Solvency Projections from CBO
The Congressional Budget Office recently put out a new report covering the solvency issue of the Social Security System. This report stated that in its current form, Social Security will run out of money by 2029. However, this is not a doomsday parable, yet a statement of fact and a case for discussing options on a solution. The CBO reached this conclusion citing many contributing factors, namely a lower mortality rate among Americans in recent years, lower interest rates on Treasury Notes, and a higher instance of disability benefits being collected. The biggest problem that CBO found was an increasing gap in earnings inequality, meaning that more and more of income is going to the top earners who are already above the taxable income cap for Social Security. For more information on this subject, visit this article by Kathy Ruffing with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.