it's way out of line.
I calculated my return on investment in SS (including the so-called employer match, which is just a hidden tax on your salary) and my return is -2.5%, assuming I actually got paid, and assuming I was not taxed on payments.
I’d have done better burying cash in coffee cans than Social Security. What a scam.
This is how DC tells retirees that they have zero intention of removing the income tax from SS in the BBB.
Ukraine, a new war with Iran and nation building, money for Israel, Taiwan, the new AI industry, Palantir, etc... all of those remain unaffected and never have to “pay” for themselves.
It’s been a done deal for many decades. The math is inexorable and the bankruptcy of the Ponzi scheme has been sitting in plain view of anyone who looked.
The cry will go up that the unsustainable Ponzi scheme is a sacred intergenerational compact. Social Security is already a money losing proposition for a large and growing percentage of retirees, even in nominal terms. It is a money losing proposition for virtually everyone when we look at opportunity costs and the comparative ROI of Social Security vs. an individually owned, thrift savings based system.
Social Security excels at only one thing, and that is maximizing seniors’ dependency on government benefits in retirement. That is why the left favors it. Anyone on the right who wants to double down on stupid to save the Ponzi scheme is a fool.
We should shift to a fully funded, individually owned, fully inheritable, thrift savings program. The hard part will be agreeing on a transition program to amortize the unfunded liabilities of the Ponzi scheme. That gets more expensive every year we wait. Bush 43 was the last major politician to take a run at this, and the democrats demogogued it to death in Congress. At this point, we are going to ride Social Security into the ditch. Then we will rebuild from scratch.
In the interim, Congress will probably raise taxes again so we can lose even more money faster playing stupid games.
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